Winter

Just wake me up when we've signed Bonds, Schmidt, and Soriano. As for Moose Mochy... I'm heading back to bed

The D

Huh... where am I? What year is this? Where's Jake?... Oh right, this happens every year after the Giants are eliminated... a few weeks of spacing out as the thoughts of doom snowball in my brain... finally snapping out of it to make sure at least one team loses in the WS. Actually in this series I am fa sho rooting for Detroit, as they have been completely miserable for most of my baseball watching career. This team should give hope to the Kansas Cities, the Milwaukees and the Montreals that have been oh so hopeless for oh so long. But the Devil Rays should and will remain hopeless. Also, Jeff Weaver and Scott Spiezio are ridiculous tools and should be glove slapped. Ugh... only like five months till Scottsdale

I hate Baseball

Well, you all know how the season ended, and I don't want to talk about it. Go A's for now, death to the Dodgers & Yankees. Anyway, there is some good news which relates to us here at TBG. Check out the news in the Jason Grimsely case. Now, I have been pointing the steroid finger at Clemens for literally years now. A huge reason Bonds started getting allegations was due to his production when he was in his late thirties and early forties. Clemens did the exact same thing, throwing as hard as ever for 200+ innings as a 40 year old power pitcher. This simply shouldn't happen, power pitchers who succeed late in their careers do so with location and offspeed stuff, as they have lost significant zip on their fastballs. The ONLY exception to this rule is Nolan Ryan who spent the last few years of his career in the same dugout as Jose Canseco, Rafael Palmeiro, and Juan Gonzalez. I wouldn't be surprised. Anyway, the fact that Clemens hasn't experienced similar scrutiny to that of Bonds isn't just ignorant, it's plain racism. I hope the conservative fatcats at FOX and other media outlets who chose to turn Clemens into Captain America are exposed for what they are: prejudice whites who don't want a black man saving baseball.

Goooo Giants

I've been in bed shaking for the last week.

About a week ago the giants were in the middle of two close playoff races. They had to play the best baseball of the whole season if they had any serious aspirations of making the playoffs and beating teams much better staffed and coached than them. So what did they do? They promptly lost four in a row (including a series to the Rockies). I then said to myself "the season is all but over UNLESS they sweep the brewers, win the arizona series, and suicide bomb the dodgers, winning the rivalry once and for all!" History will show, in situations like this, the season is almost always all but over. They had to play the best baseball of the season and they literally played their worst. Not only did they convince me they don't deserve to ever be in the playoffs this year, but they also convinced me that anyone who likes the Giants are losers (and i LOVE people who like the giants!).

Here's the specifics: The starting pitching is pathetic and the bullpen is doing a shitty impression of the starting pitching. The team is old, and if they were winning, their age wouldn't matter, but they AREN'T winning so it obviously does. Pedro Feliz being a free swinger isn't the end of a team, but a Pedro Feliz at first, third and catcher is. Randy Winn is both the best and worst basketball player in baseball since Michael Jordan. And Mike Stanton is our closer.

SO, as far as i'm concerned the season is over. You can only be a barely .500 team all season if you make a ridiculous run at the end (see the national league playoff picture). Infact, the WHOLE point of being .500 at september is to finish strong. The giants missed the WHOLE point and it's so frustrating!

I've been up for 5 months straight and it's time to get some sleep. I'll wake up again for the winter meetings (bring home Terry Mulholland!). Tampabay giants.com has a lot of growing up in the mean time and i'll do my best to deny that until the last minute and then throw something stupid together.

