San Francisco Giants

By John Sickels Alderson has been really good, and Bumgarner has been unstoppable. The middle infield options don't look too great right now, with failures to hit sufficiently among the guys on this list. But overall the Giants system is in better ...

By noreply@blogger.com (obsessivegiantscompulsive) That's why we could leave Brian Wilson in as closer. Up to last season, the Giants were not sure whether they wanted him to start or relieve, though they kept him in relief because of his TJS history (I presume). If we didn't have Cain, then Lincecum, and now Sanchez, the Giants management prob...

By Grant I didn't have a problem with Jose Castillo finishing up the season with the Giants. Ryan Rohlinger's AA-ball performance wasn't exactly forcing the Giants' hand, so if the Giants wanted to just play out the string, it would have been understandable.

By noreply@blogger.com (Trevor) I also couldn't go without mentioning the FSMA fundraiser that took place in San Francisco on Wednesday night. If you were there, you know what a great event it was, and if you weren't, do everything in your power to make it there next year. Most of the Giants' were there and served as guest bart...

By noreply@blogger.com (obsessivegiantscompulsive) I was reading Grant's post on McCovey Chronicles about the Giants trade deadline plans, and I wrote so much that I thought I would post it here too. Grant wonders about Winn and Molina in particularly, Aurilia too, and about how Winn is blocking Schierholtz while doing worse than Schierhol...

By Grant Randy Winn, on the other hand, is blocking Nate Schierholtz. Winn’s horrible slump has left him at .276/.341/.385. Schierholtz’s MLE suggests his current minor league numbers would translate to .273/.306/.472. The Giants would likely take a hit on defense and on-base gettin’, but Schierholtz...

By Jim McLennan Record: 52-51. Pace: 82-80. Change on last season: -3 Click to enlarge, in new window] Master of his domain: Chris Snyder, +16.0% Honorable mentions: Jackson, +15.8; Hudson, 14.1%; Ojeda, +14.0% God-emperor of suck: Chris Young, -10.3%

By noreply@blogger.com (obsessivegiantscompulsive) Sabean said as much about Bumgarner on the day the Giants drafted him. Sabean thought that it might take Bumgarner (and Alderson) only a couple of years to make the majors. For that to come true, they would either be called up next season in September or actually make the club in spring trainin...

By noreply@blogger.com (obsessivegiantscompulsive) The media decided to attack Sabean this week. Tim Kawakami complained that the Giants should have not signed all the guys they did in the off-season before the 2007 season, that that was the beginning of their downfall. Meanwhile Damon Bruce last night complained about how nice it is that Au...

By E.L.M. Would you blame Saturday's loss on Bochy for bringing in [Brian] Wilson in a tie game, with him facing pitching an unknown number of potential innings AND his being demonstrably poor in non-save situations? Or could Bochy be trying to put Wilson in a 'new' situation for his future develop...

By noreply@blogger.com (Trevor) The all-star selections were made official on Sunday, and surprisingly to some, two San Francisco Giants were selected. Everybody across the nation has heard of Tim Lincecum and is recognizing his dominance this season, so he was a lock to make the team. At this point, he has as good a shot at...

By noreply@blogger.com (Trevor) SECOND HALF PREVIEW: The Giants will enter the second half of the year within striking distance of the first place Diamondbacks. I don't expect to see the Giants win the division or even be serious contenders come September, but the NL West is not very strong this year. If Barry Zito pitches m...

By noreply@blogger.com (obsessivegiantscompulsive) Which brings me to the Giants' fans new favorite punching bag, Barry Zito. People at AT&T Mays Field have taken to booing Zito after poor performances. Which unfortunately have been frequent lately. Which brings me to my post today. Big Picture: True Giants Fans Don't Boo Zito

By E.L.M. Watching Friday’s game, in which the A’s took advantage of Barry Zito’s wildness and the Giants did absolutely nothing with the very charitable Greg Smith’s six walks, I had a bad feeling about the entire weekend. Matt Cain’s second straight strong outing. Perhaps he’s about to go on a tear....

By noreply@blogger.com (obsessivegiantscompulsive) The Giants judged that Sanchez would not learn as much starting in the minors as he would relieving in the majors. And his stats as a reliever the past two seasons support that decision. Jonathan Sanchez clearly can get major league hitters out regularly. If he wasn't ready for major league hi...

