As tough as it is watching Lincecum struggle, it is easily the most surprising and astounding turnaround to watch Barry –the Hit Man– Zito turn around his career. Kudos to Zito for handling his difficult time with class and dignity, never sniping, complaining, or really doing anything to convey his dissatisfaction with anything that was happening to him during his first five seasons with the team.

Really, that is perhaps the most inspiring part of his story. Between the horrible pitching, the constant pressure on him because of his huge contract, the booing, the demotion for the 2010 playoff run…. Zito has been a model player in the clubhouse, in the press, and apparently, everywhere else. The result is a player whose return to success is easy to root for, and is really one of the best redemption story imaginable. A player who is celebrated for his ability to turn around what had once seemed to be the end of his career and not only play well, but to even contribute to a championship of his own.

…. “It gets back to competing,” (Bruce) Bochy said. “It doesn’t matter what you’re doing in this game: pitching, swinging the bat, playing defense – it’s all about competing. He’s as tough a competitor as I’ve been around.”

His success so far this season has been a breath of fresh air, and reminds us that comebacks can happen, that people can overcome adversity, and they can do it with grace and class.

Good for him, and good for the Giants.

UPDATE: Jonah Keri goes deeper on Lincecum in Grantland today:

…. Baseball Prospectus writer and pitching mechanics expert Doug Thorburn addressed this in a pair of articles last year: Lincecum’s delivery depends on perfect mechanics, and that trademark gigantic stride. As he wrote in an e-mail:

…. He was able to generate ridiculous momentum early in his career (a huge advantage), and he found a timing pattern with it that he could repeat, which was critical for commanding the fastball and keeping that split-change buried under the zone. That stride and momentum required excellent lower body strength, and when his delivery fell out of whack back in 2010, the solution was rooted in conditioning — he had lost his timing because he could not consistently generate his usual stride pattern. Last season, his momentum was noticeably down when compared to his peak, and he struggled to find his timing for most of the season — I thought it was telling that he did so well out of the ’pen, where he could go all out rather than conserve stamina.

Thorburn expressed some mild optimism that Lincecum could bounce back a bit if he can fix his mechanics, which could in turn allow him to better control where his pitches are going. But the beast of four years ago, the guy with the fastball that hit the high-90s and the split-change that was one of the most unhittable pitches in the game? That guy’s almost certainly not coming back. Research on pitcher aging curves by Mike Fast and Jeremy Greenhouse suggests that a pitcher this young shouldn’t be suffering from this steep of a performance decline, and that it can be very tough to improve once that decline starts.

The worst thing is that I agree with him. If the loss in velocity, now around 5+ MPH since his rookie season, is unfixable, he’s either heading to a closer role, or he’s done. Either way, I think it’s safe to say Sabean looks like Nostradamus by holding the line on Lincecum’s salary demands over these last couple of years. At any time over these last three years or so, Lincecum could have been signed to a five or six-year deal that right now would be terrifying to the team. Instead, they failed/succeeded in ensuring that whatever deal they were discussing, it didn’t work for someone, and the Giants are actually looking at being able to walk away from Lincecum should this season be another train wreck.

UPDATE, Part II: Well, today did nothing to dispel my concerns. Lincecum looked completely lost, missing his spots by a foot or more. The hitters bailed him out again, but, holy Christ, he looks awful.

April 11th, 2013 | Permalink
Posted in Barry Zito, Brian Sabean, Bruce Bochy, Cy Young, NL West, San Francisco Giants, Tim Lincecum, World Series | 7 Backtalkers »

I have a minute to sit down and write. Sorry for the lack of posts, my life has been very challenging lately.

So, the Giants reach the 40 game mark tomorrow, which means a quarter of the season is in the books, and the team is in first place in the NL West, 22-17. The pitching has been anywhere from good to awesome, and the offense has been abysmal. There’s not a player on the team having a surprisingly good season at the plate, (except for pitcher Ryan Vogelsong, more on him in a moment). For all intents and purposes, 2011 feels just like last years playoff run, with our pitchers just running out zero after zero waiting for a run.

Offensively, Tejada looks pretty much done, and defensively, he’s been atrocious. I couldn’t have imagined that Uribe would be missed this much, but, damn. Panda came out on fire, his injury was a huge disappointment. He must have been particularly bummed given how hard he worked, and how terrific his season was starting out as.

Burrell has been timely, but, then again, so has everyone. That’s how you win 22 games with the second fewest runs scored in all of baseball.