good night,
Brad

Fun With Colours

Next year, the Diamondbacks are changing colors from purple and ...ummm... green with copper(?) to tan and red. Sounds like a plan. It'll be nice to avoid nausea-inducing jerseys for 14 games. I have no idea what the D'Backs brass was thinking. Rap stars don't wear White Sox gear (thus promoting the product) because they're A.J. Pierzynski fans. They wear the stuff because it looks badass. (Relevant note: I am wearing a White Sox starter jacket to work today (I'm a HUGE A.J. fan), and my coworker saw the badass 'Sox' logo on the back and said 'Hey, I'm from Boston!'. I glared into her soul for a second and walked away) (Obviously kidding about A.J. Then why do I wear it? It looks completely badass, no doubt). Anyway, I doubt even Phoenixians wear those grape home caps. Actually, the entire state of Arizona is kind of backwards in fashion sense. We go to Scottsdale for spring training and it's like stepping into 1986. As for other atrocious jerseys, the next step? Colorado Rockies. Sure there's the "purple mountains majesties" factor, but I've seen those things. They're brown. Some are black. Ooh, idea! Rockies should change every instance of purple in their team color scheme to brown. Now that the Padres have pretty much abandoned 'burnt turd', it's time for Colorado to pick up the slack. I guarantee within a month you'll see Lil Wayne and/or Young Jeezy "rocking" Rockies gear on MTVizzle. Finally, as the last remaining purple team, the Devil Rays should change their colors to blue and yellow and turn Tropicana into an Ikea. They'd make a lot more money that way, and I'd it'd be a blast to see Delmon throwing microwaves at everyone.

Barter Time

OK. So with the rainout yesterday, the only way it will be made up is if the Giants are 1/2 game up/down for the wild card or division, OR if the Cardinals are tied for the best record and need a win for home field advantage. So, Felipe needs to bust out his Blackberry and get Larussa on the line and say "Hey, buddyman. I'm Dominican, you're probably Dominican, let's talk. If you guys need a win, and we don't, you'll get it. And, if we need a win, and you don't, let los gigantes taste that sugar." To which the much more savvy La Russa will reply "The diamond eagle burns at midnight", meaning that he agrees and that, in these hypothetical situations, his starting pitcher will be Eckstein, as long as Felipe's is Thomas de La Rosa.

Armanblown Saveitez

Armando Benitez is out for the season. And he might be hurt for next year. What is going on? He's had problems with both knees, arm problems, arthritis problems, hamstring problems, and blaming-blown-saves-on-Omar-Vizquel's-defense problems during his stint in orange and black. Luckily for Omar, it looks like Benitez will be out of the league by the time Vizquel's next book comes out. Anyway I wonder how much of Mando's $7 mil we'd have to eat to trade him for a ham sandwich or so. That trade would involve a lot of eating. Gosh I wonder how much we'd have to pay to trade Benitez for a guy like Chad Cordero one for one. Fifteen, twenty million? That would be a ridiculous trade. Steinbrenner could pull it off, no doubt. But yeah this is a huge predicament for next year, probably bigger than re-signing Schmidt. Between Lowry, Cain, Hennessey, Correia, Morris, Sanchez and ya BOYEEEE Tim Lincecum, we have some viable options for the rotation if, god forbid, Schmiddtty signs elsewhere. Speaking of god forbid, that omnipotent wildchild in the sky sure as hell better keep Jamie Wright off the team next year. I was a big fan of Wright when we signed him, but then he turned out to be trash, so now I hate him. Simple guess-and-check logic. Anyway, the "viable option" situation is not the case in the bullpen. I rrreally don't think we should put much into Mike Stanton. Homeboy is old and fat. Three straight bad outings and I say we send him to Fasseroville. I still have faith in Munter's sinker and Taschner's left handedness, and Brian Wilson has shown signs of nasty, but on the whole, the place is still in development stages. I personally don't know why Sanchez isn't consider closer material. That fastball is super ridiculoso. His other pitches aren't developed yet, and he's been using them extremely sparingly, which doesn't usually lead to many successful starts. Can I get an amen!

