Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Congratulations Brian Sabean!
You just acquired two pitchers that gave up the most home runs in the National League. Well, actually, that's not quite true. They just acquired Wayne Franklin who led the senior circuit in ding-dong-the-pitch-is-dead-the-wicked-pitch-is-dead with 35. Earlier this off season he got Brett Tomko, the man who gave up the second most homers in the NL with 34. I'm a man who like clarity, amongst everything else.
As an added bonus, Sabean also got reliever Leo Estrella in the deal, who only gave up a paltry 10 home runs (although he accomplished it in 66 innings pitched--a rate even higher than Tomko or Franklin). The good news here is that all three pitchers will get much more effective pitching half their games at SBC Park. The bad news is that Estrella and, even more so, Franklin suck.
The deal (if you want to call it that) sure looks like (a.) the warm body approach for the Giants (as in they have none to pitch with Nen and Schmidt on the DL and Kevin Correia and Jerome Williams sucking) or (b.) the get-the-the-hell-out-of-town approach for the Brewers. How badly did Brew Crew GM Doug Melvin want these particular fellows out of town? This is what he says about Carlos Villanueva and Glenn Woolard, the two guys he got in return: "They're not top-level prospects," Melvin said. "This came down to being a deal that had a deadline to it." Damning by faint insult if i ever heard it.
Maybe that deadline had something to do with April 12-14. As it happens, the Brewers will be visiting SBC Park those days. Nothing like some early season down-home pitching for the Brewers.
You just acquired two pitchers that gave up the most home runs in the National League. Well, actually, that's not quite true. They just acquired Wayne Franklin who led the senior circuit in ding-dong-the-pitch-is-dead-the-wicked-pitch-is-dead with 35. Earlier this off season he got Brett Tomko, the man who gave up the second most homers in the NL with 34. I'm a man who like clarity, amongst everything else.
As an added bonus, Sabean also got reliever Leo Estrella in the deal, who only gave up a paltry 10 home runs (although he accomplished it in 66 innings pitched--a rate even higher than Tomko or Franklin). The good news here is that all three pitchers will get much more effective pitching half their games at SBC Park. The bad news is that Estrella and, even more so, Franklin suck.
The deal (if you want to call it that) sure looks like (a.) the warm body approach for the Giants (as in they have none to pitch with Nen and Schmidt on the DL and Kevin Correia and Jerome Williams sucking) or (b.) the get-the-the-hell-out-of-town approach for the Brewers. How badly did Brew Crew GM Doug Melvin want these particular fellows out of town? This is what he says about Carlos Villanueva and Glenn Woolard, the two guys he got in return: "They're not top-level prospects," Melvin said. "This came down to being a deal that had a deadline to it." Damning by faint insult if i ever heard it.
Maybe that deadline had something to do with April 12-14. As it happens, the Brewers will be visiting SBC Park those days. Nothing like some early season down-home pitching for the Brewers.
# posted by Fury @ 4:31 PM
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Devestating
The Giants injury news goes from tenuous to worse. First, Robb Nen who has been throwing fairly well in spring suddenly can't throw at all. Apparently he's having shoulder discomfort. Of course when your rotator cuff is between 40-80 percent torn, discomfort is bound to happen. Jason Schmidt's elbow and shoulder (and forearm?) are also not responding so well. Both Nen and Schmidt will start the season on the DL. It's got to be even money if Nen ever throws a pitch in anger during a league game, let alone makes it through a championship season.
This team has been around having Schmidt throw 200 innings of shut-down pitching. If the Giants don't get Schmidt back until say, mid-May, this season, which already seems like it's going to be a long one, suddenly got a lot longer. By the way, when your stud pitcher starts making comments like Schmidt did on March 6th, you better take another look at the MRI. "I felt good, really good -- almost too good. I felt too strong and tried to hold back." Sure Jason.
The Giants injury news goes from tenuous to worse. First, Robb Nen who has been throwing fairly well in spring suddenly can't throw at all. Apparently he's having shoulder discomfort. Of course when your rotator cuff is between 40-80 percent torn, discomfort is bound to happen. Jason Schmidt's elbow and shoulder (and forearm?) are also not responding so well. Both Nen and Schmidt will start the season on the DL. It's got to be even money if Nen ever throws a pitch in anger during a league game, let alone makes it through a championship season.