Barry Zito is on the DL, and his replacement, Vogelsong, has been just short of a revelation. Do the Giants just give Zito his spot in the rotation like nothing’s happened, or do they stick with Vogelsong? I’d love to see them dump Zito to the Yankees, who could use some inning eating, and maybe pick up a hitter. Not likely, sure, but here’s hoping.

All in all, not a bad start defending their title. It’s funny, for all the hype about the Phillies big three pitchers, the Giants have allowed only 8 more runs than Philadelphia, are leading all of baseball in strikeouts (328), and have allowed just an astounding 19 home runs. When the hitters come around, I expect the Giants to become quite formidable.

May 15th, 2011 | Permalink
Posted in Barry Zito, Bill Neukom, Brian Sabean, NL West, San Francisco Giants | 14 Backtalkers »

I’m not surprised to read that the Giants would like to get out from under the $46 million they owe Barry Zito. I’m surprised that the team would leak that information, since it just makes Sabean’s efforts much more difficult.

I could see the Giants taking some real long-shot prospects and a couple of bucks to send him to the Yankees. And I can almost see the Yankees taking a flier on him. Almost.

March 2nd, 2011 | Permalink
Posted in Barry Zito, Brian Sabean, NY Yankees, Rumor Mill | 17 Backtalkers »

The Giants have made their decision:

The Giants this morning will announce a Division Series roster that does not include pitcher Barry Zito, the team’s highest-paid player, a source said Wednesday night, several hours after manager Bruce Bochy said either Madison Bumgarner or Tim Lincecum would start a potential Game 4 in Atlanta.

Zito’s exclusion is not surprising, given his performance in Saturday’s possible division-clinching game against San Diego at AT&T Park. In a broader sense, this is stunning for a player who was given $126 million over seven years not only to pitch the Giants into the postseason, but also to be a face of the franchise in the post-Barry Bonds era.

It’s only stunning in that it is an admission of failure by Brian Sabean and team ownership; something that we Giants fans are hardly accustomed to. The outrageous contract they gave to an already declining Barry Zito four years ago –a contract that was an albatross almost from the minute it was signed– represents the very worst trait of Brian Sabean; he over-values proven major league players. This issue is one of the biggest complaints you’ll hear at OBM, so, for him to admit failing is pretty surprising. He never admits failure.

Kudos to Sabean and the rest of the Giants braintrust for being willing to bite the bullet.

UPDATE: Speaking about the use of replay….

There is no doubt that an effective and timely use of replay is available. It is as easy as having an umpire in a booth watching a HD broadcast. One of two simple options are available under that scenario. Either the HD ump has the ability to notify the umpire crew chief of an obvious mistake, (such as Torres’ foul/triple), or each team is allowed two challenges per game. That’s it. You could limit the challenges or not, it doesn’t matter, because each team is only allowed TWO PER GAME.

{Of course, the NFL chooses to limit what is challengeable, which is not only absurd –as it serves no real point– but, in fact, acts to undermine the effectiveness of the challenge system. Any play could change a win to a loss, and a phantom holding call on an 80-yard touchdown run is just as damaging/rewarding as a missed catch or fumble.}

Don’t bother talking to me about the time of the games, or the integrity of the game, or the built in fallibility of the men in blue. All of these arguments are flat-out absurd. There would be no significant impact to the length of the games. We already have delays when the umps gather together to discuss their limited ability to recall what they may or may not have seen; and these delays are happening while Tim McCarver is on television showing us over and over that the call was obviously and completely wrong, and anyone can see that it was.

The integrity of the game is harmed by allowing mistakes by umpires to be treated as a part of the game. The reason umpires are part if the game at all, is because the players, acting in their own self-interest, cannot be trusted to always tell it like it is. The objective umpire is the arbiter of whether the man is safe or out, whether it was a ball or a strike. There is no value added by allowing an umpires mistakes (or God forbid, his bias) negatively impact a game.

It is stubborn, pig-headedness that is preventing MLB from resolving this glaring problem, and the game is suffering because of it.

UPDATE: Via Baseball Musings, there has been an effort to set up a meeting between MLB officials, umpires, and the players:

…. Umpires’ profiles have increased in the past year, largely due to a series of missed calls in last year’s playoff games. This season, umpire Jim Joyce’s call denied Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga a perfect game only added to the focus and reignited a debate about expanding instant replay. Nearly a dozen players interviewed for this story told ESPN.com that relations between the two parties are deteriorating.