Rules: Made to be Broken

*Awkward Pause* Well to change the subject....If there's one rule in baseball you could change, what would it be? DH is excluded. I'm asking to find a good answer, because I can't really think of one. As a Bonds fan, I'd like to the intentional walk be eliminated, as it is the most boring play in baseball, even slightly more boring than its sneaky cousin, the unintentional intentional walk. IBB's are just a technicality, but UIBB's have a chance of a location mistake, making it technically worth watching. How would this be enforced? Good question, Tina. Maybe something karazee, like an "extreme ball zone". But, as I eluded to before, I haven't really thought of any good ideas. From a statistical standpoint, the save should be retired. No other stat effects the game more. Managers often use their bullpen in accordance with the official save rule, which leads to laziness and ineffectivity on the part of the skipper. An obnoxious example of how this stat changes things took place during Gagne's streak, when he would get put into games where there were an out or two in the ninth, a four run lead, and a runner on. Eliezer Alfonzo could save 84 straight if he were only put in for these situations. Hell, Edgardo could even do it. Actually maybe not Edgardo.

Old People Pee They Pants Like Moises

Moises Alou is one of the few players who I would want to watch years after he stops producing. On the field he 's the angriest man n the world. His chewing tobacco pouch, or 'face', always looks to be on the brink of a Bartmanesque meltdown. He storms around the outfield so clunkily that Randy Winn doesn't even bother backing him up on balls hit to right, for fear of being trampled by the mighty Domincan. Watching this forty year old timebomb dive for balls makes me want to call Information for the number to the local hospital, just in case. "It's the only way I know how to play". Badass. Plus, he uses his own urine as batting gloves. And he's lived in America most his life, was born in Atlanta, and can barely speak English. I wouldn't be surprised if he can barely speak Spanish as well. The icing on the cake has got to be his dnosaur step he takes before his at-bats, where he plays Godzilla and the grass plays fleeing Japanese. I have never heard an explanation for this senseless manuever. I bet it's one of things I won't understand until I'm older. Anyway, I sure hope he doesn't retire anytime soon. Yeah, he's injury prone, but he's productive when healthy, which is a thousand times better than slumping all year but playing every day (no offense, Randy).(as in, "you've provided no offense, Randy").(Winn). The bigger issue is that he's tied at the hip to the Cream of Wheat factory known as Felipe. Maybe Daddy Alou will fall and break that hip, releasing Mo from captivity.

Brooks Kieschnick

So Woody Williams comes in and gets three hits against Matt Morris. Kruk mentioned how, in college. Williams started one game a week on the mound and played shortstop the rest of the time. I've always thought someone should do this in the majors. Maybe Fred Lewis will. I don't see why a player can't be both, if he has the skillz. If you recall a couple years back, former outfielder Brooks Kieschnick pitched out of the Brewers' bullpen for a few seasons. In 2003 he hit seven homers as a reliever (plus a few dozen pinch-hits). He was tearing the hay off of the ball, but he didn't get starts in the outfield, instead was kept in the 'pen til the late innings. I guess the theory is "pitchers are pitchers, and hitters are hitters". Or maybe the theory is "Jose Canseco tore his rotator cuff pitching for novelty's sake". Well, you heard it here first: Rick Ankiel will red-shirt with the Giants next year as an outfielder, barely make the team and only because of his guts, start hitting immediately, but then one day a starting pitcher will break his "ankiel" and Rick will have to make an emergency relief appearance, striking out twelve in three innings (he has control issues). Now, he'll gain his poise back on the mound and become our fifth starter AND rightfielder, winning 308 games with a 3.08 ERA and a .308 average and 308 homeruns over the next 15 years. It should be sweet.

Playoffs

If the playoffs started tomorrow, I'm not sure who would be my third starter after Cain and Schidt<--ha! Lowry has pitched better on the season than Morris, but neither of them has shown long lasting consistency. I don't put much into the theory that veteran pitchers are better in the playoffs than young players. I'd bet it's statistically insignificant. Players are excited/nervous for every start. Still, I might give Morris the nod, and let him pitch with a very tight leash. Three earned in the second? Pull 'em. Bases loaded nobody out, ever? Warm someone up. However, if his big curve is as nasty as the scum under Moises' lower lip, he could make some quality starts. Most importantly, I really would like to see Lowry coming out of the 'pen. After a few innings of fastballs, I bet the opposing lineup would have a tough time with Lowry's changeup.

