The Lunatic Fringe

The major league season has begun, but the farm is about to start games as well.  For all you Giants fans out there, here’s a quick guide to the guys you should keep an eye on at each level of the farm system for the future of the Giants.

Fresno Grizzlies (AAA):

• Gary Brown – The top pick in 2010, Brown was expected to be on the fast track to be the Giants center fielder and leadoff hitter, but a tough year in Richmond slowed things, and the deal with Angel Pagan complicates things.  It’s possible that Pagan and his routes may be headed for left field, but when that will happen depends on Brown.  He’s the most interesting guy in Fresno.

• Francisco Peguero and Cole Gillespie – While Brown has the higher ceiling, Gillespie and Peguero are the guys who are likely to help out this season.  Both have talent, but also have frustrations.  If the Andres Torres and Gregor Blanco have problems, Gillespie and Peguero will be battling to be the first man up.

• Chris Heston and Michael Kickham – Speaking of the guys competing to be the callups, Heston and Kickham were quietly the best pitchers in Double-A Richmond, and will be kept an eye on in case of injuries.  They don’t have the ceiling of the stars lower in the system, but could be major leaguers in either a starting or relief role eventually.

• Heath Hembree – Hembree came into the season last year as an expected heir to closer Brian Wilson.  But he had a 4.74 ERA in Fresno last year, and only 15 saves with 36 strikeouts and 20 walks in 38 innings.  Hembree was just 23 last season, so there’s a chance for a bounceback.  After what happened to Wilson and the shaky hold that Sergio Romo has on the closer role, eyes will be on Hembree to see if he can produce.

Richmond Flying Squirrels (AA):

• Joe Panik – The Giants’ top pick in 2011 is finally moving to second base, and has a three-year timetable (also known as Marco Scutaro’s contract) to get ready.  Panik isn’t a power hitter, but he makes great contact, draws walks and is a sneaky dangerous hitter.  His year in San Jose wasn’t as good as expected, but there are some high hopes for him.

• Andrew Susac – The catcher who made it possible for the Giants to trade Tommy Joseph, Susac is highly rated but had a really rough year in San Jose.  It’s a bit of a surprise that he got pushed to Richmond.  However, he’s the guy the Giants will be keeping an eye on to let Posey truly move away from catcher longterm.

• Adam Duvall and Ricky Oropesa – Duvall plays third and Oropesa plays first.  These are two guys with big power but questions about their contact.  Duvall hit 30 in San Jose last year, while Oropesa hit 16.  Richmond can eat up guys like this, but a hitter with power will always inspire hope.

San Jose Giants (High-A):

• Kyle Crick and Clayton Blackburn – Duh.  These are a couple of the top pitchers.  Crick is your power pitcher with some control issues but the ability to be dominant.  Blackburn has a fastball that rivals Zito’s, but excellent control and an advanced feel for pitches, especially for someone as young as he is.

• Angel Villalona – If you haven’t heard his name before, you obviously don’t follow mugshots.  Villalona was a big-money signee out of the Dominican Republic…in 2006.  He had so-so seasons as an incredibly young player until 2009, when he was charged with murder in the Dominican Republic.  After the charges were dropped, it took him time to get back into playing shape and get his visa back, but now he’s back in San Jose at the age of 22, where he last played with the Giants system in 2009 as an 18-year old.  Still has talent, but it’ll be interesting to see what he can do no matter what.

• Mac Williamson – A 3rd round pick from 2012, he hit .321 and nine home runs for the AZL and short-season Salem-Keizer.  Williamson has a lot of tools, but is very raw and has a bit of bust potential.  He’s getting a very aggressive push, so it will be interesting to see how he responds.

• Josh Osich – A 2011 draftee out of Oregon, Osich was a top pitcher prospect in college before injuries derailed the end of his college career.  He’s being used mostly as a reliever, but has strikeout tools and can be dominant against both righties and lefties.  There’s closer potential here with health.

Augusta GreenJackets (Low-A):

• Chris Stratton – The top draft pick in 2012, some expected him to make it to San Jose, but he had a rough spring as he is coming back from getting hit in the head with a ball during batting practice late last season.  Stratton has a big fastball, and could have as high a ceiling as Kyle Crick, with a faster timetable.

• Tyler Hollick – The 14th-round pick from the 2012 draft, Hollick only played down at the Arizona League to start his career, but was impressive.  He had 21 steals in 23 tries in 31 games.  He hit .301, but had a very impressive .441 on-base percentage.  No home runs, but he put together all the tools needed to be a speedster center fielder.