…. What the players would like to address, two player representatives said, is the growing concern among players about poor communication with umpires and what players see as a failure of accountability and transparency in the grading and evaluation of umpires.

…. (The Philadelphia Phillies’ Jimmy) Rollins said he’s noticed a change in the umpires’ patience this year. Often, he said, players aren’t allowed to question a call or get clarification about a rule because the umpire refuses to engage in conversation. Rollins also said that if players show too much emotion, like flipping a bat or shaking their head, they are much more apt to be thrown out of games than in past years. Other players echoed his thoughts.

“We’re supposed to yell at you, you know that?” Rollins said of the umps. “We’re trying to get every inch we can. You make the call, but you don’t have to keep looking back at me or antagonize and throw me out from the field while I’m in the dugout.

“It’s like umpires are taking it more personal these days. I don’t know what it was like back in the day, but looking at the footage, they’d get in these guys faces and ream them out. And umpires would stand there and when it was over they’d walk away. You’d really have to do something to get thrown out.”

October 7th, 2010 | Permalink
Posted in Barry Bonds, Barry Zito, Bill Neukom, Brian Sabean, Bruce Bochy, Cy Young, Matt Cain, NL West, San Francisco Giants, Tim Lincecum, Wild Card, World Series | 23 Backtalkers »

Cain was too amped. The home run to Gonzalez was the game-decider, and it was about 16″ away from Posey’s glove. The hitters gave away too many early at-bats, left too many guys on base, and Freddie Sanchez, Jay, made what any “veteran” player knows was an embarrassingly amateur baserunning mistake that took the game out of the team’s hands in the bottom of the ninth.

Other than that, the team fought back, had the tying run at the plate or on base three times in the last four innings. Tomorrow looms. Zito?

UPDATE: This doesn’t look good. Already down 4-0 in the fifth. Uh-oh…. Zito blows balls. 3 IP, 9 baserunners, 4 earned runs. There is no doubt his start should have been skipped in this game. Great.

UPDATE: By the way, the hitters look awful, too.

October 1st, 2010 | Permalink
Posted in Barry Zito, Brian Sabean, Bruce Bochy, NL West, San Francisco Giants, Wild Card, World Series | 147 Backtalkers »

Cain is perfect through three, and the Giants start out with a nice three-run lead. That’s what you call a bounce-back. At least for a beginning.

UPDATE: Cain is perfect through four. He has really come on during the second half of the season. Since the All Star break, he has the seventh best ERA in the NL (2.53), with 64 hits allowed in 89 innings, 77 strikeouts and just 17 walks. That all adds up to the second-best WHIP, (0 .91), which is simply outstanding.

For the month of September, Cain has been even better. Best WHIP in the league (0.71), 2.25 ERA, which is strangely high for a pitcher who is being so stingy. Best ERA in the NL for the month of September? Cole Hamels, at 0.63. Number two is none other than Jonathan Sanchez (0.73). Madison Bumgarner is at 1.00. With Lincecum at 2.08, good for 14th place, the Giants have four of the top 15 pitchers in the NL right now.

Actually, the Giants’ Core Four have been as dominating as any pitching staff in decades. The 18 game streak of not allowing more than three runs has only been bettered by the 1917 White Sox. Coming into today’s game, not one of them has a WHIP above 1.00. Actually, for all the Zito bashing going on here, his WHIP for the month is just 1.19, which is still pretty damn good, (although it’s possible that yesterday’s horror show isn’t included in today’s ESPN stats page)

UPDATE: Cain has a no-no through five. Worked through his first jam after walking Tulo. That’s two Giants pitchers going no hits through five innings at Coors Field, which is, quite frankly, outrageous. You have to admit, Lincecum, Cain and Sanchez makes the Giants look like a devastating playoff opponent.

UPDATE: No-no through six. Getting interesting….

UPDATE: No-no through seven. Definitely feels likew something is going on right now. Can’t get away from the game, because, damn, a no-hitter at Coors would be historic.

UPDATE: No no-no. Loses the no-no, and then the shutout. Let’s not lose the game, especially with the Reds pounding the Padres 6-2 in the sixth.

Cain’s gonna go for the complete game.

UPDATE: Great. Tulowitzky gets to bat as the tying run in the ninth inning again. Damn, this guy is terrifying right now. One out away.

