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The Malaise Index

Wed, 16 May 2012 21:24:35 -0700

Just Say You Won And Leave (Apparently Baer and Sabean Have Done Just That)
Shortly after the mopes in the White House declared victory in Vietnam, they ordered the US Navy, victors from Midway to Tokyo to push Army rescue choppers over the sides of their aircraft carriers. You see, after brilliant planning by White House General Manager Henry Sabean Kissinger, and his field boss, Creighton Bochy Abrams, to simply declare victory and leisurely stroll out of Saigon, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong had other strategeries in mind. Like chasing or killing every American sympathizer and Yankee out of Saigon, confiscating what equipment and supplies they could get their hands on and burn every last building connected with the Embassy to the ground including anybody left inside.

A year later, voters fed up with the duplicity of the Nixon-Ford Administration elected Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer, as their new president. I don't remember what he promised. I do remember his brother Billy drank too much beer, and the women in the Carter clan quoted a lot of bible stuff.

Bochy Would Have Felt Right At Home
Bochy must have loved this administration, Everybody in the Carter family had a name that ended in "y" it seemed. There was of course the president, "Jimmy" beer-chugging first bro "Billy" daughter "Amy" and of course first lady Rosie.

Jimmy's first act as president since OPEC was raising the shit out of oil prices was to turn off the heat in the White House, build a fire in the fireplace, put on his Mr. Rogers sweater, and tell folks that they had to sacrifice in his version of FDRs fireside chat. Except it was 85 degrees outside. It went downhill from there. Inflation hit about 15%, and unemployment likewise - referred to as the misery index. Jimmy declared the country was in a malaise. Kind of like the 2005 to 2012 San Francisco Giants offense. Which brings me to this very simple and salient point. With numbers and everything.

The Giants Offensive Malaise Index - GOMI
The Index is composed of two parts. Part 1 is the percentage of games the Giants lose when their opponents score at least 4 runs. Part 2 is the Giants ranking in runs scored as of the same date. The higher the sum of the two numbers, the worse the offensive malaise.

Maximum GOMI = 100% losses plus 30 points for being last in MLB in Runs Scored. A GOMI of 130 is the highest possible score.

For instance after yesterdays come from behind loss to Colorado, the Giants had lost 15/16 games as described in Part 1. Or 93.8% of all games where the other club scored 4 or more runs. Part 2 after last nights game had them in 25th place after 36 games and a record 18-18. So the GOMI (Giants Offensive Malaise Index) as of last night was 118.8.

Tonight, after losing to the Cardinals 4 -1 the GOMI stands at 16/17 games lost 94.1% and 26th in total runs scored. Total GOMI is 120.1

The Dodgers have lost 10/14 games of 4 or more runs allowed for 71.4% and rank 12th in total runs scored with 157. Total Offensive Malaise Index is 83.4

The Rangers who lead the world in runs scored have lost 12/15 for 80%. They have scored 216 runs,1st in total runs scored.Total Offensive Malaise index is 81

The Cardinals who are defending champs and 21-15 have lost 11/15 four run games for 73.3%. They have scored 202 runs, 2nd overall. Total Offensive Malaise Index 75.5

Thats What $131 Million of Fan Money Buys When Brian Sabean Is Doing The Shopping.
There is a whole lot of difference between the Giants and those three teams, just from a watch-ability standpoint if nothing else. I may refine and/or extend these numbers and come up with the defensive side of this index, or not. Its an awful lot of work just to confirm that the San Francisco Giants are spending $131million on an offense that is worse than the 1969 Seattle Pilots.

And like the Seattle Pilots, Brian Sabean and Larry Baer have pretty much disappeared since they opened the season by dropping 3 straight to Arizona and haven't look forward since. At least the Pilots had Jim Bouton around to keep things real and keep things funny. I wonder if Bochy would have called him "Jimmy".

Probably not.

SF 49er Anthony Davis - Refuses To Be Abused

Mon, 14 May 2012 18:11:31 -0700

I've Had All I Can Stand And I'm Not Going To Take It Anymore
There's a war of words being waged on Twitter and in a Bay Area newspaper between the 49ers' Anthony Davis, who decided he wasn't going to be abused publicly by a couple of nepotistic characters; and Lowell and Iggy (Grant) Cohn, who hide behind their "occupations" while using their venue to insult and antagonize sports folks. The two are employed as writers (with press passes and everything woohoo) for the NY Times owned Santa Rosa Press Democrat. A great report was written up by one of the real stand-up guys in Bay Area Sports Journalism; Steve Berman, the Bay Area Sports Guy. I suggest you read it for a timeline and peer analysis. Simply Excellent

Hometown Guy - Went To High School 3 Miles from Rutgers University
Anthony Davis, the 49ers first-round draft pick in 2010, is a guy that the Cohn's would probably refer to as "uppity" if they thought they could get away with it. And what would lead me to that conclusion? If you're describing a 6-5, 323 lb African-American offensive tackle from Piscataway, NJ via Rutgers University as "squealing like a little girl" during rookie camp, and claim it is anything other than derogatory, demeaning and marginalizing, you are full of shit.

Was it a temporary lapse of discretion or judgement? Hardly. Rather than apologize for his egregious attempt to humiliate Davis, Iggy (Grant) showed up at the 49er facility to egg Davis on even further a couple of days later..

Silliest Sports List Ever? Or Most Hateful Sports List Ever Being Disguised as Lightweight Opinion?
This is the same guy who, along with his father, published a Gamers and Non-Gamers list of Ballplayers in 2008. Not even a serious 12 year old would come up with a list like that. I'm sure their religious beliefs are different, but the vitriol towards athletes borders on the lunacy exhibited by the nutbags from the Westboro Baptist Church towards gays and KIAs and their families. Perhaps a closer analogy would be former media personality Jay Mariotti whose long slippery slope of garbage journalism and attacks on Chicago White Sox players and coaches culminated in his arrest and conviction for publicly beating a women a couple of years ago in Los Angeles.

