FanPost Spotlight Vol. III

In the previous volume, IanRogue took us on a tour of major league stadiums. In this volume, here’s a look at four very on topic posts.

tgranger16 compares the Giants to other similarly aged and financially-strapped teams and makes such a convincing argument that this post may have ended any more posts on this very website about the Giants needing to rebuild or what they should do to start rebuilding. Read their “3 Reasons the Giants Can’t Rebuild” FanPost:

So what did we learn, other than seeing a bunch of familiar Giants faces?

You can’t trade veterans in the middle of multi-year contracts. You need to wait until they are nearing the end of the contract and then eat a bunch of salary.

Your best chance at acquiring prospects is to trade players who have yet to hit free agency and are under 30. The Astros real rebuild happened by trading cost-controlled guys like Michael Bourn and Pence.

Back to the Giants, there isn’t really a trade market for the Giants’ veterans, even productive players like Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford and Buster Posey.

I think I agree with tgranger16’s concluding sentence most of all. Especially the last phrase.

What does Brandon Belt turning 30 have to do with the Wall of Fame ceremony? slyblue17 presents us with an emotional look at what happens to our favorite players as they age, reminding us that we’re all human beings just trying to do the best that we can.

Watching favorites struggle can be so hard. There’s that pit of knowing that things are likely not going to get better from here, at least not by much or for long. There’s the wanting to be fair to them and be patient while also being frustrated with how things are on the field or are handled by the front office. And there’s the ever-present knowledge that eventually, it’s going to happen to everyone.

In “The Razor’s Edge of Mid-August”, MTKgiantsbaseballcorner fired me up with stats and storytelling as they reminded us of teams that have been in a tenuous August position before just like the Giants are now.

On August 25 [2011], the Cardinals trailed the Atlanta Braves in the NL wild card standings by 10 1⁄2 games.

Read that again.

The flow and roll they went on was incredible, culminating in the craziest last-day-of-the-season we’ve had in decades. The Cardinals went 21–9 from August 26 to September 27, while the Braves were 10–19 over that same interval.

Which pitching prospect has the best stuff? quincy0191 was featured in FanPost Spotlight Vol. I with their look at minor league pitching performances, and on August 5th they posted an update with the everything that happened through the trade deadline:

Two new names in Zach Becherer and Andy Rohloff; neither have pitched very much at all, but Becherer’s topped out just below 100 MPH and Rohloff throws 92-96 with some pretty wicked cut. The two of them, Black, and Adon possess the four best pitches in the system (all fastballs).

Bone up on your obscure Giants minor leaguers and wow your friends at the bar during the next “The Giants are trash” debate!

You’re all encouraged to create FanPosts — if you get a good idea from an interaction in the comments or another article on the site, share it as a FanPost. You get more time to think it through and present your argument and you give everyone a chance to engage specifically with that idea and not be distracted by lunch discussion.

And, remember, political discussion has been cordoned off in “the champagne room”.