This team has been around having Schmidt throw 200 innings of shut-down pitching. If the Giants don't get Schmidt back until say, mid-May, this season, which already seems like it's going to be a long one, suddenly got a lot longer. By the way, when your stud pitcher starts making comments like Schmidt did on March 6th, you better take another look at the MRI. "I felt good, really good -- almost too good. I felt too strong and tried to hold back." Sure Jason.
# posted by Fury @ 10:11 AM
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
And Take The Giants With You...
The news is not as great for the Giants, who's spring has featured a full-blown steroid-fueled media storm, setbacks to the best pitcher in the League not closing games and the former team fireballer, and the key catcher acquisition looking much less than the All-Star that GM Brian Sabean had promised.
But it's not all bad. Not really. We'll not exceptionally. The best player to ever don a Giants uniform finally started to get some pitches this week. It seems that spring training pitchers finally realized that these games don't count and started throwing the ball in the vicinity of the plate to Barry Bonds. Of course if a ball is thrown near the vicinity of the plate, Bonds will quickly change the Zip Code of the said spherical object. He's hit four homers in the past week.
But Bonds shouldn't get used to seeing many strikes. This is the weakest everyday lineup the Giants have put on the field since 1996. Look for a lot of pitches to be out of the zone. It's a lock that Barry will break his own single-season walk record this year. Could 225 free passes be possible? Depends on how weak the lineup truly ends up.
Fortunately for the Giants, the NL West resembles the AL East, that is if you removed the Yankees and the Red Sox. Just based on past performance, you'd have to imagine that the team has an excellent chance to win the divison crown and possibly even keep their string of four straight 90-win-or-better seasons alive. But only if the Dodgers offense continues to cough up blood, the Padres are not all that, and the Diamondbacks continue to age (the one constant in the west will be the still struggling Rockies). Last year the Giants racked up a sick 54-23 (.701 winning pct) record against their Western brethern. No way will that happen again, but a strong record in division could be the difference in who is grist for the mill in the playoffs against the Cubs, Phillies, or Astros.
Like Jason on the suddenly matured and professional (read: boring) Athletics, I'll be posting a position-by-position review of the Giants. And while the prospects aren't as hot for the team as the A's, the one thing you can bet on is that this season may be many things, but it won't be boring.
The news is not as great for the Giants, who's spring has featured a full-blown steroid-fueled media storm, setbacks to the best pitcher in the League not closing games and the former team fireballer, and the key catcher acquisition looking much less than the All-Star that GM Brian Sabean had promised.
But it's not all bad. Not really. We'll not exceptionally. The best player to ever don a Giants uniform finally started to get some pitches this week. It seems that spring training pitchers finally realized that these games don't count and started throwing the ball in the vicinity of the plate to Barry Bonds. Of course if a ball is thrown near the vicinity of the plate, Bonds will quickly change the Zip Code of the said spherical object. He's hit four homers in the past week.
But Bonds shouldn't get used to seeing many strikes. This is the weakest everyday lineup the Giants have put on the field since 1996. Look for a lot of pitches to be out of the zone. It's a lock that Barry will break his own single-season walk record this year. Could 225 free passes be possible? Depends on how weak the lineup truly ends up.
Fortunately for the Giants, the NL West resembles the AL East, that is if you removed the Yankees and the Red Sox. Just based on past performance, you'd have to imagine that the team has an excellent chance to win the divison crown and possibly even keep their string of four straight 90-win-or-better seasons alive. But only if the Dodgers offense continues to cough up blood, the Padres are not all that, and the Diamondbacks continue to age (the one constant in the west will be the still struggling Rockies). Last year the Giants racked up a sick 54-23 (.701 winning pct) record against their Western brethern. No way will that happen again, but a strong record in division could be the difference in who is grist for the mill in the playoffs against the Cubs, Phillies, or Astros.
Like Jason on the suddenly matured and professional (read: boring) Athletics, I'll be posting a position-by-position review of the Giants. And while the prospects aren't as hot for the team as the A's, the one thing you can bet on is that this season may be many things, but it won't be boring.
# posted by Fury @ 3:57 PM
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