The list of seven gamers: Cal Ripken Jr., Aaron Rowand, Mark Ellis, Eric Byrnes, Nick Swisher Troy Tulowitzki and Torii Hunter
The list of seven non-gamers: Barry Bonds, Barry Zito, Eric Chavez, Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz and Carlos Beltran

Don't take my word for it, its their column. They seemed somehow smugly proud of it. I seemed somehow stunned that anything this vile, prejudiced, stupid, and incorrect made it's way into the mainstream media. Makes you wonder about Stanford's certification process for PHD candidates. No wonder the guy couldn't get a job after getting his doctorate. I believe the word even at that time was FAIL. Again, his recitation of facts, not mine.

Giving Fatherhood A Bad Name
Combined the two are the rudest, most disrespectful and annoying father-kid team of parasitic scribblers the Bay Area media has ever presented to the public. There are few people I would less rather be in the same room with, then these two. To be considered their colleague or associate is an insult, not a compliment.

Seldom do these two ticks enter my consciousness, though I first ran across the elder's acrimony in the early 80s when he was nastily slamming somebody over something that most assuredly was out of context and seen from the perspective of an angry little Brooklyn Dodger refugee-fan who barely made the height limit on the E ticket rides at Disneyland.

But I see neither father nor son has grown beyond the adolescent jock-hate, motivated agenda even in the slightest. I only comment on it at all, because the elder Cohn, who has been around the Bay Area since 1979, has decided to stick his nose in when his son decided to pick on the wrong guy in Anthony Davis. Selling the Santa Rosa Press Democrat to the NY Times, money aside, has to be the biggest mistakes Ev Person ever made.

Former Press Democrat Owner/Publisher Would Be Spinning In His Grave
From what I remember about Ev Person he would have tolerated the Cohn clowns for about 3 minutes before putting them in stocks in Santa Rosa's Courthouse Square for the weekend and then handing them pink-slips on Monday morning for writing the kind of contemptuous pieces that seem more like a staple of Dickens-like rat bastards, than professional writers for a storied and formerly distinguished newspaper.

These two are strictly theater of the absurd. The old man's schtick at the Chronicle was a really transparent and bad impersonation of Woody Allen, Sports Jerk. He hates sports, stopped being a fan in the early 60s, had no social life growing up, and has had the basic short man complex his whole life. Not my take, his disclosures in an in-depth interview he did with a blogger named Ford. And like Cohn, Ford doesn't much like athletes either except as a target of his writing. I'm not going to provide a link. If you can't find it in 5 minutes on your own, send me a smoke-signal.

Childish, Imbecilic And Insulting - A Niche Audience.
The Cohns seem to enjoy the fruit-fly on the wall role; antagonizing the admired and the popular (the elder unsuccessfully tried to goad 49er Coach Jim Harbaugh into an altercation repeatedly last year), Why? Perhaps in the hopes that their targets might somehow lose control and do something self-destructive. It's an elementary school trait that appeals to a niche market of neurotic jock-haters I suppose. Most kids grow out of this pathology when they mature and lose their contempt for folks seemingly better off than themselves. The Cohn's seem to merely employ such techniques on their target audience; the envious, the twerps, the rejected and all the rest of the fringies who were non existent in the social structure of their contemporaries growing up.

Dirty Harry Would Have Made His Day With These Two
The younger Cohn's persona seems much like the wild-eyed cretin in Dirty Harry who became so obsessed with Clint Eastwood's superiority, he paid an ex-con to thrash him to the point of intensive care hospitalization just so he could call a presser and whine about "police brutality" charges. In case you don't remember, this was the little schmoe that Harry finally caught up with and uttered the famous "Are you feeling Lucky Punk?"

As For Me?
When it comes to the 49ers, don't even think about denigrating anybody that was and is and always will be considered a part of that family. I am pro-player. Team sports is a world that I have come to believe has far more good people in it, than not. From personal experience. From stories handed down by others.But primarily by what I have witnessed as young people who enter that world at a young age and come out the other side of their athletic careers as bigger and better and stronger and wiser and more humble men and women. Not all of course. But more than many. Its a world I feel pretty strongly about, and when the termites of the world wish to tear things down out of spite, a lot of folks have had enough.

A Baseball Team About Nothing

Fri, 11 May 2012 22:31:11 -0700

You Won't Get A Damn Picture And Like It
A Team not even worthy of a picture. The first post from "Where Have You Gone Joe" without a graphic. Not even an insulting one. Or sardonic. Or satirical. I watched tonight's episode of "How to Waste $131 Million" during Seinfeld commercials. Then I decided to watch some college baseball which was eminently more exciting, rewarding and worthy of attention then the Frisco Grizzlies vs Arizona Diamondbacks, who featured a pitcher whose parents drove him over to the stadium from Apache Junction after school. Its part of his after-school' work-study program. In all fairness to the San Francisco bunch, the kid had a devastating looking cap.

Blah
Its not that the Giants can't hit; thats been going on since 2005. Its that they can't catch, they can't run the bases, they can't throw, and they can't even track fly balls. I am seriously suspicious that some of these guys are candidates for guide dogs, cornea transplants as well as the ever-popular seminars on walking-and-chewing-gum, multitasking for ballplayers.

Just to give you an idea of how nothing this nothing collection of wanna-be misfits really is, (Ninth place in the National League) here is a typical clank-handed starting lineup and their on-base percentage when Posey (.OBP 342) gets a night off:

C Hector Sanchez .263
1B Aubrey Huff .302
2B Ryan Theriot .217
3B Conor Gilaspie .150
SS Brandon Crawford .237
LF Brett Pill .311
CF Angel Pagan .278
RF Melky Cabrera .375

Honorary Captain as Team's Highest Paid Position Player - Aaron Rowand. Collecting $13 Million Unemployment from SF Giants. About what St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Carlos Beltran makes.

