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.

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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.

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More photos » by Ben Margot - ASSOCIATED PRESS

Thank you, Royals, Rockies, Rays, Pirates, Mariners, Tigers, Dodgers, Reds, and Orioles. Thank you.

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November 19, 2009

From: The BBWAA
To: The World
Re: Cy Young

Tim 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.

More photos » by Jeff Chiu - AP

Dude...wait, what?

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Lincecum? Wainwright? Carpenter?

This article is discouraging, but I'm not giving up hope yet.

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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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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.

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He's better than everyone else.

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My secret two-pronged plan for the catching position in 2010:

1. Buster Posey starts. And if he hits .210/.290/.330 for his first 200 at-bats, he still starts. And if he allows a passed ball per week, he still starts. The Giants don't a roster that would be favored for a playoff berth right now. If they ever have that kind of roster in the near future, it will probably include Posey being an impact player. So the team needs to figure out if Posey can be an impact player in the short-term. 
   
   If the Giants somehow repeat their 2009 win total without Posey in 2010, the burning question in 2011 will be, "Gee, can we afford to start a rookie catcher with this pitching staff keeping us in contention?" This would also happen if the pitching staff implodes, mind you. It would probably happen if the pitching staff was just okay. The Giants have youngbackstopophobia, and the best cure is to confront those fears. Just do it quickly, like a Band-Aid.
   
   
2. Private detectives bug Bruce Bochy's house to determine his least favorite catcher in the big leagues. This catcher would be the new backup to Posey. Does Eliezer Alfonzo, or whomever, set up too late for Bochy's tastes? Does he call too many breaking balls in the first pitch of an at-bat? Too few? Great, he's the target. Because we know that Bochy thinks one of the worst hitters in the upper levels of professional baseball can make up for his offensive deficiencies by calling a good game, holding the running game in check, and showing off sound movement behind the plate. A catcher who does those things well in Bochy's estimation is a catcher who will be starting in May if Posey has a bad first month, regardless if said backup catcher hits like Kirk Rueter on peyote.

There it is. The secret formula. Build a roster designed around the inherent distrust of your manager's decision-making ability. Because the organization has run studies and everything.

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My ballot:

1. Albert Pujols
2. Hanley Ramirez
3. Chase Utley
4. Pablo Sandoval
5. Prince Fielder
6. Troy Tulowitski
7. Adrian Gonzalez
8. Tim Lincecum
9. Adam Wainwright
10. Chris Carpenter

The last three slots were my way of saying, "Hey, pitchers should contend too. Just, uh, not on my ballot." Obvious homerism in play with my Sandoval vote, especially since I didn't even include Ryan Zimmerman on my ballot. I'm pretty sure there's no defensive difference between Sandoval and Zimmerman, so I'm not too regretful. Ahem.

Hey, it's better than a fourth-place vote for Todd Helton or second-place vote for Joey Votto, at least.

Today's goal: stopping the "Free agent hitters won't come to the Giants because of the huge ballpark" myth. I don't know for certain it's a myth, mind you, but I have a pretty good idea. I'm not out there, talking to free agent hitters, hearing them laugh off suggestions that AT&T Park will depress their numbers. But here's my logic:

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