giants roster [aka all things GIANTS thread]

sabean is good at picking up pieces. he had a streak of bad luck last winter picking up durham (injury plagued), cruz (minor league offensively), and alfonzo (ice cold through the all-star break). he may surprise the giants fans by st. valentine's day.

nen is supposedly throwing albeit not hard. i'd be suprised if he doesn't lose 5mph off his fastaball considering he had the same surgery twice in 6 months.

worrell became unaffordable. i agree with sabean, he was a great stand-in, but with his contract up, he priced himself out of the giants current budget. they resigned matt herges who proved to be a more effective pitcher than worrell last season.

The Giants are really leaning heavily on pitching this year and I guess that should be fine considering the nice mix of youth and experience they've got on the mound. Hopefully Alfonzo can pick up where he left off at the end of last year. I'm pretty excited to see what A.J. Pierzsomethingorother can do.

When that thing happens, it is loan, not a trade.

and people badmouth the marlins for dismantling their teams.

i mean, how many times can you expect to bring in a guy like ellis burks, santiago, lofton, big cat, and have them perform the way they have as giants. for some reason, the seemingly banged up, past their prime vets always produce when they come to sf.

others i've heard are adapting:
minnesota
san diego
milwaukee (?)

obviously oakland has had the pitching to keep them competitive for the last five years despite losing high-profile allstars. the giants have had a healthy budget and one constant superstar to assist their prolonged success. it just seems like there are so few teams that are consistently having as much success as the a's and the giants (regular season wise of course). how much of that is attributable to beane and sabean? and why aren't there more teams (outside of the yankees, braves, red sox, and mariners) that can play for a division title consistently over a period of four to five years as the giants and a's have lately?

Money, minor leagues and pitching.

The A's minor leagues turned out a series of good pitchers (and a few good position players), which helped keep the budget down.

When the minors are not turning out quality players and you don't have a budget, your team will not be very good.

The last quality starter the Detroit Tigers minor leagues turned out was John Smoltz and they gave him away a LONG time ago.

The Dodgers were good for so long because their minor leagues turned out quality players. The magic faded away right around the time they were sold and guess what, they haven't been worth a crap since (not that I am crying, I hate the Dodgers).

NY and Boston have been able to buy whatever they needed. Atlanta turned out some quality players and gained the ability to buy what was needed.

SF and to a lesser extent St.Louis have found some players off the scrap pile and get good years from them, some for a few years.

Oakland seems to be able to pick out players that languish off of other teams bench and turn them into viable everyday players, but the biggest part of their success is their minor leagues turned out quite a few quality players (Giambi, Tejada, Chavez, Hudson, Mulder, & Zito). I think this has been overlooked a bit, if your minors develop two MVPs and three top notch starters within a few years, your team better win.

so... can felix rodriguez and matt herges fill in for nathan/worrell?

*updates resume*

*the benefits of the internship: free attendance to all home games (well you're "working" but it's pretty mellow).

News
Count the San Francisco Giants among the teams speaking with free agent pitcher Greg Maddux. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Giants and Maddux's agent, Scott Boras, have been talking all winter and have exchanged dollar figures on a multiyear deal. Maddux is expected to make a decision soon, perhaps even as soon as this weekend. Other teams trying to lure Maddux include the Cubs, Dodgers, and Cardinals. One source familiar with the situation told the Chronicle that the Giants "have a ways to go" before matching the dollars offered by other teams.

Views
The thinking is that Maddux may accept a little less to sign with the Giants because they are a perennial playoff contender and play in a pitcher-friendly ballpark. Being on the west coast might also help, as Maddux grew up and went to school in Las Vegas.

if he signs with the cubs this city is going to wet it's collective pants.

but more notable:

Pierzynski said he's been in Arizona for about a week and now looks forward to talking only baseball. He said he's watched pitchers Robb Nen and Jason Schmidt, both coming off injuries, work out at the team's Scottsdale facility.

"I've seen them throw and they look good," Pierzynski said. "Both look healthy and ready to go."

SF is definitely lucky to be in the west, as really only Arizona looks like they may be improved from the off season.

Arizona will do as well as Randy Johnson, if he is back to normal, they may make a run. If not, I doubt they have much chance.

what John said. Paul Depodesta makes Theo Epstein look like Paris Hilton on Final Jeopardy. He's been working baseball ever since his graduation day from Harvard, spending 5 years with the Indians and 5 with the A's. Very influential in baseball business circles and has helped usher along "the new thinking in baseball" tremendously, esp. wrt his high profile in Lewis' Moneyball. Rob Neyer devoted a whole column on Paul this week on Espn.com which I would definitely recommend reading.

SF is definitely lucky to be in the west, as really only Arizona looks like they may be improved from the off season.

Earl, you're ignoring the Padres who are many folx darkhorse shot at the world series this year.

Arizona will do as well as Randy Johnson, if he is back to normal, they may make a run. If not, I doubt they have much chance.

I saw Brandon Webb pitch twice (I also saw Dontrelle twice as well) and Webb was not only the better rookie, but also one of the most impressive opponents facing the Giants last year. If the D-Backs could give him some run support, they might be saying "Schilling who?" by August.

It would take a whole lot of things coming in line at once for them to make a run. Of course, the couple of times the Padres had real good clubs it happened that way.

I don't doubt that Webb is for real, but I think the Diamondbacks are at best a .500 club without the Big Unit winning 15-20 games. If Johnson was healthy last year, they definitely would have been much closer to the Giants than where they finished.

The NL West is pretty open, I think the division could maybe be won by a team with only 90 wins or so, unless there are suprises. As long as the Giants stay healthy, I think they are the team to beat.