Room Temperature Pancakes
And lest you think Cabrera's .375 OBP is really helpful, he has 11 RBIs and 2 homers in 32 games. Two homeruns a month and two runs batted in per week. That's right. Sabean's big off-season move to pump up the offense would be a role player on a contending team. If he's in, fine. If he's out of the lineup, nobody would miss him. Pretty much the story of his career. Room temperature pancakes.

Last Year's Starting Outfield - Where Are They Now Department
Carlos Beltran - St. Louis Cards. 11 HRs 31 RBIs. OBP .409 OPS 1.068
Cody Ross - Boston Red Sox 5 HRs 22 RBIs and makes about half as much Melky Cabrera after he was non-tendered by Brian The Braiin Sabean.
Andres Torres - NY Mets Just came of the DL to start his season on April 30. He's OBP in those 11 games is .426; about 150 points higher than the chump who he was traded for.

I don't have anything else to say except that the San Francisco Giants haven't been a very good team since September 2011, and probably before then. This is the shortest post in the history of "Where Have You Gone Joe"; which is probably 500 words more than Baer and Sabean and Bochy's creation deserves.

Blech Yuk

San Francisco Giants Early Numbers

Fri, 04 May 2012 17:21:00 -0700

Is It Curable?
“The mind is a strange thing, men. We must begin by asking it. What is losing? Losing is a disease as contagious as polio. Losing is a disease as contagious as syphilis. Losing is a disease as contagious as bubonic plague attacking one but infecting all.

But curable.” - The Natural

I'm not going to go into a rambling recitation of explanations, accusations, excuses, postulates, and theorems on why the SF Giants are relentless in their pursuit of offensive wretchedness. Its almost as if they have a curious psychopathic need to erase all memory of the Giants teams of Mays, Cepeda, McCovey, Bobby Bonds, Jack Clark; Will Clark, Mitchell, Williams, Burks, Kent and Barry Bonds.

Its as if any aspiration to acquire or develop homerun threats other than for propaganda purposes, is not to be tolerated. As if being a power team was an affront to the sensibilities of maggots who snivel and sneeze at even the hint that the Giants might once again become associated with the most vile word in the media's dictionary, the dreaded "S" word. Its as if the Giants have deliberately cowed to the Bruce Jenkins, Hank Schulmans, Andy Baggarlys and the rest of the braying ninny brigade to forever only promote finesse small ball and mindless recitations from the Ayatollah Sabean and his imbecilic Iman, Bruce Bochy.

So just in case all that left-over grape cool-aid from Jonestown hasn't rotted out your entire brain I'm going to let these little morsels speak up for themselves

Payroll and Rank
$131 Million 2nd in National League 6th Majors

3 games in. 3 games out, of first place.
25 games in. 5 games out
Series Played 8
Series Won 5
Series Been Swept 2
Series Sweeps 0
Series Won against winning teams 1 - New York Mets
Games under .500 1
12 Wins - 13 Losses

Starting infield, Major League Service in Years - OPS+ and salary

1b - Brandon Belt - .13 yrs - 114 - $481,000
2b - Emmanuel Burriss, 2.15 yrs - 67 - $625,000
SS - Brandon Crawford, .094 yrs - 64 - $481,000
3b - Connor Gillaspie, .058 yrs - MLB minimum

Others Joaquin Arias, Brett Pill, Ryan Theriot,

Highest Paid Position Players for 2012 - Current Status

CF Aaron Rowand $12 Million - Released 2011
1B Aubrey Huff $10 Million - DL
2B Freddy Sanchez $6 Million - DL
LF Melky Cabrera $6 Million - 117
CF Angel Pagan $4.8 Million - 107
3B Pablo Sandoval $3.2Million - DL

Last Player not named Barry Bonds with 30 or more Homeruns.

Jeff Kent - 35 - 2002

Number of players on pace to hit 30 or more homeruns in 2012
None

Projected NL Finish at current pace:
78 Wins - 10th Place overall, 4th in NL West

A Crazy Crab Advocates For A Crawdad

Fri, 04 May 2012 13:11:12 -0700

Stats - Making A Case For Brandon Crawford
A fella who is an unabashed, and unashamed San Francisco Giants fan, in the midst of a Giants losing streak, and a Brandon Crawford month-long meltdown posted a very convincing piece on why he still supports Brandon Crawford. Scott Willis (aka @CrazyCrabbers on Twitter) is a stats aficionado and he uses some of said stats to make his case. I strongly suggest you read it, before you read my response which follows:

E - An Empirical Case Against
Brandon Crawford has never hit at any level. Ever. I haven't seen his high school numbers (which are as meaningful as where a guy hits in the order in American Legion Ball), but everywhere else, I'm sorry, he's not even mediocre.

It is very apparent he can't even adjust to the pitching of the higher minor leagues.

No Reason To Expect Improvement
To expect him at this age (25) and point of his career (5th year of Pro-Ball) to all of a sudden make a quantum leap up to mediocre while going up to the Majors is not supported empirically.

Look, Brandon Crawford has a nice demeanor, a nice attitude, and a very nice "book" swing, all of which contribute to the idea that so many think "he will come around". Its a siren song that old world/old knowledge guys like Sabean and Bochy buy into while at the same time putting the boot to Belt because his "swing is ugly", and he won't listen to Joe Lala-Fay's or Sir Bim-Bom-Bam-Bam's hitting fairy-tales.

Bandwagon Precedence
Look back over the years and, and well, a lot of former Giants disasters had "sweet-looking swings", including Eddie Murray's kid brother Rich, Damon Minor, Todd Linden, Mike Benjamin, JR Phillips: Great looking "swings". And disasters at the plate and on the field.