• Joseph Rapp – The Giants didn’t get a lot of power hitters in the 2012 draft, but Rapp may be the best.  He had 11 home runs in 64 games for Salem-Keizer, with an .839 OPS.  However, the 73 strikeouts in 239 at-bats isn’t encouraging.

• Mason McVay – The 6’7” lefty reliever made 18 appearances in Salem-Keizer, but put up some nice numbers.  In 30 1/3 innings, he struck out a very impressive 43 and had just a 1.19 ERA.  The 26th round pick has a lot of tools, and might move up the reliever scene fast.

Let’s be honest about the 2012 World Series Film: It’s a victory lap for the fans.

It starts with what we all know: the Giants won the World Series.  There’s no suspense, but then, there probably shouldn’t be.  We know it, and so will everyone else who watches this.  It’s not a history lesson.

The film is narrated by Benjamin Bratt, who I frankly didn’t know was a Giants fan until this playoff run.  He does a really good job, and his narration is interspersed by various commentator highlights and interviews from the players.

The film’s first 20 minutes or so talks about the leadup to the World Series.  Spring training, and losing Brian Wilson early on.  It touches on the All-Star Game, though I’m a bit disappointed they didn’t mention who that first inning was against, considering the storyline that would come around in the World Series.  It also spends a little time mentioning Melky Cabrera, more than I expected, but it doesn’t linger.  It spends more time on the team’s second half surge.

Once things get into the playoffs, things pick up.  Each of the first two rounds get a fair amount of time, especially the talk around Pence firing up the team.  It’s the first moment that the film feels personal to the Giants, and the film focuses on the Giants’ highlights.

Still, overall, the film seems to race through everything leading up to the World Series.  There is almost no talk of what happened elsewhere in the playoffs either, even in Detroit’s own special run against the A’s and Yankees.  It makes sense that they want to focus on the Fall Classic, but the context of the rest of playoffs, with the A’s getting all the attention in late September, the ‘infield fly,’ the sweep of the Yankees, and so forth, seemed to be missing to me.  The Tigers get about 37 seconds of lip service to what they did, and that’s it.

The first thing you notice about the movie when it hits the World Series is that the Tigers were interviewed as well.  Throughout the first part of the film, you don’t get any viewpoints other than the Giants.  It’s refreshing to hear what the other side was thinking.

In the World Series, this film finally feels complete.  It takes its time in each game, talking about each of the players and talks about more than just the biggest moments.  It uses the best footage from the Fox crew and others, with lots of slow motion, and lots of beauty shots of the crowd.  And while it spends a lot of time on each game, now it feels like it goes by too fast just because you’re enjoying it.

The editing is beautifully done, and it doesn’t feel disjointed at all as it switches from interviews to game footage, from the present to the past and back.  And especially in the World Series, where you get to hear Fox, Detroit’s radio team and of course the Giants broadcast team, it’s the best of all worlds.

Of course, the film itself isn’t the end-all of this disc.  It also holds the complete Game 7 of the NLCS, all the Pence-multi-hitting, rain-soaked glory.  And, like the World Series Box Sets of past and present, it includes the radio feeds as well as Fox’s broadcasters, so you can turn off Buck and enjoy it otherwise.  The World Series Box Set doesn’t include this game, so the World Series film is almost a must-have to include and complete all of the big postseason games.

The disc packs a surprising level of special features, though they’re mostly short and disappointing.  There are a few ‘Caught Looking’ features focusing on the big Giants names.  They’re only a few minutes long each, but give nice little looks at the players.  There’s the final out of the Giants clinching the NL West, which is disappointingly short.  It shows the final play and about a minute of the celebration, but none of the victory lap around the field.  The World Series final out and celebration is more inclusive.  It has a couple minutes of Joe Buck talking and mostly TV footage, but it also gives about a minute of the champagne spraying in the locker room.  The World Series Parade is about four minutes of the parade, but none of the speeches.  The most interesting piece is the “Postseason Highlights” roll.  It’s not truly all the highlights, it’s only the clinching moments against the Reds and Cardinals.  No Buster Grand Slam, no Pablo Sandoval home runs (although his three home runs are included in a different special feature).  Apparently, the clinching moments are the only good ones.

The best special feature isn’t listed: in the end credits, several of the players who are interviewed give their best Hunter Pence impressions.  Not only are they hilarious, but Pence got shown the imitations and he has a ball with it as well.

