The Giants promoted former major leaguer Fred Stanley on Friday to replace Jack Hiatt as the team's director of player development.

Hiatt, a former Giants catcher, stepped down after 16 years in the role. During his tenure, the farm system has produced eight All-Stars, two Rolaids Relief Award winners, a batting title winner and a 20-game winner.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=Allf5h2ETl4heHbgsdlLAs0o0bYF?slug=ap-giants-frontoffice&pr ov=ap&type=lgns

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070829/SPORTS/708290435/1018

Didn't see this in steve's minor lines so I thought I'd throw it up here.

Salem-Keizer won two NWL awards. Matt Downs tied Eugene's Luis Durango for the MVP and manager Steve Decker won manager of the year with Eugene's Greg Riddoch. Downs is the first Volcano to win the MVP. This year he's hitting .333/.404/.538 with a league-leading 30 doubles.

Downs, Garrett Baker and pitchers T.J. Brewer and Daniel Otero made the NWL all-star team as well.

The Volcanoes are an old team for the NWL, but they've had a great season at 51-17 so far.

The scarriest thing I've read all day, from the SD Union-Trib:

Former Padres first baseman/left fielder Ryan Klesko, who is a free agent, is drawing interest from the Orioles and Giants.

I realize he fits a need for the Giants as a COF/CIF in a way, but is he really a better alternative than Hillenbrand or Feliz?

I'm hoping this is just another baseless rumor, some kind of evil Padres propaganda to break our spirits.

With all the talk about optimal lineups recently, I though this David Pinto post was interesting. Just drop in nine players and their OBA and SLG, and it calculates what lineup will give you the most and least runs. The one I did had Barry batting first almost every time. Now we just have to get him to agree with it...

Just saw this.

Not sure what happened, but I wish him the best on whatever he plans on doing next.

Over at Baseball Musings, David Pinto has been playing around with his probablistic model of range. Though this is by no account the end all of fielding measurments, there are two weird little things that should be of interest to Giants fans.

First:

Rich Aurilia    2070    243     242.28     0.117     0.117     [b]0.00035[/b]
Bobby Crosby    4132    557    557.61    0.135    0.135    -0.00015
Jose C Lopez    1533    164    165.00    0.107    0.108    -0.00066
Jimmy Rollins    4187    473    476.56    0.113    0.114    -0.00085
Alex Gonzalez    3996    482    485.71    0.121    0.122    -0.00093
Neifi Perez    1729    202    203.81    0.117    0.118    -0.00105

FYI, a 0.0 would mean a fielder got every ball he was predicted to get, and anything over 0.0 is gravy. Only five SS got more than zero. But whatever, I couldn't pass up an oportunity to throw Neifi to the wolves yet again.

Second:

Marquis Grissom    3799    342     342.66     0.090     0.090     -0.00017
Mike Cameron    3772    354    355.96    0.094    0.094    -0.00052
Torii Hunter    3346    312    313.81    0.093    0.094    -0.00054

This not only shows Grissom in the same league as Cameron and Hunter, but slightly better last year. This isn't meant as a support for Grissom's fielding, but more an odd little factoid. Pinto has said that his model isn't perfect, but still, its weird. According to Pinto's model, Grissom's ranked 15th among CF's who had at least 1000 balls in play, getting almost everything he was expected. Far from a disaster. But of course, when placing Bonds and Alou next to him, average isnt going to cut it, especially over in Pac Bell.