Yea, to compare this trade in baseball terms…it’s exactly like the Randy Johnson signing, except without the player likability, the impending milestone, or the positive impact.
Boy, I hope it’s not the only receiver move the 49ers do.
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Archive for ‘Spring Training’
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I like Huff. I really do.
But Brandon Belt is the future. Pretty much everyone agrees with that. There’s just no place to play him. He doesn’t need more Fresno time. He’s done all he can there.
There’s three legitimate first base options (Huff, Belt and Brett Pill), and that’s before you mention that Buster Posey might be used at first on days they want to rest his ankle and not take him out of the lineup. Pill makes a nice platoon option for either of the lefties…but three first basemen aren’t a great way to build a lineup.
What about the outfield? Well, that hurts the team as well. Right now, none of the outfielders are playing like they don’t deserve a job. Nate Schierholtz has the toughest numbers from a corner spot (.292/.320/.333), but they aren’t too terrible for spring and his defense out there is a plus.
And this is all about the future. You’ve got three huge pitchers coming into free agency in the next 19 months. How do you convince a pitcher to stick around in San Francisco? I’ve got a two-step process:
• Give them a Gold Glove caliber defense in the outfield, of which the Belt/Huff choices don’t qualify, but a Cabrera-Pagan-Schierholtz outfield would, and a Peguero-Brown-Schierholtz outfield down the line also would.
• Give them a core of young hitters that they know the team can be built around to help the offense. Like Belt.
The Giants aren’t in a team-building zone right now. They are in a dynasty-building zone. They need to go for it this year, but they also need to go for the next half-dozen years of pitching contracts.
Belt fills both need. Get it done
P.S. – Either you’re too young to remember this reference, or you’re old enough to which means you have memory issues and can’t remember it. Either way, here’s a video version of the classic routine.
I honestly don’t know what to say about Gregor Blanco. Out of nowhere, literally. And at the moment, he’s playing Angel Pagan right out of the starting center field job.
And, honestly, I could not find it listed ANYWHERE who the Kansas City Royals named as the player they got back from the Washington Nationals. Not even in the team transaction lists on MLB.com. Even when a player gets traded for straight-up cash, someone notes it.* Did the Royals just forget about it? Did they say, “Hey, don’t worry about it, consider it a sympathy gift for once being the Montreal Expos?”
I’ve honestly had friends who are pickier about getting paid back after they spot me a soda at the local Taco Bell than the Royals apparently were with this trade.
Now, Blanco’s this close to being the Opening Day starter for the San Francisco Giants.
It’s a great story…but I still have no idea where it comes from. Seriously, Sabean, where are you finding these guys?
• – Some might have seen an opportunity to joke about the player once traded for 10 bats. That guy was John Odom, and he was a Giants prospect once before the independent league trade that made him infamous. But the embarrassment from that trade has been implied to have lead to his overdose death on drugs, six months after the trade. I can’t make a joke about that.
Too Many Options, And Yet, Not Enough Options
on March 21, 2012 at 12:01 am- 2012 »
- Comic »
- Spring Training
There’s practically no starting jobs up for grabs this year, other than injury issues like Freddy Sanchez and Ryan Vogelsong. But that leaves a lot of room on the benches.
This year’s battles are a bit more intense than bench contests should be. And it’s all because of emotion.
• Catcher – Obviously, whoever gets this job is all about the guy who backs up the star of Buster Posey, whose recovery from injury isn’t completely convincing yet. In addition, you’ve got Eli Whiteside as one of the two, a somewhat popular guy for being the backup from the World Series run (that’ll be a running theme). There was some early drama that the Royals might be interested in either Whiteside or Stewart after they lost their starting catcher Salvy Perez to injury for half the season. However, the Royals made a trade on Tuesday to fix that hole.
• Middle Infield – Mike Fontenot was one of those World Series clutch run guys. Ryan Theriot is his longtime teammate/foil. How many silent ‘T’s are there in baseball? Then there’s Emmanuel Burriss, the guy who was drafted just a couple of dozen picks after Tim Lincecum. And Burriss is the one who’s playing the best.
• First Base/Outfield – Why are these two connected? Because there’s no where else to put the non-first basemen. Sure, the Giants claim that they are fine with Melky in left, Angel in center and Nate in right. But lately, Hank Schulman has been picking on Nate’s ticky-tacky injuries like a wife of 20 years on an imperfect husband. Would the Giants sit their defensive specialist just to allow Aubrey Huff or Brandon Belt or Brett Pill to play out there in left? Sure they would. And it’ll be a train wreck. The Giants need to figure out first base, for good. That won’t happen for months, at least.
