Has anyone thought this too

Honestly I’d prefer Guzman at the league minimum than Huff at 3 Mil

You’re right. Huff was not Sabean’s first choice. Either was Travis Ishikawa, Rich Aurillia, Ryan Klesko, Shea Hillenbrand, Mark Sweeney, Lance Niekro, or any other scrotum scratching scrubini that Sabean has been throwing out there for the last 5 years.

That the Giants cannot field a decent hitting first baseman since Will Clark had hair, probably says as much about Sabean’s ineptness as anything else

I agree that the offense is a disaster, but doubt I’d trade our pitching for anyone’s. With that in mind, doing anything possible to make the offense less crappy made sense.

I’m not blowing sunshine up my own butt, but I also see scenarios where the team can be better. I thought the same thing last year and sho’ ’nuff, they were infinitely more watchable.

The thing I like about this year’s team is that if a player here or a player there falls on his face, the team can go in different directions and try different things. My concern is that Bochy won’t given how long it took him to give up on Winn and Renteria last season.

That was where this offseason train went off the tracks.

No, I’m pretty sure he’s saying that Bengie is and always will be the clean-up hitter in Bochy’s heart.

The AL has a 714-546 record in interleague play over the last 5 years. Unless there’s something I’m not seeing here, that seems pretty convincing.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to be short with the response. I’ve heard that there’s something like a half-run of ERA adjustment to be expected from league-switching. I’m not completely sure whether that’s a “better pitchers” thing or a “worse hitters” thing or a “park factors” thing exactly, so I tried to be somewhat vague about how to quantify it.

But even with that, I don’t know how a career .289 hitter can suddenly be a .220 hitter for no reason outside of a league switch. It’s a completely unsatisfying explanation – particularly for cases like Garko’s where small sample size and bad luck play such clear roles.

Yeah, didn’t mean to pidgeon-hole it as strictly free agent moves, just that those are some of the many pitchers who have changed leagues. And that free agency is one prime example of how players tend to move.

eh, probably better than just Garko, too.

This is like the “Hey, DeRosa isn’t a terrific signing (when you consider Fred Lewis is on the team) but at least he kills the idea of Velez starting in LF!” it’s just sad.

Thats predicated on the basis that anybody that plays first base in the majors can actually catch misthrows routinely.

And it sure wasn’t me that said that. That is one of those things I think that gets exaggerated and than passed around as gospel when a little common sense will tell you that the more opportunities to touch a ball a player has, the likelihood of him botching a play increases.

The whole 1b defense thing is a kind of paradox in this regard. A good defensive 1b isn’t going to make your season, but a bad one can sure ruin it. Kind of like a long snapper or a field goal kicker. Not an exact analogy, but kind of parallel.

The Giants defense looked good in part on paper because of all the strikeouts and fewer opportunities to mess up plays and positioning. How much is anybody’s guess. UZR while helpful is too subjective, but its a good beginning. UZR tends to quantify what long term subjective observation tries to do vis a vis a defender’s smarts, positioning, break on the ball, pitch placement anticipation, accurate throws and so forth. I’ve no real strong feelings on it one way or another.

I do know when a play is botched and thats what pisses me off.
I also know when a guy makes a great play… great anticipation, great read, great physical movement. None of these in my opinion does Aubrey Huff have. He’s just another pile of below average that Sabean latches onto year in and year out.

I would want you for a defense attorney if I were on trial for a major felony, but maybe not as a real estate agent.

Kind of the opposite of the Giants ownership. I would let them buy real estate for me, but I wouldn’t trust them to defend me if I were wrongly accused of a crime. They’re the kind of people that would throw their most loyal family member under the bus if it threatened their bottom line by even a nickel.

You on the other hand would probably hold out for a quarter. Which according to humanitarimetrics makes you 5 times a better person than the average partner in the SF Baseball Company.

Which is nice