08.01.08
Posted in San Francisco Giants, Baseball at 11:15 am by addisport
They’re embedded in mediocrity. At 44-63 (.411) and 11 1/2 games behind the National League West leading Arizona Diamondbacks, fans like myself have pretty much settled into the fact this is a losing team this year and probably the next.
But as the trade deadline passed yesterday, it was obvious the San Francisco Giants weren’t going to be able to move any of the pieces they placed on the block in order to improve. Rich Aurilla, Omar Vizquel and Bengie Molina. Those guys are just too whack.
No, we knew that was going to happen. What we didn’t know was what they were seeking for those pieces. In my estimate of the team, I believe a reliever is necessary and a couple of bats to recuperate the loss of any trades as well as Barry Bonds.
Brian Sabean has made it clear that he was trying to move those pieces, but was not clear about what he wanted in return. Both the SF Chronicle and MLB.com could not point to what was specifically anticipated in any trade. It’s like change for the sake of change and screw making a plan.
These are the reasons why I don’t have faith in Sabean. It’s not that he couldn’t pull a deal, but because he doesn’t portray a legitimate plan — if he has one. I imagine after making the worst deal of his lifetime with Barry Zito, which I thought was the greatest thing ever at the time, has changed his entire thought process. Either he doesn’t have the cajones to pull the trigger with the big boys or he doesn’t have the wits to do so. Neither scenario fares well for the future of the Giants, but his overall lack of a plan, other than “letting the young guys play,” will not appease the fan base.
Sabean’s has to do something drastic this upcoming offseason. There’s only so long that the owners will point to the three managers the Giants have gone through in the last few seasons as the problem. It’s only so long before the fans turn on him. It’s only so long before the Giants are taken as joke … oh wait, that’s already happened.
Permalink
07.21.08
Posted in San Francisco Giants, Baseball at 8:36 pm by addisport
It’s never a sad day in Giants land when the day before was just as sad or worse. I can point to only a select few ball clubs in which the talent is heavily dependent upon the old-timers. The Giants have ranked No. 1 in the last few seasons and their dismissal of second baseman
Ray Durham yesterday for prospects is apart of an ongoing effort to undo that.
It’s all very much appreciated in this fan’s eyes.
Durham, while solid in the field, was shaky with his bat. He wasn’t a clutch hitter and was unfortunately overhyped in his move from the Oakland A’s in 2003, a team built on young talent. This year he was on a high, batting .293 through 87 games but was an empty bat last season en route to finishing the year with .218 average. It was really just embarrassing.
The tradeoff is that the Giants have more prospects to work with as the team still tries to figure out its identity and provide some run support for their heralded pitchers. In the coming months, I expect for the Giants to showcase more young talent (as they have been) in hopes of filling out their ranks.
For the first time, in a long time, the farm system really matters to the Giants management. This post-Barry Bonds era is increasingly interesting. The post-Durham era will be increasingly productive.
Permalink
07.16.08
Posted in Culture, Media, Steroids, Baseball, Morality, Roger Clemens, O.J. Simpson at 6:03 pm by addisport
The New York Daily News’ I-team is reporting that Kirk Radomski … the Kirk Radomski … has found his shipping receipts for packages of steroids he’s sent to Cheater No. 2 (aka Roger Clemens) to help solidify the case against him.
This is what I like to call a slow death. Everything is unraveling for this former great. His wife is accused of injecting steroids. He’s charged with perjury. His son is badgered with questions. Shoot, the I-team is working so hard they have a list of women they’ve found to be connected to the ex-power pitcher.
I wonder, does he ever think he can just hide and it will all go away? It certainly doesn’t work for O.J., Michael Jackson, Barry Bonds and every other disgraced star we once idolized.
Permalink
07.09.08
Posted in Oakland A's, Baseball at 11:32 pm by addisport
I can’t stand it when big trades go down and they always favor the “other” team. So when Billy Beane traded away Rich Harden for two bags of wheat and some cornflower, I had to sound off.
Check out my column in The Union.
Permalink
04.30.08
Posted in San Francisco Giants, Baseball, Stories at 11:19 am by addisport
I couldn’t help but chime in on the Barry Zito fiasco in my newspaper. The situation with Giants is too idiotic, and just painful to watch.
Although, I’m sure I’ll be eating those words in the next few weeks as they make a turn for the better.
Here’s a clip of what I wrote in today’s Union:
Let me tell you something, $126 million can mess with a man’s head. Zito strolled into the Cactus League with a new swagger and apparently a new throwing motion for the 2007 season, much to the dismay of pitching coach Dave Righetti.
“If he feels like it’s going to be successful for him, he knows what he’s been doing the last six, seven years, and all through high school and college,” Righetti told the San Francisco Chronicle in February 2007. “At some point, you have to trust him. We’ll work off of that.”
All of which just leaves you to wonder, who was going to rein this guy in?
Now take a look at the 2008 team, encouraged by embattled Matt Cain, who received the fourth-lowest run support in the majors (3.53) during the 2007 season, while Tim Lincecum and Noah Lowry were surprising upstarts. With the other Barry leaving, the focus for the organization was supposed to shift to these young guys and prop them up for a “hopeful” 2008 year.
Somewhere, the politics of a ballclub veered horribly wrong …
If you want the full article, click here.
Permalink
04.28.08
Posted in San Francisco Giants, Baseball at 12:49 pm by addisport
Zito may head to bullpen
Wow. In one word: amazing. Manager Bruce Bochy may actually be showing some cajones with this one, possibly sending struggling San Francisco Giants ace Barry Zito to the pen after another humiliating performance Sunday in which he gave up six runs in the first inning en route to a 10-1 loss to the Cincinnati Reds.