As I said before, this is the Victory Lap for the Giants and their fans.  This isn’t here to educate, it’s here to relive the best moments.  Any Giants fan will love this, for getting through the offseason, or remembering the best moments years from now.  If you’re a Giants fan, I can’t recommend this enough for you to get, even with my quibbles with it.

Don’t forget, you can get your own copy from us!  Just post your favorite moment from 2012 on our Facebook Wall or Tweet it to us by December 11th, and you’ll be entered in a drawing for your choice of a Blu-Ray or a DVD of both the World Series Film and the World Series Box Set!  Give it as a gift or keep it for yourself!  Get more information here: Cyber Monday Contest

This blog post is directed at Jeff Seidel.  If you aren’t him, you can see why I felt compelled to write to him by seeing this article here.

Dear Jeff Seidel,

Seriously, where did you learn to attend baseball games, Soviet-controlled Germany?

You make it sound like ballparks should have a selection that’d make a market in Soviet Russia look like a bastion of delicacy.  A beer, a brat, or a coney, and you’ll take it and like it?

I’m sorry that you think giving people choices are a bad thing.  I’m also sorry that you don’t think that a good ballpark dog aren’t one of the choices that many Giants fans choose.  The Doggie Diners serve dogs by the load, and the Say Hey Stand is one of the busiest stands on the Promenade.

But if you frown upon people enjoying good food while watching good baseball, I think you have some serious problems.

And it’s funny to hear about a Detroit writer talking about the unique nature of right field like it’s a bad thing.  I seem to remember a right field at some other legendary stadium that overhung the field like things that overhang belts at your average trailer park.  I also find it amusing that you think this is something that center fielders have to overcome.

You can look at that right field and laugh, and think that it’s an easy target for Prince Fielder.  It’s easy to think that, after what Barry Bonds did hitting balls over that.  But ask Prince, and everyone else who took part in the 2007 Home Run Derby, how easy it is to hit over that wall.  No one hit the cove in a competition that was designed to allow that.  In fact, not a single left-hander advanced in that year’s competition.

The right field wall juts because, to find the right spot for a perfect ballpark, the team needed to adjust to an oddly shaped piece of land.  So did Fenway.  So did Crosley Field.  Our park lets people watch the game for free at field level.  That’s a little quirk no fan has ever complained about.

Let me tell you something about us in San Francisco: we have fun.

You can make fun of the costumes.  You can make fun of the beards, fake, real or dyed.  I’m sure you laugh when our grannies fist pump and our broadcasters do it Gangnam Style.  You can shake your head at the boats in right field, and you can hold your nose when the best odors of North Beast eateries waft across our concessions, and you can shake your head when fans dare warm up a chilly evening with a Ghiradelli Hot Chocolate or a steaming Irish Coffee.

And you can make fun of a concession stand that was put in place to take advantage of a fan-favorite player who has a nickname related to bears.  Maybe you’re familiar with him.  I know Justin Verlander is.  Go for it.  It makes you look about as mature as the intended owners of all those teddy bears (and teddy Lou Seals).

But I’ll tell you what Giants fans are.  We’re having fun.  And more people should.

Giants fans come out to games in droves.  And not just big games.  We’re there every game.  Most stadiums lose fan interest after their first year.  Like, you know, Comerica Park a year after it opened in 2001, when they fell to the bottom third of baseball in attendance with just over 24,000 a game.  Or the following years where they dropped to under 20,000 a game.  In the leanest Giants years, in 2008 and 2009, we bottomed out at 35,000 a game.

Is supporting your team in thick as well as thin “wimpy” as well?

So if you have to criticize us for our food, go ahead.

So there may be animal hats, and unusual foods.  But we don’t come here for the food.  People don’t pay as much as this team’s fans do for beer, or sushi, or sandwiches of any variety, if they aren’t here for something else.

If that makes us less manly, or whatever it is you’re implying, fine.  But let me tell you something.

At Game 6 of the NLCS, the seats behind my season tickets were filled by twins.  Beautiful blonde twins.  Sure, they wore panda hats, and drank drinks whose names I probably couldn’t pronounce.  But they also stood up and cheered every hit.  They chanted Vogelsong’s name.  They yelled “Scutaro!” in response to a call of “Marco!”

And, as I learned today, they had such a good time at the game that they will be buying those tickets many times next season as well.

Go enjoy your little mancave you idealize baseball as.  I like our baseball shrine in San Francisco, and all of its accoutrements, and especially all of its fans, just fine.