UPDATE: Huge, HUGE win!!!! Great job by Cain. Come on, Reds!!!

September 26th, 2010 | Permalink
Posted in Barry Zito, Cy Young, Matt Cain, NL West, San Francisco Giants, Tim Lincecum, Wild Card, World Series | 73 Backtalkers »

I didn’t even get a chance to write that I was worried that Zito couldn’t keep the pitching streak going, and I walked in the living room to see that he was in the process of blowing a 4-2 lead. incredibly, the Giants hitters have bailed him out, at least to this point of the game.

It’s 8-6 G-men, with two on and nobody out in the sixth, after the Giants have put up six consecutive hits.

Torres was back tonight. He hit a homer, ran down a couple of blasts, and then left the game, hopefully just for precautionary reasons.

UPDATE: Hard to lose a game in a worse way than that. 4-2 lead, 9-6 lead, 9-7 lead, bottom of the ninth….. That was pretty awful. First time in a month that the bullpen faltered. Oh well. Zito is terrible. Just like that, out of the NL West lead.

UPDATE: Um…. Yeah, you guys are right. Bochy fucked up big time. Chris Ray? Really? Chris Ray?!?! Romero pulled after ten pitches? Not walking the hottest hitter in baseball with the game on the line, not once, but twice? You go after Tulowiztky two times in a row? That’s the plan?

Jesus Christ, what a collossal failure. Watching Bochy while he watched every move he made fail was like watching paint dry.

UPDATE: I was just looking up Tulowitzki. He’s got 15 home runs and 40 RBI this month. That’s in 94 at bats. 23 games. Wow. I’d also mention that he looked huge last night. He’s a shortstop, and I don’t remember him being so gigantic. His player page says he’s 6’3″ 205 pounds. Not anymore. I mean, he looks like he’s put on about twenty pounds of muscle from last season, no?

Big game today. The Giants need Cain to get the Colorado hitters back under control.

Back to the wrong Barry. If there was any doubt, it is now clear that the Zito contract is one of the three or four worst contracts in major league history, right up there with the Kevin Brown deal, the Mike Hampton disaster, and it is also clear that the Giants need to get out from under it someway. He is not just overpaid. It cannot be overstated how much it hurts a team to have a player who is not earning his keep, so to speak. Who cares that he is an adequate fourth or fifth starter? He practically makes more money than the entire rest of the pitching staff.

That has to be demoralizing. Sabean has to find a way to get him out of town.

September 25th, 2010 | Permalink
Posted in Barry Zito, Brian Sabean, NL West, San Francisco Giants, Wild Card, World Series | 36 Backtalkers »

Wow. What a stretch of awful baseball.

The Giants have scored 109 runs in 25 games in this month. They have pounded out 26 home runs, and 51 doubles. Of course, it’s been a little feast or famine, because 38 of those runs came in three games. Take those three games out, and it’s a very different story. Then we’re talking about 71 runs in 22 games, which is what a team scores when it is falling out of the race. That’s 3.27 runs per game, and when your pitchers are going through their worst stretch in two seasons, well, you know what’s gonna happen.

The pitching, the starters in particular, has been awful. Overall, they’ve allowed the fourth most run in the league, (127), so scoring 3.27 and allowing 5.08….

This is starting to look like a collapse, the kind that can cost people jobs. Sure, the players should be accountable. But the coaches and managers need to be held accountable, too.

The pitching coach has failed to correct major breakdowns in not one, not two, but three of the team’s young starters for going on five weeks now. The hitting coach has watched as the teams best young hitter endured a ten week homer-less drought, as he essentially swung at every pitch thrown to him for about 225 at-bats. And the manager, well, his failings are worthy of their own article. Allowing Aaron Rowand to stay at the top of the lineup for months wasn’t bad enough. No sooner did he finally get Rowand out of the lineup, he had to put Sanchez in the number two slot and watch as he killed two months worth of rallies. Not benching Sandoval for swinging at every pitch, or for being so fat and out of shape he can’t even bend down on a ground ball. He played the young catcher virtually every day during a staggeringly tough stretch of consecutive games (I think it was 28), until finally, he has broken down, as catchers do when you put them in the lineup for 30 straight days.

The GM? I’ll just point out one thing for now. The amount of money sitting on the bench or on the DL is staggering. Staggering.

Are you listening, Mr. Neukom? Do you really care?

Collapse? Or Playoffs? The matter is out of our hands now.