By Grant I was tired enough to write it, but not tired enough to let the mangled syntax slip through without comment. That’s one ugly, ugly sentence. But danged if there isn’t a "sprinkle of giddy" regarding a sub-.500 team. The Giants are throwing money around in the Dominican Republic again, Keith La...

By noreply@blogger.com (obsessivegiantscompulsive) There is a new analyst of pitching mechanics on The Hardball Times, in the wake of Carlos Gomez getting a job with a major league team, and he publishes on the website Baseball-Intellect.com. However, he did not cover Posey yet, so I was disappointed.

By noreply@blogger.com (Trevor) Q: Many Giants fans wanted the team to draft a big time power hitter like Justin Smoak or Yonder Alonso. Gordon Beckham was another guy who was on Giants radar as well. Do you think Posey will end up being a better major league hitter than those guys? Q: How do you grade the Giants 2008 draft?

By noreply@blogger.com (Trevor) The Giants didn't stop with Posey as far as drafting hitters on day 1. They also grabbed Bill Mueller-clone Connor Gillaspie with pick number 37 in the supplemental round. He's another advanced college bat that was projected to go as high is the middle first round, but apparently teams were...

By noreply@blogger.com (obsessivegiantscompulsive) Giants Starters' PQS for 2008 Season (as of May 31st, 2008) Matt Cain - (62% DOM, 15% DIS; 8:2/13): 3, 0, 4, 0, 5, 2, 4, 4, 4, 3, 4, 5, 5 Jonathan Sanchez - (36% DOM, 27% DIS; 4:3/11): 0, 5, 2, 3, 5, 3, 0, 0, 5, 3, 5 Barry Zito - ( 27% DOM, 36% DIS; 3:4/11): 1, 1, 3, 3, 0, 0 (Skip), 4, 3, 2, 4, 4

By Jim McLennan A somewhat easier task for our hitters, following yesterday, where Lincecum chewed u our hitters, spat them out, and used their bats as toothpicks. Sanchez walks too many people and also can be hit: Pittsburgh scored seven runs off him in 4.1 innings less than a month ago, so if they can do tha...

By Nick Cannata-Bowman Friedrich has been virtually unhittable during his stay at Eastern Kentucky, striking out 307, surrendering 153 hits, and walking 89, all over 232 innings of work. His fastball ranges from 88-92 mph, topping out at 94. His best pitch is his curveball, which is a straight downer. He throws an...

Kawakami: This Barry Zito theater of the absurd must go on Is that the new top end for the Giants' opening-day starter? On TV, Mike Krukow insisted that this was a big positive sign and Zito's best start of the ... Nady homers to ruin Zito's return, lead Pirates past Giants The Associated Press

Giants Starters' PQS for 2008 Season (as of April 30, 2008) Jonathan Sanchez - (33% DOM, 17% DIS; 2:1/6): 0, 5, 2, 3, 5, 3 Giants season overall - 43% DOM, 30% DIS out of 30 games pitched (13:9/30) Giants Month of April - 43% DOM, 30% DIS out of 30 games pitched (13:9/30)

By Jim McLennan Needless to say, our opinion is less sympathetic and more, "Long may that continue." Certainly, the Giants have shown little reason to expect more from them: in the four games against Arizona, San Francisco have ten runs combined - and half of those were unearned. That's on par with an overa...

His homer in his first game put him in a select group of eight San Francisco Giants who had homered in their first game, including Giants greats Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, Bobby Bonds, Will Clark, Matt Williams, and John "the Count" Montefusco. With his homer yesterday, he is all alon...

Don't remind us about the Giants this season  CA - Bonds' giant presence missing in SF Sun-Sentinel.com Maddux handles Bonds-free Giants Philadelphia Daily News A lot of baseball left' could be too much for Giants San Francisco Chronicle

One thing that I hadn't beaten the drum much on this off-season, and for that I apologize, was the Giants signing Tim Lincecum to a long term contract that buys out his pre-free agent years, like they did with Noah Lowry and Matt Cain. And I don't think that is going to happen, which is probably...

The prospect on today's Giants Radar (GiDar) is 22 year old starting pitcher Henry Sosa. Henry Sosa is one of the Giants top prospects for 2008: he was ranked second in the Giants farm system by both Deric McKamey of Minor League Baseball Analyst and Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus r...

