What About Joe
You probably know lots of Joe's. Lots of guys named Joe have been born, played ball, gone to war, done both, done neither, lived and then died. Baseball Research lists 750 guys named Joe who played in the Big Leagues including 46 All-Stars
Eleven Joes enshrined in the Hall of Fame and one who was good enough to, but was left out.
Thats what I write about here. The Joes of the world.
E
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Wednesday, May 16 2012 @ 09:24 PM PDT
Contributed by: E
Views: 126
 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.
Monday, May 14 2012 @ 06:11 PM PDT
Contributed by: E
Views: 54
 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.
Friday, May 11 2012 @ 10:31 PM PDT
Contributed by: E
Views: 120
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
Friday, May 04 2012 @ 05:21 PM PDT
Contributed by: E
Views: 77
 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
Friday, May 04 2012 @ 01:11 PM PDT
Contributed by: E
Views: 94
 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
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