August 29th, 2010 | Permalink
Posted in Barry Zito, Bill Neukom, Brian Sabean, Buster Posey, Cy Young, Free Agents, NL West, Pablo Sandoval, San Francisco Giants, Tim Lincecum, Wild Card, World Series | 3 Backtalkers »

Back to back shutouts essentially forces me to write something, busy as I am.

First Lincecum throws a six-hit shutout:

…. Even two-time Cy Young Award winners have to adapt, and Tim Lincecum has.

The main headline from his shutout of the Mets on Thursday was his control. He threw 77 strikes and 33 balls. Beyond that, though, Lincecum delivered on his goal of being less predictable.

Lincecum’s changeup is the pitch he relies on in two-strike put-away situations. Problem is, the changeup usually lands beneath the strike zone. Some hitters who knew it was coming stopped chasing it.

Against New York, Lincecum threw the changeup any time in the count. In the sixth inning, he caught Alex Cora looking at a third-strike fastball down the pipe that the Mets’ second baseman surely was not expecting. The next batter, David Wright, looked at a curve for strike three.

Let’s keep this in mind when talking about Lincecum, something’s different this year for him. His control is just off, his strikeouts are down his walks are up. His WHIP is 1.24, still among the best in the league, but a full 20% higher than last season. Maybe the league has gone to school and started to adjust, maybe he’s nursing some minor injury…. I don’t know. I just know he’s not the same. Still, 10-4, and 2.94 ERA in an off year is mighty impressive. Let’s hope his last start is the beginning of a dominant second half.

Then Barry Zito follows up with his best game of the season:

…. Zito won for the first time since June 12 and the second time in his last 11 starts. One of his best games as a Giant followed one of his most controversial.

The Giants were leading 6-1 in Milwaukee on July 8, when manager Bruce Bochy pulled Zito in the fifth inning. Zito needed one more out to qualify for a win, but he had just walked his fifth and sixth hitters to load the bases and had thrown 113 pitches in 4 2/3 innings. Compare that with Friday, when he threw 112 over eight innings.

Buster Posey continues to shine, throwing out baserunners (6 out of 15) and pounding the ball all over the ball park (15 extra base hits and .954 OPS). Aubrey Huff (17 home runs and a .939 OPS) has to be the best free agent acquisition Sabean’s pulled off in about five years. I rip the hell out of him for Sabean’s misses, I sure as hell better make note of it when he nails one. Good for him, good for the Giants.

The Giants are a half game behind the Rockie in a six team tangle for the Wild Card lead, and three and a half behind the Padres.

One more bat might put this team over the top. One more bat.

July 17th, 2010 | Permalink
Posted in Barry Zito, Brian Sabean, Buster Posey, Cy Young, Free Agents, NL West, San Francisco Giants, Tim Lincecum, Wild Card | 35 Backtalkers »

Zito had his worst game of the year, pretty much at the worst possible time, in a first-place showdown with the surprising San Diego’s. Struggling to find his rhythm the whole game, Zito was embarrassed by his buffoon of a manager, who tried to take him out during the fifth inning after he had gone to 2-0 on Oscar Salazar, with the first ball a wild pitch. Of course, Righetti had just visited the mound prior to the at-bat, so Zito had to finish the hitter. It was a pretty ridiculous sight, really. Out pops Bochy, practically running to the mound, only to be sent back to the dugout by the second base umpire.

Of course, the Chronicle manages to make Bochy’s gaffe seem like it was planned:

…. Zito said his “timing was off tonight. I didn’t have any command of anything.”

That was particularly evident during Oscar Salazar’s fifth-inning at-bat. Zito air-mailed his first pitch to the screen, allowing Yorvit Torrealba to waltz to second. The next pitch was extremely high and outside.

After that pitch, Bochy headed to the mound to check on Zito, but because pitching coach Dave Righetti had conferred with Zito just before Salazar came to the plate, Bochy could not speak with the left-hander. Bochy had to return to the dugout.

“When he threw those two pitches, I was concerned about him,” Bochy said.

Yeah, right. Everyone in the ballpark saw Bochy signal for a relief pitcher. Then again, why not lie to cover up your embarrassing mistake? The GM gets away with it constantly, and the local sports reporters only seem to insist on the truth when they’re harassing the greatest player in baseball history:

…. “The surgery I had was a failure.”

In October, DeRosa had an operation to repair a torn tendon sheath in his left wrist, an injury he sustained soon after joining St. Louis in a trade from Cleveland on July 1.