The MLB game is fast, faster, fastest. Its not bad luck that is causing Crawford problems in the field. He's having problems because he can't keep up with the speed of the game at this level. Frandsen could never make the adjustment to the incredible speed of the game in time either. Then injuries killed his development.

The reason Crawford's BABIP (Batting Average of Balls put in Play) numbers are crummy (.240 or so) is because he is a crummy hitting minor leaguer, and an even crummier hitting Major Leaguer. Combine that with less than a high school season's worth of abs, (60 balls in play), including his "line drives", its almost impossible to conclude that this is bad luck except for the most optimistic of true believers that requires a faith bordering on the intensity of radical Islam.

Team Stats Can Be Misleading When Applied to Individuals.
Bad hitting players are always going to look like their hitting in "bad luck". BABIP works on individual evaluations only when you can personally observe what his tools are actually enabling him to do with a major league pitch. Using 60 balls in play to try and project a useful batter is not really realistic, especially when there is no track record whatsoever of him being adequate at any lower level, much less against the best players in the world. So much for his offensive weapons.

On defense he has hands of clank, because he can't keep up with the speed of the Major League game. Not because of "bad luck" either. If you do not anticipate mentally on every pitch, you're doomed. I see this with a lot of "tool" guys like Crawford who can make scouts and front office types oooh and ahhhh.

Defense Is As Mental As Hitting
Their whole life, natural ability has enabled them to not work very hard at the mental or focus side of the game, and then when they get here, POW. They come up against guys every bit as physically-gifted, but who also learned to develop the mental and emotional aspects required to get an edge. That makes the game even that much harder for guys like Crawford. Guys who are not only incredibly gifted tool-wise but incredibly baseball smart who anticipate and out-think their opponents every step of the way will expose a kid who is unprepared for that aspect of the game..

Joe Montana was not a great QB because of his arm, he was a great QB because he had quick feet and an even quicker football mind, that he worked on relentlessly to develop and anticipate action before it happened. Same with Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Master Chess players on the basepaths and in the field and at the plate.

Fan-Driven And Perhaps A Little One-Dimensional
Crazy Crabbers post, though really nicely written and presented logically, is just so mindful of the arguments from the pro-Kevin Frandsen and pro-Todd Linden crowds, and the arguments from the pro-future disappointments to come as well.

I mean, thats what being a fan is about, I suppose. Man I've fallen into that trap with players myself - projecting hopefulness into wishful thinking and then trying to justify it with some prior experience or actuarial prognostication. Hell I can remember listening to Al Michaels, and convincing myself that all those foul balls that Bobby Murcer was hitting down the right-field foul line at Candlestick would somehow straighten out, and he would indeed hit 40 plus homers per year as Willie Mays' replacement after Bobby Bonds was summarily shipped out.

It could happen Crabbers way; I hope it does actually. There's much to like about Crawford on a personal level. The Giants are a 90+ loss team at this point

Not Looking Good
The albatross of trying to get by with a minor league infield, Posey, Pagan, Melky a couple of good starters and a regressed bullpen. It's not a bright immediate future right now

It Is The Jacks, Jack

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:07:00 -0700

Old Coach's Proverb
"Put 4 balls in play, score 2 runs, that's a pretty good inning. One ball in play, score 3 runs you probably win."

A Few Names From The Past - At Least One Season with 25 HR 1958 thru 1969: Willie Mays, Orlando Cepeda, Willie McCovey, Felipe Alou, Jim Ray Hart, Tom Haller, Bobby Bonds

1970 thru 1979 Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Bobby Bonds, Dave Kingman, Jack Clark, Mike Ivie,

1980 thru 1989 Jack Clark, Darrell Evans, Will Clark, Kevin Mitchell

1990 thru 1999 Kevin Mitchell, Matt Williams, Barry Bonds, Jeff Kent, JT Snow, Ellis Burks

2000 thru 2011 Barry Bonds, Jeff Kent, Rich Aurilia, Ray Durham, Pablo Sandoval, Aubrey Huff.

Please Note: Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent are the only players with more than one season of 25 or more homeruns since 2000. Since 2005 only 3 players not named Bonds have hit 25 homeruns. Ray Durham hit 26 homeruns in 2006. Pablo Sandoval hit 25 homeruns in 2009 Aubrey Huff hit 26 in 2010. There have been no players to hit 30 or more homeruns since Barry Bonds hit 45 in 2004. The number of MLB players with 25 or more homeruns in a season since that time: 2005 - 45, 2006 - 54, 2007 - 46, 2008 - 50, 2009 - 55, 2010 - 42, 2011 - 42.

Season by Season Look At Giants Power vs Pitching vs Results.
For SF Giants purposes, we're only looking at PacBell/SBC/AT&T so that we're comparing apples to apples. How the Giants compared and contrasted to themselves from year to year. The park opened in 2000, and covers two generations of ballplayers using 5.6 years as the length of the major league career.

This is as good a time as any I guess, to point out that a lot folks believe that pitching is the primary if not the sole factor of success in the pursuit of championships. That there really is no such thing as great hitting anymore, with the exception of a few HOF-types, when facing good pitching. Only average hitting that is exposed by good pitchers.

The baseball culture smog say If a guy hits a jack, its because the pitcher made a mistake. Not coincidentally, this tends to be exactly what one will hear and read from a lot of media and talk-shows and blogs.

Whether that goes to demonstrate that a lot of seemingly otherwise discerning fans, who are parroting almost verbatim these notions, are inhalers of the smog, is yet another one of those discussions for another time.

It seems to me, in the case of the Giants anyway, that attributing "winning" almost exclusively to the whims of the pitching gods, is a pretty incomplete statement. Actually the seasons and post-seasons seem to be determined by the winner of the pitching vs power matchups; not the winner of the pitching vs pitching matchups. At least in the case of the Giants over the last two generations of ballplayers when they have power they win more than they lose. In the regular season as well as the post season.