1983 red sox. they couldn't/wouldn't/didn't run from the time jerry remy blew out his knee until ellis burks showed up a decade later.

1987: Burks 27 Team: 77 (Second highest- Marty Barrett 15)
1988: Burks 25 Team: 65 (Second highest- Mike Greenwell 16)
1989: Burks 21 Team: 56 (Second highest- Mike Greenwell 13)
1990: Burks 9 Team: 53 (Second highest- Mike Greenwell & Tony Pena[!] 8)
1991: Burks 6 Team: 59 (Team Leaders- Mike Greenwell 15, Steve Lyons 10, Tony Pena 8, Jody Reed 6)
1992: Burks 5 Team: 44 (Team Leders- Jody Reed 7, Herm Winningham 6)

Oh, yeah - and D) Clemens getting tossed out of the ALCS by Gerry (sic?) Cooney.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=knight-sorebackkeepsbondsonsidel&prov=knight&type=lgns

hmm... what's the scoop? good news: i don't have plans til after 10pm but bad news I have about 6 friends in town this weekend and not all of them wanna rock tonight. we'll see.

jesse foppert (tommy john) pitched 5 innings for fresno, striking out four and giving up 2 runs... sources say he will see mlb action by september.

*if he starts batting .300 i have the right to waive the above sentiment.

post-All-Star-- .413/.516/.680 !!!!

Rob Neyer wrote, in spring training 2003 IIRC, that Bonds was the only player in baseball who could singlehandedly make a good team into a great team. Here is our proof.

a triple and four INTENTIONAL walks.

In the recent SF/HOU series, the Giants had won 9-2, 5-1, and as of the 8th inning last night with 3 outs to go, were up 3-2 on the Astros. With the HOU "killer-B" lineup of Biggio, Beltran, Bagwell and Berkman due up in the top of the 9th and having been outscored 17-4 in the past 26 innings by the Giants, I had an uneasy feeling. The Astros lineup seemed better than 17-4 and with staff ace Jason Schmidt being relieved by journeyman starter cum closer Dustin Hermanson, a Houston comeback seemed almost inevitable.

In the 2002 World Series with the Anaheim Angels vs. the SF Giants, the games were decided as such:

game 1: SF 4 - ANA 3
game 2: SF 10 - ANA 11
game 3: SF 4 - ANA 10
game 4: SF 4 - ANA 3 (SF rallies back from 3-0 with 4 unanswered runs)
game 5: SF 16 - ANA 4
game 6: SF 5 - ANA 6 (ANA rallies back from 5-0 with 6 unanswered runs)
game 7: SF 1 - ANA 4

So for the total series, SF outscored ANA 44 - 41 which shows a pretty competitive 7 game series. But in the distribution of runs, SF went on a stretch of outscoring ANA 25-4. When ANA finally answered back by outscoring SF 10-1, the series was over.

(there's no pirate thread; is it okay if i take a moment here to weep that it's now been 25 years since the pirates' (and steelers'!) last championship?)

I'm trying to think of comparable suspensions from the Cubs' season (there have been plenty):

Zambrano got 5 games/1 start for hitting Edmonds in the ass. Roy Oswalt didn't get suspended for beaning Michael Barrett (that I know of). Matt Morris didn't get suspended for throwing two pitches at Derrek Lee. Kerry Wood got 5 games/1 start for arguing with a home plate ump, LaTroy Hawkins got 3 games for arguing with an ump.

I'm not seeing a pattern. 3 games for a reliever is harsh.

Apparently he's hurt too. This team is way too sloppy at this point in the season to be taken seriously.

Jason Schmidt
Brett Tomko
Kirk Rueter
Noah Lowry (rookie call-up)
Brian Hennessy (rookie call-up)

The Giants have second year starting pitchers Jerome Williams back (who pitched 7 innings of 1 run ball last night) and Jesse Foppert available after lengthy stays on the DL for this last weekend of baseball.

He's signed $12+M over 3 years making him a bit of a risk, which the "thirtysomething" Giants don't really need right now with the heavy burden of an aging veteran lineup. Looking at his stats he goes cold during the last 2 months of the last few seasons, which could show signs of age/wear & tear. Having Deivi Cruz as a back up middle infielder for Vizquel and injury-prone Ray Durham (not to mention Cruz's very impressive end to the 2004 season) shows some depth the Giants have lacked in recent years.

Overall, it's better than the Neif-arious position they were in at the beginning of last season.

One good thing for Giants fans are players of this era of baseball playing better at a later age than ever before, after all the best hitter and perhaps two best starting pitchers in the NL are at 40 or older.

His last 2 full seasons (2002 & 2004) are better than his career averages. 2001 was his weakest recent year offensively and weighs down his recent performance, then again that was 3 seasons ago.

The $4M/yr. is $2M less than he was making in Cleveland. Not to mention he's cheaper than Garciaparra or Renteria who Vizquel outperformed in 2004. I would imagine the Giants structure the contract heavier towards the end of the deal and hope he retires before the final year.

Renteria has been steadily improving and is now hitting his peak years.

C    A.J. Pierzynski      28
1B   J.T. Snow            37
2B   Ray Durham           33
SS   Omar Vizquel         38
3B   Edgardo Alfonzo      31
LF   Barry Bonds          40
CF   Marquis Grissom      38
RF   Michael Tucker       34

i can't understand why the giants were so hot for vizquel that they would cave in to his demand for a three year deal. it doesn't add up.

http://www.all-baseball.com/mikesbballrants/archives/016380.html