I thought I would check out what Bill James projects for the Giants pitching staff. Using his numbers for Cain, Lowry, Correia, Zito, Wilson, Walker, Hennessey, Chulk, Kline, Sanchez, and Misch (I used CHONE for Lincecum since there was no projection for him), who are expected to compris...

By Grant The new rage - from the Chronicle to the New York Times - is the "OMG: Giants' Clubhouse Is Way Different and Better Without Bonds"-article. This brings us to story time. Gather around in a circle as I spin a short yarn. Milk and cookies are optional.

By Trevor Aaron Rowand takes Bonds spot in the lineup and in the outfield which helps this team's defense significantly, but losing Bonds' bat and not adequately replacing it will have this team struggling to score runs, even more so than last year. As for Feliz and Klesko, both are very replaceable...

Thanks to our local San Francisco Giants expert coming out of the bullpen and picking up a save, the Minor League Prospect Reports for 2008 are now complete. I'm on vacation the next eleven days, the American League reports will begin shortly after the first of the year with the Baltimore Or...

By Pizza Cutter Baseball Reference Baseball Prospectus FanGraphs MVN Blog: Giants Cove  Other Giants Resources: Latest News Trade Rumors Yeah, that about sums it up: And now a list of everyone under the age of 30 who logged more than 250 AB for the Giants this past year: Kevin Frandsen.

By Jeremy S. on Yelp Let's Go Gi-ants Let's Go Gi-ants I am proud to have been born in San Francisco, and am proud to be a die-hard, dyed-in-the-wool GIANTS fan. I bleed black and orange. We have the best ball park in the…

The Giants have been pretty productive in recent years, as most of their pitching staff is either supplied internally or traded for using farm products. Hopefully this will continue the nice streak the Giants have been on since drafting Lowry and Hennessey in the first round of the 2001 dr...

We have the makings of a great rotation, with Lincecum, Cain, Lowry, and Zito, plus Misch and Correia apparently ready to move up and Sanchez perhaps a spring training away from being rotation ready as well. The bullpen, while not great, has a number of good parts in it, with Wilson appearin...

BA Report on Villalona: Positive But Ignoring Elephant in the Room - obsessivegiantscompulsive

By Al SAN FRANCISCO -- Each of the games in this three-game series by the Bay featured outstanding starting pitching. Tuesday, it was Jason Marquis and Tim Lincecum. Last night, curveballers Rich Hill and Barry Zito matched nearly pitch-for-pitch for seven-plus innings.

Pirates storm back to edge Giants  - Davis started in center field and led off for the Giants, going 3-for-3 and scored four times. Barry Bonds belted career homer number 758 and drove in three ... Huge rally lifts Pirates over Giants MLB.com Pirates hold on to beat Giants Tribune Review

By Nick Cannata-Bowman To me, he’s a can’t miss, drawing comparisons to Fred McGriff, a left-handed Derrek Lee, and even Willie McCovey. With some Minor League seasoning, he could become the future of the Giants offense, as he’s around the same age as highly touted 16 year old man-child Miguel Villalona. The Gian...

By Paul Rice 97 mph two-seam fastball? Are you effing kidding me? For those not in the know, a two-seamer is a fastball gripped along, well, two seams, so that it has more sink than a four-seamer (four-seamers are straighter and appear to “rise” when crossing the plate; it’s basically the standard fas...

By Paul Rice “It looks as if the Giants will not start a single player under 30. Most of them — Ray Durham? Omar Vizquel? Rich Aurilia? Dave Roberts? Barry? — started their careers when the Dodgers were in Brooklyn. Is this some shrewd Moneyball maneuver to take advantage of market inequities by playing r...

By Nick Cannata-Bowman Disadvantage: My inability to forgive the Marlins for winning two World Series in six years. Disadvantage: I don’t think I can take 180 K’s a year after finally getting rid of Feliz. Advantage: Looks intimidating, and would be worth it to see him and Benitez in a sumo ring.

 MN - Bonds, Giants complete deal: Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants completed a $15.8 million, one-year contract Monday night after the slugger spent ... Baseball Notes London Free Press Local baseball legend Art Fowler dies Spartanburg Herald Journal (subscription)