And again, these are all pretty much backups. But these backups, possible platoons and more will probably play a big part in the Giants’ fortunes. Too many players got injured last year, and are going into this season imperfect. And at least one of these guys, and probably two, may be regular starters by the end of the season.
A little break from baseball to talk a little Golden State Warriors basketball, if you can call it that.
Look, I’m not the biggest basketball fan, but when I was old enough to take an interest, it was in Run TMC. To this day, I still think that’s how a team should be run. Not a superstar like Kobe and a bunch of interchangeable role guys. Even Jordan had Pippen as a partner. And Chris Mullin has always, ALWAYS been my favorite basketball player. Hell, I picked up NBA Jam on my iPad just so I could play as him.
So a part of me was upset that his jersey retirement night was ruined and upstaged by all the boos.
But in all seriousness, Warrior fans have the right to boo like no others. Many agree that there is no more rabid fan base when the team is winning, and it’s still strong when it’s losing. (Hear that, Oakland Athletics? What are YOU guys doing wrong?)
But the tipping point for me was this eye-opening timeline by Bill Simmons on Grantland (an offshoot of ESPN.com). I know why, as a Warrior fan, I have no faith. But I’ve never seen it laid out in such detail as in this article.
And you know what? Good on Warrior fans. Even as much as I want Mullin to be the one who’s remembered, it’s about time Warrior fans made it clear they are tired of this middling-diddling crap.
And Lacob better be careful. Before he knows it, the guy he outbid for the Warriors might just make the Bay Area a two-NBA team market, and create the San Jose Grizzlies. (To be fair, that is a nickname more suited for anywhere in California rather than in Tennessee.)
Then again, I might be using the term ‘NBA Team’ just a little too lightly when it comes to discussing either the Warriors or the Grizzlies.
There are some things you can’t overcome when it comes to a bad fantasy draft. But some can be undone with trades.
Just try to find your own personal Pittsburgh Pirates to trade with.
And so ends the unemployment storyline we’ve had running all offseason. (Go ahead and click on that link for all the strips in the storyline.) Luckily, there’s always people who have horrible fantasy drafts, and want to make up for it after the fact.
That is much better than those who have terrible drafts and then tank the rest of the season. Usually, I recommend fantasy commissioners name any such teams ‘The Pittsburgh Pirates’, but after last season, your options are ‘Kansas City Royals,’ ‘Houston Astros,’ or ‘Golden State Warriors.’
How do you, the readers, feel about storylines? Obviously, when we sarcastically make fun of baseball, those strips are popular. But I want to know if you guys like a little character development. We can have a lot of fun (and fill up time in the offseason) with that kind of stuff.
Sure, I’m about to say this as a San Francisco Giants fan, but it isn’t any less true:
Magic Johnson’s about to become the biggest fool in baseball ownership.
Don’t get me wrong, Johnson’s a smart man. A very smart man. He’s done an incredible job in investing and development. His Magic Johnson Enterprises was recently valued at $500 million.
But in a $2.15 billion dollar purchasing agreement for the Los Angeles Dodgers, that’s a drop in the bucket, especially when you consider that a smart businessman like Johnson wouldn’t put all his value in one investment. While the official documents won’t be made public, I doubt Johnson’s investment is even half of his net worth, meaning he has less than a 1/8th share.
The real new owners are the Guggenheim Partners, old money from back east. They’re old money because they share a name with a museum, and not by coincidence. The Guggenheim Partners are a financial company, and they are who will run the Dodgers, truly. Now, they are smart, despite a questionable remaining link to Frank McCourt.
First of all, they brought in Stan Kasten. Kasten is supposedly one of the new ‘owners’ of the Dodgers. That’s a ridiculous thought. Kasten has been a longtime sports executive due to his association with Ted Turner. Kasten has run the Atlanta Hawks as GM, the Atlanta Braves as Team President (a plus), and then the Washington Nationals (not so much a plus). But is this a rich man, in ownership terms? Does he have anything remotely close to $2 billion to contribute to ownership? Hardly.
No, the Guggenheimers brought Kasten on as legitimacy. He knows how to run a team. That’s not necessarily a good thing. He did well with the Braves letting one of the all-time great GMs John Schuerholz run the team. He didn’t do so well doing it himself with the Nationals. But when it comes to being a sports executive, he’s been there, done that. That’s why he’s on board.
So why Johnson? Local legitimacy, obviously. Johnson’s the new face of the franchise. No old white guys in a boardroom, like McCourt. Nope, it’s the ever-familiar and endlessly popular face of Magic Johnson. He’ll get the fans back to loving the team.Don’t get me wrong: I’m a hardcore L.A. hater, in all sports, but I have nothing but respect for Johnson, both for his accomplishments on the court and his significant accomplishments off the court.