Year	Home Runs Rank MLB	Runs Scored Rank MLB	Runs Allowed Rank MLB	Standings NL	Games Behind NL Leader	Post Season HR - Opp HR	Post Season Notes
2000	6	5	5	1	0	2 - 3 NYM LDS	Lost LDS 3-1
2001	2	9	14	4	3
2002	6	11	2	4	6.5	6-5 ATL LDS 7-7 STL LCS 12-7ANA WS	Win LDS 3-2 Win LCS 4-1 Lost WS 4-3
2003	12	15	3	2	0.5	0-1 FLA LDS	Lost LDS 3-1 (7 errors)
2004	17	7	16	5	14
2005	27	29	17	12	25
2006	22	25	16	10	20.5
2007	25	29	6	14	19
2008	30	29	17	12	25.5
2009	29	29	2	5	7
2010	11	17	2	2	5	2-3 ATL LDS 4-3 PHI LCS 8-3 TEX WS	Win LDS 3-1 Win LCS 4-2 Win WS 4-1
2011	22	29	2	6	16
2012	17	17	12	7	5	After 18 Games

Homeruns Do Matter - A lot
The Giants have been to the post-season in 4 of the last 11 complete seasons. Once since Sabean became the baseball face of the franchise in the post-Baker-Bonds era. They have split four Division Series, won two Pennants, lost the 2002 World Series, and homered their way past the Texas Rangers in 2010. Thats 8 Series and 40 post-season games. They won 5 of those 8 series; winning 23 of the 40 games. In the five series they won, they out-homered or tied their opponents in 4 of them. In the 3 series they lost, they were out-homered in 2 of them.

Causation or Correlation
In the Giants case, its pretty clear from the table above that there is a large correlation between homeruns, runs scored and how competitive they are. When they hit homeruns, they score and win and even when they don't win, they are a lot closer to the better teams more often than not. And when they don't hit, not only are they far behind the leaders, they are either getting drearily hammered, squandering scoring opportunities right and left, and putting their pitching staff under undo stress, or eking out wins that while tense, are not very impressive.

Its not a scientific study so I am not going to quantify to a mathematical certainty that the number of home-runs are the primary contributing factor to winning championships. All I am stating here is that homeruns are big factors. The more homeruns hit, the more runs scored. Which of course is the object of the game; to score more than the other guy. So when their importance is minimized, or not addressed, more than likely your team is going to be looking up in the standings from a long distance. Like, too often, the Giants. In spite of their pitching.

The Fear Factor
Not only on paper are homeruns important, but they scare the crap out of pitchers who are pitching for teams that have little or no homerun hitters to answer back. To wit, look at the Reds dominance over the Giants in recent games. And if you want to pooh-pooh the idea of the importance of homeruns, ask Giants fans about Scott Spezio, or Phillies fans about Cody Ross, and Rangers fans about Edgar Renteria or the whole world about Barry Bonds, the most dominant offensive player since Babe Ruth.

I can't even count the number of times when Bonds came up in close games and jacked one out to clinch a Giants win, or bring them from behind. And I can count on one hand the number of hit-and-runs that have accomplished the same over the years. Actually I can't remember a single one, though I'm sure there are more than a few. So homeruns have the thrill factor going for it.

Which is Nice.

Post-Script
Lately, the wags on radio, TV, blogs etc. are bemoaning the SF Giants lack of timely hitting, going from 1st to 3rd, hit and run, working the count and all the rest of the stuff they teach you in little league and high school where bodies are not fully mature, the stranding base-runners problem would be solved, and the Giants would score more. I know there is a school of thought that subscribes to that. Earl Weaver and Tony LaRussa, Nolan Ryan, the Yankees and Red Sox are not from that school however.

The best way to minimize stranding runners and avoid the LOBs is the 3 or 4 run jack. You have two guys that hit bombs and it solves everything most of the time. The Giants need only look at themselves over their 53 year history for proof of that.

Home Again

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 08:49:00 -0700

Prayer Answered Post-Game Update 4:20pm
Alvin Dark, Gaylord Perry, Orlando Cepeda, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Ernie Bowman, Carl Boles, Jimmy Davenport, Billy Pierce, Don Larsen, Mike McCormick and Lon Simmons. Escorted onto the field by 2012 Giants. Mike Krukow gave the speech of his life, an F-18 and his wingman and the best rendition of the Star Spangled Banner since Whitney Houston's Superbowl from all those years ago.

Bryan Stow's son, Tyler, threw out the first pitch with Jeremy Afeldt at his side as he has been for almost a year, along with the rest of the Giants. Kid has an arm. Threw a seed just outside the strikezone. Dad on the Jumbotron with his mother to encourage Tyler on. A moment in time.

And Matt Cain throws a 1 hit complete game shutout, Giants win 5-0. The rain went away the sun came out and the season started once again.
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Please Let There Be No Rain Today
There is no place like home. Nothing is like a home opener for the home team. Today's Opener in San Francisco will not be unlike VJ Day on Market Street in 1945. For a very special reason. As a people we had no differences too large to put aside; at least for a little while. The mutuality of our joint triumph over horror, and cruelty superseded all reasons for petty things. We put aside our hostility over cultural and ideological differences to celebrate like rescued survivors in shark infested ocean waters.

The Giants Are The Best At This
Nobody throws a home-opener bash like the San Francisco Giants. Along with the Yankees and Dodgers, the Giants are one of the most if not the most heritage-rich and tradition-steeped baseball institutions in the good 'ol US of A. Almost 50 years ago, the San Francisco Giants and their Hall of Famers took those same Yankees and their Hall of Famers, to the very last pitch of Game Seven after a series of rain storms interrupted the World Series. Willie McCovey's smash, snagged by Yankee second-baseman Bobby Richardson left an indelible mark on the souls and open wound in the hearts of San Franciscans and Giants fans everywhere. It would remain that way for 48 years.