The reinforcements are here!

Since the call up Jason Ellison and Lance Niekro are a combined 3 for 6 with two doubles and a run. Take THAT anybody without complete and utter faith in the giants farm system! "What about Fred Lewis?" you ask. How about 1 for 1 with an RBI. I've done some projections based on his major leauge numbers so far and figured out that in a full season with 450 at bats he would set new single season major league records batting 1.000 with 450 rbis. That's still no Darren Lewis, but it's a start.

Also, Hillenbrand- Bonds- Durham- Alou is the probably best 3-4-5-6 since Mays- Mccovey- Cepeda- Mays Jr. Someone better start carving the Hall of Fame plaque for the SHEA hey kid!

rookie of week!

this may be controversial but if you really think about it didn't Jonathon Sanchez throw MORE of a no-hitter than Annibal Sanchez?

-brad

Another career year for Randy Winn

Everytime i'm about to write something about what the giants should do next year, they win a series against the reds and i'm forced to keep thinking about this year. The fact of the matter is that except for a lack of a closer, we don't have a real weakness (relative to the national leauge) except for inconsitancy and underachievment. FACT: If Shea Hillenbrand had been hitting 300 since his arrival, the giants would have already clinched the west and bene eliminated by the marlins in the NLDS.

A team's future success should be predicted by their expected performances, and i believe that up and down the lineup (baring injuries) reasonable expectations would prove the giants to be a playoffs caliber team (in the nl west). However, except for New Alfonzo, Durham and Vizquel, the rest of the lineup is anywhere from 10 to 40 points below their career averages (as well as other production stats). I did some math recently and determined that a team with no closer can only survive on Ray Durhams 23 homerun season for 5 months and 1 week. Obviously time is running out. Playoffs depend on the players who are underachieving the most: Bonds, Hillenbrand, and Winn. If two of those guys have great Septembers I won't have to think about next year for years.

Speaking of which, the padres lineup looks like it's made out of sticks and mud (sticks being old losers and mud being young unproven losers). Although, to be fair I guess our lineup is basically stronger sticks and older, more disapointing mud.

-brad

Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money

Finding a good pic of Prince Valium from spaceballs is probably a bit difficult, but there's no excuse for the lack of a better Bronson shot

Big Surprise

Hey, look who has the most homers on the Giants? Hint: he also has an OPS over 1.000. Double hint: his 14.0 at bats per home run lead the league amongst players whose "at bats per home run" divides without a remainder. It's BA-rry BO-nds (pronounced a la "FLA-vor FLA-ve")! And all these bandwagoneers thought Bonds wouldn't do anything this year. Which brings me to the first TBG self-reference. Please check out " Favorite Giant" for more information about this underrated, left for dead player who literally came out of left field, slowly and with much caution. Can anyone say "comeback player of the year"?

Because if you can, and you can also say "Hmmm, Bonds might actually be a candidate for the", you should put the two together, and congratulate yourself on the completion of a valid point.

sloppy

ok, a few things have gone wrong so far that i didn't see coming. like defense, and pitching, and hitting. but the important thing is that tomas de la rosa is still healthy.
-brad

the next next todd lindens.

I just spent the 3am+ part of my night on minorleaguebaseball.com and thebaseballcube.com going through the rosters and statistics of all the levels of the giants farm system. Among some of the more notable things to mention is that merkin valdez's stats are not notable enough to mention. Also, the giants don't have a single offensive player on any of their minor leauge rosters. On a more optimistic and serious note, the giants actually have 12 or so starters and 8 or so relievers between the A's and AA levels who look very impressive. ALSO this is my vote for coolest prospect on the farm:

Eugenio Velez Augusta Green Jackets (A), SS, age 24
443 AB / 86 R / 88 RBI / 14 HR / 18 3B / 60 SB / .312 AVG / .360 OBP / .553 SLG

The Greenjackets are currently leading the southern division with 47-15 record and ten game cushion. memorize these names, they'll all be star pitchers on the twins soon.

