Time for another sweepstakes:

Guess the Giants final standings and win a mint Fleers 1987 baseball card set, containing Bonds and Clark rookie cards.

Entries will have the form

Games behind in the West:

Games behind wild card:

(tie breaker: games over .500:   )

The standard is the record at the end of the regular season, exclusive of any playoffs or playins or extra games.

The winner will be judged by the smallest sum of errors of the two guesses. In the event of a tie, the tie breaker will be used. Duplicate prizes will not be awarded. In the event of a tie after the tiebreaker, the earliest entry will win. Deadline for entries is September 15, 2010.  Nogooddeed is the sole arbiter of any challenges. Each McC member will be allowed one entry. Except Grant can enter 1.5 times.   Any entrant who writes "Fear the Tree"  or "Oski Bites" on their entry will receive special treatment.  Winners will be announced two days after the end of the regular season. Prize will be delivered free anywhere on the SF Peninsula including The City. Elsewhere the winner will be responsible for delivery/postage. Drink responsibly.

Cmon nerds, I need to get rid of these cards, and you need more stuff to clutter up your folks' basement.

Here's a guy with a very good career OBP .374, throws well, lefty, has some pop in a down year; not a great outfielder, not real fast.  He's only 31 and could snap back, in the absence of some obscure medical condition.  Is he better than Nate? yes. Ish? yes. Better than Rowand? yes.  Better than Jose Guillen? I think so.  1.0 WAR this year.

Continue reading this post »

Yes, you can win a mint condition BLB rookie card by simply predicting the Giants next trade. Yes, I know there are 18 different "rookie cards" for BLB.  I haven't looked at my cards for several years but it is not the Tiffany one.  I think it is the Donruss. At any rate, it is real.  If it isn't worth at least $25 I'll throw in some others. Maybe a mint 1959 Eddie Bressoud.

Continue reading this post »

UPDATE: Per Chronicle Live, MLB has released a statement saying that the umpires made a mistake in removing Broxton from the game before he completed pitching to Torres.

-------------------------------

Well, obviously the Giants won the game. But, look this is a guy who didn't think Buster Posey was ready, a manager who puts his lineups together using a ouija board, who puts Bengie Molina and Aaron Rowand in the lineup when ever he can get away with it. He's not a rocket surgeon.

His job was to put his players in the best position to succeed. Did he knowingly do that? or did he even do it?  I think Bochy really didn't know when Broxton would be axed...I think he just tossed a stick of dynamite into the game and stood back.

Continue reading this post »

Well, Mr. Bochy, you put in Eli Whiteside as a pinch runner for Buster Posey, saying after the game that Whiteside was more likely to score on a gapper, and that you also considered having Whiteside attempt to steal second base. In so doing, you replaced one of your best hitters with the worst hitter on the team.

I call bullshit on you, Mr. Bochy, and I call you out.

Continue reading this post »

Let's get real, you red white and blue nerdz. Fuckng soccer is fucking boring, fucking vulvas, fucking idiot officials, fucking whining players,can't use your fucking hands, no fucking scoring except when you leave the room. Who gives a shit? Watch the highlights on ESPN and you don't miss a thing.  Same thing with fucking Tour de France. 100 miles of boring fucking pedalling, for a 5 second dash at the finish.  But right now you can check out the great American sport of competiitive eating, from Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Competition in NYC. Like they even have a tour, a league, all that shit. I don't know about fantasy leagues but its bound to happen. And, Bay Area Ties.

Continue reading this post »

You never want to trade the face of your franchise. Is Pablo that face? But you have to give value to get value. The Giants need a slugging first baseman, Dunn or Fielder.  Either one could shift the balance in the west. What will it take to get either one?  What about Pablo? is he part of the Giants future? is he too important in terms of marketing/paraphernalia sales?

Continue reading this post »

I understand from Baggs that Bengie Molina's salary is 4.5 million, plus a performance bonus that kicks in if he starts 90 games: 250,000, plus another 250,000 for each 5 games after that, maxing at 115 games, for a grand total of 6 million; plus 4 cases of Twinkies for every additional pound of weight over 240. * His offer from the Mets was supposedly 5.5 million guaranteed, with 12 all-you-can-eat coupons for Nathan's Original Famous Frankfurters.

Continue reading this post »

Mr. Rowand, I sympathize. Pitch recognition is one of the toughest skills to master in all of sports. If I could have done it better, my life would be different. I admire that you have come so far in MLB without doing a very good job at it. Perhaps your vision is not what it was. But we know Mr. Bochy has great faith in you, and is going to play you against the Red Sox. We certainly want you to justify his confidence. So just case you don't know how to recognize the slider, with a sense of humility I pass along this tip.

Continue reading this post »

I wish I could find videos of the "old" Torres swing.  But he looks great in this newer ones.  After watching these, you should be convinced that Aubrey Huff was indeed joking when he said he, Aubrey, was the best athlete on the team.

Continue reading this post »

Introduction: Buster Posey recorded a put-out and an assist on a strike-em out, throw-em out double play in the seventh inning of last night's win over the Reds. The throw elicited all sorts of ohs, ahs, and shameful behavior by Giants fans. Was it that great? or are we just accustomed to a catcher who uses his arm more for reaching for that extra slice of pie, than for throwing out baserunners?