But this is what Magic is now: The Fall Guy.
This is a bad deal for the new owners. It’s far too much money for the team. A lot of people are pointing at the up-to $5 billion TV deal that the team is likely to get, but that’s $5 billion paid over a quarter decade, and money to be expected to be put back into the team, not into the owner’s pockets. Especially not how after McCourt did exactly that.
Of course, with the exorbitant new cost, the new owners will be expected to make a splash in free agency. And I have no doubt they will (Hopefully not on Matt Cain). They will spend a ton of money, quite possibly in vastly overpaid contracts to underachieving players. Just ask Kasten about judging a player’s ‘Werth’.
But then, like every new owner, they will stop spending, especially after bad decisions. Why? Because the other owners won’t tolerate another Steinbrenner raising costs far too high for everyone else. And after two or three years of bad decisions, they’ll have gotten locked into Jonathan Sanchez, Jeremy Affeldt and David Wright (hopefully), and won’t be able to afford anyone else. And even if they keep spending, it’s the guys like Johnson and Kasten who won’t have the money to pony up for a second Barry Zito.
Let’s be honest: You know how much Magic Johnson’s last real NBA salary was? $2.5 million. That’s not enough to pay for a utility infielder these days. He doesn’t have the reserves to pay for multiple superstars.
And the Dodgers will be bad. So who takes the fall? The face of the franchise: Magic Johnson.
He’ll take the brunt of fan outrage, he’ll take it from ownership, and he’ll get forced out. The worst part is, he’s not even getting paid for this; he’s paying to have this role!
Ask Peter Magowan and Bill Neukom how it goes when you make bad financial decisions (the former) or piss off the guys who really have the money (the latter).
For these new owners to really pay off financially as an investment, that happens only truly when they sell. Championships don’t make you money on their own. They get you fame. They up the seller’s price. But you don’t get that money until the team gets sold.
Mark my words: Magic (and Stan Kasten) won’t make it to that point. They’ll be lucky if they break even, but it won’t be worth the stress.
This is a bad deal for Magic. But for Giants fans, it’ll be worth the downfall.
By the way, there’s a disturbing Giants’ connection to the new Dodgers ownership. Peter Guber, minority owner of the Golden State Warriors, is part of the group. That’s the Warriors, who reportedly and looking at having the Giants be their new landlords in the near future.
Finally, at least there are some Dodger fans who haven’t let the rivalry rot as their team has. I got forwarded this picture by a couple of coworkers who root for the wrong team:
You’ve got to admire the feistyness of those guys, especially since most Dodger fans I know were barely toddlers the last time one of those rings were won. And that they apparently couldn’t find the current Giants logo to use. Or the actual Giants championship ring. Or even use all of the Dodgers’ championship rings (they’re missing 1988). I can’t give proper credit since I don’t know where this originated, but it’s amusing.
Yea, take a look at the standings after the season, you Bums.
Does anyone really care about the Bay Bridge series anymore? For the past few years, those games have been even less attended than any other Giants home games. (Ironically, the one A’s game is usually one of their best attended.)
Baseball’s preseason has always been better than most because they make it like a resort thing with Spring Training. Fans want to go because it’s truly some vacation, and because you can do more than just Giants baseball. It’s great.
But the home preseason/exhibition is about as exciting as the NFL’s preseason. Sure, even in Spring Training, results don’t matter, but that’s even more so with these exhibition games. Usually the rosters are all but set by now. And the actual big leaguers will play less innings than they’ve been playing in spring training.
This year, at least there’s still some roster suspense. Will Brandon Belt make the roster? Who will be the final bullpen pitchers? But it’s not a lot.
Enjoy these games. You’ll never get as much free space at AT&T Park as you get this week.
Detailed Analysis Of The Matt Cain Contract Extension
on April 4, 2012 at 12:01 am- 2012 »
- Comic »
- Spring Training
In the wake of Matt Cain’s contract extension, I’ve seen the doubters come out across the country. There are those who talk about how pitchers are never worth their long term deals. Some doubt Cain would’ve gotten that much in free agency (those are the idiots). Some use WAR to say he’ll never be worth the money.
Screw all that.
I’ll say this. If the Giants can resign Tim Lincecum after 2013, there’ll be a small part of me worried about how much he’ll get, and for how long. If the Giants can resign Brian Wilson, there’ll be some pangs of worry. Hell, I was a guy who wrote that the Giants should’ve hardballed Buster Posey when he was seeking a then-record deal for a draft pick.
But there are no regrets and no worries about this deal. None. Good on the Giants. Good on Matt Cain. Let’s go win the damn Series!
Play Ball!