-brad

Giants set major league record with 3 wins in a row!

The Giants have won 3 in a row, 11 out of 14, and have reserved the national league cy young for the next 4 years at least. With a must win road trip on the horizon and the post season again in sight, the question is on everyone's lips, "What can possibly go wrong?"

Here are the only possible answers to that question:

1. Pedro Feliz gets stuck in a wet paper bag for a week, missing the roadtrip completely.
2. Barry Bonds's swing gets soooo bad that he not only continues to hit less homeruns, but also starts hitting homeruns for the other team.
3. Chicago Cub fans still hate Latroy Hawkins so much that they charge the field and injure everyone in the Giants bullpen "for good measure".
4. Omar Vizquel writes another book, this time blaming Noah Lowry for blowing the 97 world series for the Cleveland Indians. Lowry vows to peg Vizquel at short everytime theyre on the field together.
5. Shea Hillenbrand gets in a huge disagreement with management and is traded for Shea Hillenbrand.
6. Jason Schmidt gets put in the bullpen for no reason and when he complains about the move it somehow causes Ray Durham to strain his hamstring.
7. Matt Morris gets some food stuck in his beard and is very emabrassed when it gets pointed out.
8. The Reds go down to LA to play the Dodgers and Ned Coletti somehow figures out a way for BOTH teams to win every game.
9. Kangaroo attack.
10. Armando Benitez blows a save by giving up a homerun to the leadoff batter.

Now that i think about it these are all very unlikely. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

-brad

two is like a hundred times more than one.

first of all! my name is brad and i co-made this website with sam. this is my first blog on this site as i didn't know we were serious about it until now.

-brad

Favorite Giant

I was surprised today to get into an argument with my close friends about who their favorite Giant was. My answer, unhesitatingly, was Barry Bonds. It has always, since the beginning of time in early 1993, been Barry Bonds. However, my "friends" looked at me as if I were Greg Maddux, or any other Down's syndrome victim for that matter. They thought I was being immature and naïve, disrespecting the argument by proposing such a moronic response.

The fact that they proposed ridiculous choices such as Matt Morris and Omar Vizquel is irrelevant. I'm sorry, but if you're a Giants fan and you're trying to say Barry Bonds isn't your favorite player, you've drifted so far from reality that you might as well choose yourself as your favorite Giant (this sarcastic rule, of course, not applicable to Todd Linden, who would not surprise anyone by listing himself as his favorite Giants player). If you weren't convinced by the hundreds of stolen bases, home runs, game winning plays, and dozens of records and awards Bonds brought to this city, try getting off the futon and head to China Basin, where The House That Bonds Built is the most beautiful building west of the Taipei 101. And guess what, it's a packed house every night. Remind you of the Stick circa 1985? Hell no. The Barry Bonds Era has been amazing for the Giants, keeping them in contention the last decade, and daily exhibiting the best hitter since the Babe. Without Bonds, there would most likely be no baseball team in San Francisco, but instead… you guessed it, the Tampa Bay Giants. Peter Magowan must have had the plan to bring Bonds back when he saved the team in 1993. Hell, he signed Bonds just days after buying the Giants, before he had even found a general manager! If you don't think that's a direct link between Bonds and the survival of our beloved team, choke on something, die.

Not listing Bonds as your favorite player would require an investigation as to when and how the definition of "favorite" morphed into an entirely different entity. Morris and Vizquel are choices that fourth graders would choose to show off that they know players the other fourth graders haven't heard of. My friends aren't fourth graders, and their argument was along the lines of "Bonds too obvious of a choice" but that shouldn't make the choice incorrect. That's like a Christian saying his favorite historical figure is St. Jude because Jesus is too "obvious". Bonds is miserable this year, but he has sixteen more homers than any other kneeless 42 year old in the game. So next time he comes to bat and you're wondering why the masses of AT&T Park are so excited to see a .237 cleanup hitter, look around the comfortable yet gorgeous architecture of the stadium by the Bay, and maybe your forgetful, spoiled mind will put two and two together.