Continue reading this post »

He seems to be as important to the overall success of the team as is Timmeh...so what is wrong with Pablo? Or is nothing wrong? Is he coming out of his slump? Season to date: .286/.341/.437  OPS+ 103. His BABIP is down, but his LD% is unchanged. He is striking out a little more.  He has shown a big change is in GO/AO, where he is now at 1.33, up from 1.09 last year. Usually ground balls are more likely to result in hits than are fly balls, so this is kind of hard to interpret. GDP counts as two outs, so that accounts for some of the increase in GO, but I think perhaps he is hitting weaker ground balls. Or is he that much slower? Bad luck? perhaps.  Is it just that he can't handle the high hard one?

Continue reading this post »

Via ESPN television: supposedly the Giants are negotiating with Pat Burrell for a minor league contract. Only a week ago, the story was that the Giants were "not interested."

Continue reading this post »

Mychael Urban is reporting that Tim Lincecum has a blister problem. Does that explain the recent increase in walks? and the reason why Wellemeyer got the start yesterday?

I assume that this blister is on his right index finger, and isn't just a clever way of reporting that the boy has herpes. He is going to start tonight, so take your binoculars to the game and get up close and personal. Maybe Sabean or Baer can sneak in some softer balls, or Huff can lend some lubricant to the situation. 

It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.

Frankly, I didn't think Mark DeRosa was gonna work out, but I didn't think he'd be this bad. I figured he was on the downside, and he's a utility man, not really a corner outfielder. But he was supposed to be a decent hitter with some pop.  Obviously he's gotten off to a  horrible Mendoza-like start.

Maybe he's got a bad wrist that robs him of bat speed. But perhaps as important in making him late to the ball is the enormous hitch he has (see this video). For those of you who have never played the game in earnest:  The idea is to drop the bat head on the ball from the stance position, with as little wasted motion as possible.  So on the slo mo videos, you will see virtually every good hitter's hands stay up as they rotate to put the the bat on the ball. Obviously, if the pitch is low the hands will be lower, but this occurs during the actual swing. The hitch or loop is a useless movement which happens before the pitch arrives and before the actual swing.  DeRosa's hands start up by his ear, then before the pitch comes, he drops his hands down to his belt.  Then he tries to hit the pitch. This is the hitch. It is sometimes referred to as a "loop."  So his swing becomes long, takes too much time, and that means slow, so he is late contacting the ball, which makes the ball tend to go to the right side, and usually he is approaching the ball from below, undercutting the pitch, instead of dropping the bat head on the ball. So he often pops up.

For contrast, watch this video of Giant Juan Uribe, who has no hitch at all. He holds his hands up and drops the bat on the ball. Some hitters move their hands back a little, as they stride; that's not a loop. Watch the videos of the other players linked in the comment section. See the swing of Chase Utley, for example. They don't do that "drop the hands" thing before the pitch comes.  In a way it's kind of like football quarterback Tim Tebow, who always dropped his hand before he passed the ball. How did he get away with that for so long? I guess, because he was Tim Tebow, the super-athlete you didn't mess with, even if he was doing it wrong. Now he's trying to correct it, so he can get the ball away faster.

This hitch or loop is one of the most obvious flaws that would be corrected by the first good coach a boy or girl ever has. Has he always had it? I think I see it in the old video of a Cubs game. That DeRosa still has it, says to me that he was some sort of prodigy, an athlete whose results were so great that coaches were afraid to change his swing. Perhaps Derosa, the star football player, didn't devote that much time to the finer points of baseball, I don't know.

Now, there are players who can overcome a flawed swing. Maybe DeRosa is one of them. But it becomes harder as you get older and have physical problems. It's hard to believe he's just developed it, because certainly he's watched tape and he and/or Bam Bam could have corrected it. So I have to assume he's always had it, and always will (he's kind of an old dog, yes?)  At any rate, I'd say it bodes ill.

And don't get me started on Matt Downs.

...Bochy lets fat Panda get hurt running the bases.  Because if Panda and Lincecum stay healthy, the Giants may be headed for the World Series....and when you go the World Series, your GM gets to stick around for at least 5 years.

Continue reading this post »

Back last year when walks were considered cheating and OBP was thought by management to be just for nerds, Aaron Rowand was installed as the leadoff man.  He hit reasonably well in that position. And there was a reason.  Pitchers start games with the fastball being the preferred pitch. Rowand hits the fast ball well, he hits it hard, right up the middle. He can steal a base. He can ride a bike. He's in the best condition of his life. He got a haircut. So is he a leadoff hitter?

Continue reading this post »

Over the past two years, the Giants' gritty veteran movement has made them slower, as well as older. The assembled gamers seem to constitute a group with a special talent for GIDP, a number which doesn't seem to be incorporated into any of the well-known "value" stats.  Edgar Renteria, for example, ranks no. 5 among active players with 226, Bengie is no. 29 with 159, while Aubrey Huff puffs in at no. 52, with 129, and Rowand makes the list at 89, with 97.

Add in Limpy Sanchez, Pops DeRosa, and Michelin Sandoval at about a dozen a year each, and the Giants are set to waste a substantial part of whatever OBP they can muster (The NL record for a left handed batter, you may recall, is held by A.J. "Wheels" Pierzynski, with 27 in 2004). The NL team record is 166 by the Cards in 1958,  but I don't see how the Giants can match that with nobody on base most of the time...I'm guessing 130.