It stayed that way, season after season, year after year, only the Cubs going longer without a World Series Championship. And then in 2010, the home grown baby-faces of Tim Lincecum, Pablo Sandoval, Buster Posey, Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Jonathan Sanchez and the grizzled chops of the bullpen, Cody Ross, Aubrey Huff and Pat Burrell and all the others made it their business to erase those indelible marks and suture those wounds forever.

Today Will Go Into History
Today all those homegrown players (except for Jonathan Sanchez) from that 2010 World Championship team will be on the same field (the Baseball Gods willing) at the same time with many of those from the 1962 Giants and their five homegrown Hall of Famers; Willie McCovey, Willie Mays, Orlando Cepeda, Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry. There will be others there too. For those who are not Giants family it would be the national equivalent of seeing President Kennedy emerge from history to be with President Obama, standing together in front of the White House to honor and recognize each other and the American People.

Giants Perfection In Every Way
So while I castigate Giants management and the Giants ownership relentlessly about their roster composition and young players and marketing programs, their shortfalls are nothing when contrasted with the incredible, spectacular and perfect ways in which they treat and honor their Giants family, inside and outside the lines. They are deeply committed to keeping the bond between the citizenry and the team strong and viable, from generation to generation. My grandfather, my father, myself, and my son were and are living proof of that.

Good Thoughts
I just wanted to share a few thoughts from a guy who spent a lot of his life around this game and who has been lucky enough to see a lot of San Francisco Giants history as a result. I am not going to go on much longer here; but I wanted to say this. Seeing all the younger fans and young families, and oldsters and the kaleidoscopic range of cultures sitting and cheering and disappointed together makes you feel real special. It makes you feel like your team does matter in history, that the Giants do matter in shaping a young person's life and keeping the dream alive in an older person's life. All of these things, spread over generations, in all of these little villages that make up San Francisco and environs.

Yeah. The Home Opener

Barry Zito Pitches Professional Game - What The Hell Ever.

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:05:57 -0700

OOOOHHHHH. AAAAAAHHHHHH
So went the media shills (and fellow overpaid failure Aubrey Huff) after Zito pitched a 9 inning shutout against the hapless Rockies. I had a couple of calls asking me what I was going to write about Zito. Being as everybody knows I think Zito's presence in a Giants uniform is about on par with rubber dog shit wearing a Giants jersey in a cargo plane to Hong Kong flown I guess I am obligated to scribble something.

If you give a shit, (which I don't by the way) here's the box score of Monday's game:

San Francisco	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Zito (W, 1-0)	9.0	4	0	0	0	4	0	0.00

Reality
Very Nice. Here's the reality.Up through yesterday Zito has started 141 games for the Giants. You know how many of those games in those 6 years he actually finished before yesterday? TWO. Thats right.Two.Thats not even mediocre. Its not even professional.There are double amputee challenger little-leaguers who have better stuff than Zito. A fastball that topped out in the thin daytime air of Colorado at 84 mph is about as credible as a 12 year old's batting average.

He still has high school stuff, his pitches were still up as most of his outs came from flyballs, and only 4 swing-throughs in over 100 pitches. His last complete game shutout was over 250 games ago in 2003. So if anybody believes this a sign that Barry Zito has once again "turned the corner" please feel free to blow your opinion out your ass... far from here.

Gloating
Henry"The Shill" Schulman was ecstatic about his "Michelangelo", blathering and claiming redemption for the $126 Million guitar playing quiche eater. Apparently so was the Giants position player representative on the albatross contract leader board: "I couldn't be happier for Barry," first baseman Aubrey Huff said. "It's no secret he's been buried by the fans, the media and everything like that. To see him go out and throw a complete-game shutout in Colorado ... all the haters out there, that's for them." Actually when "; your guy finagles a win, its for you and your team, not a bunch of so-called "haters". But hey, these little subtleties tend to get overlooked when you've been run out of 3 towns in 3 years.

So according to Mr. Aubrey "Lush-life" Huff, Zito is back and all the haters have to eat crow. I guess when you're sporting a 214 Batting Average after last year's 246, and $20 Million contract, you are entitled to gloat I suppose. I can see how this genius feels completely vindicated by Zito's performance, as well as his own in the clean-up spot. Almost makes you pine for the return of Bengie Molina who was actually about 50 points better. Soon enough, Huff will depart San Francisco the way he departed Tampa, Baltimore, and Detroit--out the back door when nobody is listening or cares anymore.

Are You Betting Your Mortgage on Zito?
From reading the beatwriter's bleat, Giants fans should feel warm and fuzzy at the probability of Zito leading the staff to a division title. Especially considering: "...Zito followed awful performances by Tim Lincecum, Madison Bumgarner and Matt Cain and pitched his first shutout in 141starts as a Giant,

Good to know that Barry Zito has everybody's backs now. After 6 years. And dozens of avoidable losses and bush-league bullpen-killing starts. And lost play-off opportunities. And missed chances to acquire quality hitters.Yup.Good to know Michelangelo and his 82 mph fastball and little-league change-up are here to lead the Giants to yet another WS championship just like he did in 2010. You remember. When he was bounced from the roster after choking up the division clincher against San Diego and than asked to turn in his uniform for the post-season. That guy. Promised Land express.

Adios And A Reminder To Not Be An Idiot
Good grief. Reading the Giants beat writers is worse than reading the faculty-censored school paper at St. Elsewhere Elementary School. I have nothing else to say.There is nothing else to say. Both Zito and Huff will be gone by the All-Star break, the same way I told you Scott Cousins would be long gone from the Marlins roster last year, weeks before the Giants rolled into town.

