Giants out on Bay, Holliday -- Is that a bad thing?
by Grant on Nov 20, 2009 3:26 PM PST
116 comments
To no one's surprise...
-Q: Holliday and Bay are the big names… Have you gauged their possible interest? Do you think either of those guys would have genuine interest in coming to the Giants?-SABEAN: We have not. I don’t think that they would have genuine interest based on the field that they’re going to be involved in. Why would they?
I think Sabean's a little cheektender from when he pursued Gary Matthews, Juan Pierre, Alfonso Soriano, and Carlos Lee, offered them tons of cash, and watched them use the Giants' offer as leverage. But there are a couple of different ways to take the "Why would they?" line:
a. San Francisco is a smelly town with smelly people and I hate it and they would too because it smells, or...
b. Teams with deep pockets are going to be after those two, and the Giants are not going to get into a fiscal tinkling match with those teams.
116 comments | 0 recs |
Why don't wins count anymore? - STLtoday.com
"If won-loss records are suddenly obsolete, why do we bother to keep the stat?"
Ding ding ding. And if 8-tracks are suddenly obsolete, why does "Close to the Edge" sound so sweet in my Vega?
about 12 hours ago
Grant
412 comments
0 recs
Stats and the Cy Young
by Grant on Nov 19, 2009 4:27 PM PST
585 comments
Stats are good. I’m not even referring just to the advanced statistical arguments that support Tim Lincecum’s Cy Young, either. It’s good that there is a record of events to which to refer while doing research. Old-timers can’t argue; wins, losses, and runs batted in are stats. They’re a record of events. The new school and old school might disagree with what stats are important – you say RBI, I say OBP, etc. – but there isn’t a baseball fan alive who claims that player evaluation is better without stats.
Stats are good because the human brain is a goofy little thing built to emphasize anecdotal information and subjective opinions because those are what helped our ancestors avoid tiger attacks and poisonous mushrooms long enough to have sex. Look it up. Since we don’t have to avoid tigers so much these days, we can afford to spend our time debating dippy trivialities like the Cy Young Award, and we aren’t limited by the anecdotal or the subjective.
So when someone writes that a player shouldn’t win the MVP or Cy Young, or get a Hall of Fame vote, because a player didn’t make the writer feel a certain way, it’s hard to take that opinion seriously. "He just didn’t scream ‘Hall of Fame’ to me." Don’t care. I don’t know what melody a true Hall of Fame career sings as it tap dances on your buttocks, and I daresay that shouldn’t be the final word on the subject. Give me evidence. Don’t give me feelings.
585 comments | 4 recs |
Tim Lincecum Wins Cy Young
by Grant on Nov 19, 2009 11:01 AM PST
1248 comments
November 19, 2009From: The BBWAA
To: The World
Re: Cy YoungTim Lincecum is better than everyone else. Please make a note of this.
Two full seasons, two Cy Youngs. That's two more than Juan Marichal. One more than Orel Hershisher, Eric Gagne, Fernando Valenzuela, and Mike Scott, all of whom can eat hot death.
Tim Lincecum: Cy Young Award winner. Again. You'd think that we'd be jaded because he won it last year. Nope. Still pretty danged exciting. Congrats, Tim.
1248 comments | 1 recs |
Pre-Cy Announcement Thread
by Grant on Nov 19, 2009 8:54 AM PST
470 comments
Lincecum? Wainwright? Carpenter?
This article is discouraging, but I'm not giving up hope yet.
470 comments | 0 recs
Offseason Priorities for the Giants, Part II: First Base
by Grant on Nov 18, 2009 12:44 PM PST
525 comments
Supposedly, the easiest position at which to find a hitter is first base. Alas, we are Giants fans. It's a little disingenuous to say there's a post-Will curse on the organization -- J.T. Snow did provide a couple of fantastic years to bookend the meh -- but there hasn't been a lot of offense from first base since Will Clark left. The Sabean-led Giants are the kind of organization that can look at Shea Hillenbrand and Ryan Garko, and say, man, now those guys are clearly better than what we have on the roster.
And while Garko was a small sample size disaster after coming over, he still represents the best first baseman on the roster. As a right-handed guy with limited defensive skills, it'd be nice to have a lefty-swinging slick fielding complement to Garko. Like, oh, Travis Ishikawa. So there it is: the Giants are totally set at first base. Yet it feels like it should be a priority to find a new, shiny first baseman. This feeling is explained by the When You Have Aaron Rowand, Edgar Renteria, Nate Schierholtz, and Eugenio Velez Penciled in for a Lot of At-Bats Theorem, which posits:
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A Note on the Giants' Offseason Plans
by Grant on Nov 17, 2009 2:58 PM PST
925 comments
If you missed the State of the Sabean, here you go. Some of the key points:
- Brad Penny wants too much money.
- Juan Uribe wants too much money.
- Bengie Molina wants a multi-year deal, which the Giants aren’t willing to do.
- Trades stink because other teams want good players.
- The Giants are going to buy a new offense through free agency.
- They aren’t going to spend for Matt Holliday, so get ready for Jermaine Dye.
- Welcome, Jermaine Dye.
Those last two aren’t explicitly detailed in the article, but it doesn’t take much to read between the lines. This offseason is like a bad game of solitaire, and we’re now cycling through our options at the end of the game over and over and over again.
925 comments | 1 recs |
Why Tim Lincecum Should Win the Cy Young
by Grant on Nov 16, 2009 3:16 PM PST
361 comments
He's better than everyone else.
361 comments | 0 recs |
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