Zito is 0-6 on the year and has struggled to throw strikes and compete with batters. In fact, his velocity has slowed as well, barely reaching 90 MPH.
Said Bochy in the San Jose Mercury News:
“We’ve got to do something,” said Bochy, after Zito allowed a six-run first inning. “We can’t keep doing what we’re doing and getting what we’re getting.”
I have to say, this may be a good move for the Giants in the long run, even with Kevin Correira on the 15-day disable list right now. If Zito can find his spark in a relief role, this will free up a four-man rotation right now for Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Jonathan Sanchez and newbie Pat Misch, who pitched in relief of Zito only allowing two runs in six innings.
I am all for this. It could be a wake up call that the Giants who everyone, including myself, expect to hit 100 losses, is not going to take it. And for the first time, Bochy is acting like a manager should and stepping to the plate to fix an error when it should be addressed — albeit a bit late.
Permalink
04.18.08
Posted in Steroids, Baseball at 2:04 pm by tim
The man known only as “Max” in Jose Canseco’s new book “Vindicated” has revealed himself and denied the book’s claims (potentially proving me right (although I’ll get no credit for this)).
Trainer Joseph Dion told Sports Illustrated that he’s “Max”, and that both he and Alex Rodriguez hated steroids. Canseco wrote that he introduced A-Rod to “Max”, who he described as “a fan of steroids,” and assumed that Rodriguez used steroids.
“That’s really, really funny because I am the one person that hates steroids,” Dion said. “I’m against it 100 percent. And, A-Rod, at the time that I trained him — and this I swear to God — was 100 percent against steroids. He was one of the hardest working guys, and most natural guy, that I’ve met in my life. He hated steroids. We talked about it.”
Most importantly, if what Dion says is true, it confirms my gut feeling about A-Rod. I take pride in my gut’s win-loss record. And it’s good, practically perfect. Way off on that O.J. thing, damn “Naked Gun” movies threw me off.
Permalink
04.11.08
Posted in Steroids, Baseball at 12:09 pm by addisport
ESPN - MLB, players union agree to more frequent drug testing - MLB
Can you believe this? I can’t.
Jose Guillen and Jay Gibbons’ suspensions have been erased in an agreement on drug testing in baseball. The gist of it, though, is that drug testing will NOT be provided by an outside agency, as was suggested in the Mitchell Report and the World Anti-Doping Agency but will become more frequent.
So how does that justify erasing a suspension? Here’s where commissioner Bud Selig drew the line in the sand:
As part of the agreement, major leaguers — including those named in December’s Mitchell report — will join Major League Baseball’s efforts to educate youth about performance-enhancing drugs. The players’ association will contribute $200,000 to an anti-drug organization.
In exchange for those two provisions, baseball commissioner Bud Selig agreed not to discipline players implicated by Mitchell during his 1½-year investigation.
So there you have it. Now Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds have to worry about their perjury charges and then they’ll be in the clear, so to speak.
Permalink
04.10.08
Posted in San Francisco Giants, Oakland A's, Baseball, Stories at 2:44 pm by addisport
All I feel inside is disgust and a deep sense of loathe for the two baseball meccas in Northern California.
We’re in week three and I’m pretty sure the season is already in the tubes for my esteemed San Francisco Giants while the Oakland A’s aren’t too far away from toilet fodder either.
This weekend, while braving a two-hour journey through traffic to the Bay Area, I went to go watch the lesser of two feebles as the A’s took on the Cleveland Indians - all while celebrating a friend and devout A’s fan’s birthday.
It was a chance for me to hang out with old friends while getting an up close look at what Billy Ball can produce in the depths of the American League West.
In my mind, it’s truly comical what the A’s are doing to their fans. Team favorite Nick Swisher: Gone. Loveable bonehead Marco Scutaro: Gone. Team pitching: Downgraded. Team defense: Downgraded.
For the first time in my life, I wonder if Billy Beane is imitating Brian Sabean.
Surely the atrocities of the offseason will not equate into a bottom dweller status for the best ball club in the Bay since 2002.
Or will it?
I ask these honest questions as a fledgling Giants fan after becoming supremely confident that my team is a willing participant in the draining of its fan base.
To read the full article, go to The Union.com.
Permalink
03.26.08
Posted in Steroids, Baseball at 7:37 pm by tim
Jose Canseco has written his second book that rats out former colleagues, teammates and friends for using steroids, and the most notable mention was New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez.
In “Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars and the Battle to Save Baseball,” Canseco claims he introduced A-Rod to a steroids dealer (although he never actually saw him use anything), and that A-Rod was trying to sleep with his wife. It’s that last part that makes me wonder how valid this is.
Canseco’s been right before, but my gut tells me he’s wrong about Rodriguez. And my gut’s almost never wrong, unless there’s gambling involved. Maybe it’s his relatively normal sized body and forehead, or that he’s been consistently great for years. I’m not sure.
Why in the world is he accusing him of going after his wife? What does that have to do with steroids, or baseball? Now it just seems like Canseco doesn’t like him. “I asked Alex if he had eaten my cookie and he said no. But there was clearly chocolate on the side of his mouth, and I had shown him where he could find the cookie.” Maybe he did try to sleep with his wife and that’s why Canseco’s trying to bury him in this new book.
Another question that must be asked, is why wasn’t this in the first book he wrote? Sports Illustrated’s Phil Taylor wrote a column with some great perspective on the situation, including the fact that Canseco’s first “tell-all” book was supposed to…tell all.
Permalink
« Previous entries ·