Being a fan is cool. Being an optimist is cool. Positive thinking is good. Stupid lying idiotic propagandizing isn't.

Tim Lincecum - Pitcher And Competitor

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 10:45:59 -0700

The Bay Area Media Will Not Touch This Yet.
There is a pretty interesting post over here about Tim Lincecum and some thoughts on what it will take to convince him to not slip out the back when he hits free-agency at the end of the 2013 season. The author claims to have talked to friends and acquaintances of Lincecum who say they have a pretty good feel for Lincecum's attitude about the Giants baseball operations and its impact on his willingness to stay or leave San Francisco.

Five Things That Concern Lincecum About The Giants Front Office (Allegedly)

1. Get better hitters;
2. Don't ask, don't tell when it comes to Lincecum smoking dope;
3. Back off the constant hype to peddle tickets and merchandise by making him the center of unwanted personal attention;
4. Demonstrate a commitment to excellence in the whole team, not just enough to get by.
5. Get the local clubhouse permanent presence media guys (primarily Henry Schulman and Andy Baggarly) off his ass about his fastball 24/7; apparently it has reached stupid proportions and though he says nothing, he's pretty annoyed. (Barry Bonds anyone?)

Some Thoughts
The only way the Giants will get the types of hitters they need is to move Sabean laterally into Felipe Alou or Jack Hiatt status as bureaucrat emeritus. I've written extensively about Sabean's numerous shortcomings and demonstrable failures. The most recent, citing his belly-flops while trying to attract the kinds of players Philadelphia, Anaheim, NYY, Texas, Detroit, St. Louis, Boston, do is here. More here, here, and here. The Giants offense has been no better than 17th since 2004. That was the Burrell, Torres, Huff, Ross, Renteria lightning in a bottle season, and about as repeatable as Bobby Thomson's 1951 jack off Ralph Branca.

While we're at it, if you don't think sitting in the dugout 33 times a year watching Zito take his team out of games by the third inning for 5 consecutive years with no end in sight doesn't piss off other players, then you should be following bocce ball tournaments or go take a course in remedial little league.

Drugs
Believe it or not, there ares some outspoken estipudos who genuinely believe that the MLB/MLPA doesn't cover recreational drugs like marijuana. Attention. Random drug testing, including for marijuana goes on at all college levels and has for years. That's a non-starter in any conversation. Lincecum knows that as well as the next guy so this is a paper tiger issue.

Exploitation of His Name For Marketing Purposes - "Stop Using Me To Hide Your Failures"
Obviously clubs want to market their stars. And I don't have much problem with that. With one exception. That exception is when the marketing campaign is meant to hide serious flaws in the construction of the ball-club. The Giants marketing machine is as slick as any hedge-fund, used car, or carnival barkers and pitchmen around. That is Baer's claim to fame. Of course he sounds sincere. Jim Jones, Jim and Tammy Baker and all good marketers believe their own bullshit with as much fervor as a People's Temple kool-aid drinker believed Jim Jones and all the other congregationalists of these high-power ballpark-church-experience outfits.

Premier Marketing Operation
The Giants under his direction have become the premier marketing, and merchandising franchise in the Major Leagues. Baer has used his vast experience and expertise to not only promote the club, but to divert attention. The more he has focused on Lincecum over the last several years, the easier it has been to divert attention to the real shortcomings that prevent the Giants from being a dominant franchise. Like Zito, like Rowand, Sanchez, Felipe Alou, etc. etc. So I get what Lincecum means. "Stop using me to prop up your mistakes." He's a private kid to begin with. Remember, he learned ball from his dad, a no bullshit bull-collar gritty self-made individual who is a pull no punches kind of guy who has kept both his son's eyes open. He seems like a guy who has about as much use for the yuppie art and opera crowd as Charlie Stoneham did.

Commit To Improving The Whole Team All The Time. Not Just Piecemeal.
Lincecum, his agent, and his father Chris know as well as I do, that the assets of the Giants Ownership are more significant than the public generally believes, by a lot. By billions. It is easily available from public records and the internet. Listening to Rainy Day Funds, and budgets is fine for public consumption, but not when it comes to competing with the Phillies, Rangers, Angels, Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals year in and year out, not just once every 10 years.

Schulman And Baggarly
I'm not sure about this one. Not much was provided in the way of storyline here except to say he's tired of these two guys always asking him about his fastball. But I can see it. I'm sick of hearing about it. It is chickenshit criticism disguised as questions. If people see a problem with his fastball, it hurts him at the negotiating table. And if its one thing those two guys seem to have, it is a cozy relationship with the Giants front office.

Its not just the fastball velocity. Its part and parcel of the continuous questioning of Lincecum's physicality and mental make-up. He is too small, too flaky, too, radical etc. to be a great pitcher in the long term.

They're going to continue poking this bear until that inevitable time where Lincecum may have a bad few months or even a whole season. And when he does, it will be like listening to the head of the RNC every night ranting about Monica Lewinsky in 1998. These are the same guys that couldn't wait to write crap about Bonds, or Baker, or anybody else who got fed up with them, and told them to shove off. The old "I'm just trying to do my job went the way of the doh-doh bird when "Game of Shadows" put the wood to Barry Bonds and the Giants..

I could see Lincecum being tired of these two guys. To me they're smarmy even when trying to put their best foot forward on television and radio. If I had to deal with them on a daily basis, the way Bonds did, I would probably be in Folsom doing 10 - 20. When I say things like "those that can, play ball, those that can't, gossip about those that can." those are two of the guys I have in mind. But not much was attributed to Lincecum, so who knows?

Nerd-Mob Rule - Picking On Amy G.