So! Who's your favorite Giant and why?

"Slump Yard"

After winning five straight, the Giants lose 16 out of 19. Three and sixteen--another indirect reminder of the looming 49ers season. In the meantime, the Dodgers won 16 of 17 and are leading the division, while the Giants have fallen to last place, seven and a half out and nine games under five hundred. SO, I guess it's time to call it a season and devote those three hours a day for more productive activities, namely anything.

Unfortunately, I don't see any chance of these personal ambitions coming to be. As unlikely as it seems that the team will make the playoffs, I'm just as interested as ever, for myriad reasons. First, if they make the postseason, they'll DEFINITELY win the World's Series, because we are owed it for 2002 and 1989 with the earthquake and no home field and Barry Bonds' martyrdom during the steroid scandal. So that adds to the interest level. Also, if the Dodgers can do it, why can't we? They lost nine straight in July! Most importantly, I have developed my normal daily baseball routine, and any change would disrupt my metabolism and endorphin cycles, among other health-related cycles.

Mike Stanton

The Giants just traded for Nationals reliever Mike Stanton, whose miniscule 4.47 ERA should provide an immediate mental boost for our dismal bullpen, which gives up an astronomical 4.58 runs per nine innings. You may remember Stanton from the World Series about ten years ago, when he was barely thrity. An interesting note is the prospect we departed with was Shairon Martis, who threw a mercy rule no-hitter for the Netherlands in the World Baseball Classic. Predictably, his Wikipedia entry already lists him as one of the best pitchers in the Nationals organization, despite never being considered much as a Giants farmhand. Martis is wisely taking the Joe Nathan route of dominating immediately after leaving the Giants, which should be an interesting development. Speaking of which, Salomen Torres, longtime friendly rival of Barry Bonds, is coming into pitch with the bases juiced... let's see what happens

Giants lose 3-1

It was fitting to see Robb Nen in attendance at the Giants game today, after the ugly incident at the World Cup. Zinedine Zidane will end his sensational career after experiencing a total mental breakdown during the biggest stage in futbol.

Robb Nen, on the other hand, ended his career during the biggest stage in baseball, when he over-exerted himself during WWII, also know as the World Series 2002, when the Giants blew a five run lead in Game 6. Then they signed Nen to a two year $18 million deal. Then, they traded Joe Nathan and Francisco Liriano to the Twins for cancer, because we didn’t need a closer, because we gave Robb Nen so much money. Then Nen’s arm turned to cream of wheat, and he went on vacation. Tim Worrell was thrown into the closer’s role, had a good year in 2003, and was rewarded with a two year contract for the 2006 & 2007 seasons. Along the way, Tyler Walker came in with the bases loaded and struck out the side, and Matt Herges’ slider made jaws drop for a month, but both turned out to be frauds. SO, Brian Sabean bit the bullet and signed Benitez to a 21 million dollar deal, which, a month into 2005, had people looking around the ballpark for Dustin Hermanson. The Dodgers, meanwhile, saw Eric Gagne go from bad starter to best closer in the galaxy to post-steroid depression victim. However, no problem, they luckily had picked up a 41 save guy in the offseason as insurance, and then when he wasn’t quite up to par, got Saito to shut down the Giants. It’s been a frustrating half.

Big series

Big series coming up. The radio says we're sending our four best pitchers, so I believe they mean Wright, Hennessey, Correia, and Wright. Plus, one of the Alou's has decided he's not too old to play outfield. Find out which... at 7:05

Welcome to The Original Gigantic Giants Super-Fan Site Blog

Hello, friends. By now you are well aware that you are visiting The Gigantic Giants Super-Fan Site. This is said site's blog portion, in which we discuss our feelings towards the current Giants happenings.