On Tuesday, DeRosa was examined by Giants doctor Gordon Brody and had an MRI exam. The diagnosis, according to DeRosa: “It’s completely ruptured again.”

The article goes on to mention that the Giants are, laughably, hoping that rest will make it all better. Of course, nowhere in the piece is any mention of the criminally bad contract that Sabean so generously gave to the known to be injured DeRosa. Now the team has two $12 million dollar players who cannot play, and a GM who simply does not know what he’s doing:

…. Hot-hitting prospect Buster Posey remains at Triple-A Fresno because Giants officials are not convinced he is ready to catch in the major leagues yet, GM Brian Sabean said.
The longtime GM also stressed that the decision to promote Posey has nothing to do with service-time concerns, nor will it.

“Let me dispel all that, all right?” Sabean said. “When we think Posey’s ready, just like when we thought (Tim) Lincecum was ready, and this starts from ownership, he’ll be in the big leagues. I’ll speak to the Lincecum thing. If we don’t bring up Lincecum, how do you know he’s on his way to winning the two Cy Youngs or more so helping us win 88 games last year? Now, in other places where you don’t have a deeper or more consistent budget, I can buy the strict clock. But we can’t be on a strict clock. Shoot, we’re trying to get back to winning ways and get to the playoffs, and everybody understands it.”

…. Sabean said the 23-year-old is “still learning how to catch. Some of that is game calling. Some of that is the consistency that he’ll need as, we hope, an offensive catcher.”

Besides, Sabean said he doesn’t put much stock into Triple-A statistics.

“Triple-A baseball isn’t very good,” Sabean said. “I’m going to tell you that right now. Especially from a pitching standpoint. Anybody who can pitch is in the big leagues.”

How many ways is this man ridiculous? Posey needs to be more consistent as a hitter? This, from a man who re-signed a catcher who made 450 outs last year. No pitching in Triple-A? Triple-A stats aren’t worth much? Lincecum won two Cy Young Awards because Sabean waited as long as he did to bring him up?

Whatever. Once again, we have a bottom feeder offense, 142 runs scored, and only the dismal performance of the two worst teams in baseball –the barely better than Triple-A Astros and Pirates– keep the Giants from having the worst offense in the game once again.

So, when you hear Sabean talking about anything at all, remember that it’s all bullshit. He’s got one of the wort hitters in all of baseball at just about every position on the diamond, and we’re supposed to listen to him tell us that a guy throwing up a .343/.436/.525 line isn’t hitting enough. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t have the slightest idea how to evaluate hitters. He has been selling Giants fans the same bullshit bill of goods for going on fifteen year now. I wrote this eight years ago:

…. Over the last 30 days the Giants offense is DEAD LAST in the National League, meaning it is dead last in all of baseball. This, while Barry Bonds is posting a .565 obp and a .900 slg. Do you have any idea what that means? That means the Giants are even worse than their stats.

I heard the Brian Sabean show yesterday, and he said that he intends to show patience and trust that his hitters are going to start hitting. You know what Ray, that’s the single stupidest thing I have ever heard Brian say. You’ve got Marvin Benard taking swings in the last of the 8th in a one run game, and you’re telling me that I am supposed to trust that he’s gonna come around? Shawon Dunston has a spot on our bench? Damon Minor? Reggie Sanders? Sanders’ lifetime BA is .263, last year he was about 30% more productive than in ANY YEAR OF HIS LIFE.

…. which is more than you could say about JT Snow. There is nothing masking the fact that he is one of the most unproductive major leaguers drawing a salary. He is an out-maker, simple as that, and he gives nothing back for all of the outs he eats. Don’t talk to me about how many games he saves with his glove, that’s pure hyperbole. Bill James and a whole slew of baseball analysts have done reams of research into run prevention, and JT’s defense is worth maybe five runs a year, let alone five wins.

Eight years later, and the Giants are still comprised of one good hitter and bunch of out-makers. They’re still old. They are still slow. They are still injury-prone. The GM has signed more ancient mariners to more bad contracts, and the team is still just as boring and still barely competitive.

May 12th, 2010 | Permalink
Posted in Barry Bonds, Barry Zito, Bill Neukom, Brian Sabean, Bruce Bochy, Cy Young, Free Agents, NL West, Pablo Sandoval, Rumor Mill, San Francisco Giants, Talking Heads, Tim Lincecum | 14 Backtalkers »