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 21:14:00 -0700

(E Notes: Seldom will you find posts from me defending those connected to the SF Giants Front Office. So when somebody goes off on media, players, suits or others who are public figures, I get it. Having said that, I finally got fed up with the amount of bullshit being unfairly heaped on somebody who is considered a pretty nice individual by people whose opinions I respect. Particularly more than some random guy who refers to himself as a part of the male anatomy. You see, I have a daughter a little bit younger than Amy G who faced this same kind of animosity, envy and resentment for a lot of the same reasons. Because she was personable, attractive, smart, an accomplished hoopster, equestrian, friend to the underdog, and very comfortable in her own skin. And on top of all that, still knew more about baseball than 90% of the mean little shits that tried to ridicule her. So there you have it. Its personal, and I don't give a shit if that bothers some.)

Fear And Loathing On the Interwebs
Seems mob psychosis is not just for real life. It seems to permeate certain social media during Giants home games when Giants sideline smiley-face Amy G is doing her job. Which is interviews. Its not that I am a big fan of her work. I am not. I've been talking to ballplayers my whole life. And its not because I think she is bad at what she does. I think that she is very good at it actually. Its because her niche is not my demographic; a grumpy, smart-ass who has been around baseball and the Giants longer than she has been alive; by a lot so I have respect for her work which is what all professionals want.

Like Giants PA announcer Renel Brooks, Amy G.is a designated cheer leader. Most teams have them. To the Giants credit they are identified as such. Not so the networks and other teams. Those are folks like Tim McCarver, Ken Harrelson, and the rest of one-sided homer whores who do play by play and analysis. Thats not her job. Kuip and Kruk and Jon Miller and Dave Flemming do that job for the Giants.

Amy G's job is to communicate the touchy-feel side of the Giants organization. And for some reason, that drives an inordinate number of otherwise rational-appearing folks to rant beyond all reasonable explanation. The hate is visceral. Its the same kind of venom one hears when racial issues are brought up. Ugly. Evil. Hateful.

Misogynistic Behavior as a Fallout of Envy
Which brings me to the subset of tools and fools on Twitter and blogs, who think it is dope to demean her personally for doing puff-piece segments. The attacks are mostly personal in nature and reminiscent of the dorky high school shit-bags who ridiculed girls for their appearances, clothes, complexion or any other damn thing that oozed up into their creepy semi-consciousness. It is the same kind of ignorant and envy-driven resentment displayed over player salaries.

Agenda-Free. Its Good For Your Disposition
Her job entails being a personable un-obnoxious, un-opinionated professional woman whose subjects feel comfortable with. Her job is not to be Gary Radnich or Ray Ratto or Andrew Baggarly or Greg Pappa or an agent provocateur. Her job is to give the casual TV fan a personal and casual glimpse into other fans, players, and other personalities in and around the Giants. Thats it. And if you think of her and Renel (Giants PA Announcer) as the "First Ladies of the San Francisco Giants" then you will understand.

Ridiculing Amy G on a personal level for doing her job is no better than attacking Laura Bush or Michelle Obama for doing theirs. Which is to be an ambassador. Not a policy wonk. Folks who live in Petaluma see her and her husband and kids around town all the time I am told. She truly enjoys being engaged with Giants fans all over town to chat and commiserate and talk about the Giants. She is a genuinely nice person it appears, and why some folks have a hard time with that is pathetic and speaks volumes about their own insecurities and personality defects..

Amy G Is a Goodwill Ambassador And A Respected Professional.
She was an accomplished collegiate athlete herself at UC Davis, so she brings an insight that most of the hacks who cover and talk about the Giants can never understand. She knows first hand what dedicated athletes have to do to be successful. And she knows how to ask the questions in a manner that will elicit responses that are not one or two words.

Once the post-season begins, Major League Baseball decides who and who does not get down on the field after the game. Amy G was the only Comcast reporter granted access after the Giants won the WS.

And the hacks and the resentment filled cannot accept that. It is just something that drives them to act out and say the most vile things about somebody who has done no harm and intends no harm.

But Aren't You The Guy Who Is always Ripping The Bay Area Media?
I am that guy for sure. But there is a difference here. Amy G is not intellectually lazy, nor is she a sour-grapes scandal monger who pretends to know more than she does, and does not shade stories to advance a persona agenda. Clearly she likes the people she works with and the people she interviews. And clearly her relationships with Giants players and staff is personal. That is what she is paid to do, and she does it very well.

A Few Fake Fans Are Phony
But as evidenced by the vile self-righteous rage that arose after her simple congratulatory hug of Jonathan Sanchez after his historic no-hitter from somebody who understands what it is like to struggle and then succeed, it appears I am either in the minority or part of an eerily silent majority who were not offended. Worse, if it had been Krukow or Kuiper it would have all been good and the dorks would have been writing sonnets all over Giants message boards in iambic pentameter. .

It's the same individuals who railed at the wooden Joe Buck during the 2010 World Series who seemed to be the loudest in their condemnation of her unrehearsed happiness for one of the good guys who had worked long and hard to reach the pinnacle he reached. That is the empathy that one who has toiled hard at athletic achievement herself on display. Was it good journalism? Hell if I know. But clearly to the number of outraged commentators/Giants bloggers it was a moral outrage akin to the water-boarding of terrorists.

Misplaced Ire And Idiocy
It is the fact that people were and are piling on a well-meaning person trying damn hard to do a good job. And those people should be directing their idiocy and ire at the Giants front office and ownership who have deliberately avoided making the Giants a top of the heap franchise again by willfully refusing to replace front-office and roster flotsam, and allocate San Francisco Baseball Associates funds to undo the damage done by Sabean and his protector Larry Baer, over the last several years.

Amy G is the last thing that is wrong with the Giant's franchise. For people to jump on her is no different than expressing faux outrage at the butter shortage in Denmark during World War II. Unfortunately it says more about the spewers than the spewed upon.