The boys are back with a new face (or voice): Willie and Ben are joined by Chad King, regular contributor and now podcast regular. We talk Niners, because everyone is, complete with sadness, reflection, sympathy, and maybe a little distaste.
Once we get through that, we talk contracts, arbitration, Lincecum, Brandon Crawford, yoga, the Rockies, and turn our attention back to baseball season. Pitchers and catchers report in 28 days, after all!
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Melky Cabrera, Angel Pagan, Nate Schierholtz.
If that sent shudders of contempt, confusion, and depression through your central nervous system instead of excitement, I would certify you as a sane individual. The Giants have committed most of their $130 million payroll, and Giants GM Brian Sabean has been quoted as saying that the Giants are done with any significant player signing or movement1.
Neither Cody Ross nor Carlos Beltran was offered a contract, and talks never got deep. Ross was even willing to take a discount to stay with the Giants, and was quoted as saying, “it’s sad” that he isn’t donning the orange and black in 2012.
Excuse me? That’s it? That’s our outfield?
Well, that’s my first reaction, but the cogent (ha) objective part of me needs time to digest this, and after you peel back the first few layers of mediocrity, the Giants still may do alright with the status quo next year. The BIG caveat is that they cannot be riddled with injuries like they were in 2011. Their lineup will automatically improve with Posey and Freddy Sanchez playing 140+ games, and their run production should increase. But really, it couldn’t get much worse after last year’s historic anemic production.
From an statistics point of view, Beltran was a rent-a-player, and Ross may have poured the last of his significant contributions in the 2010 playoffs, as last year was dismal (.240, 14 HR, 52 RBI). Torres also had a down year and I’m sad to see him depart for the Big Apple.
Now, bear with me, but a little statistical breakdown, assuming everyone performs like they did last year; we may actually get more production out of our outfield.
*dons green banker visor*
Last year, the three outfield positions sported a combined .248 average, 46 HRs and 180 RBI. If you divide that by three, the “average” SF Giants outfielder for a full year had 15 HRs and 60 RBI. If you look at Cabrera, Pagan, and Schierholtz and extrapolate 2011’s performance to 162 games played, they total .282, 41 HR, 222 RBI. Granted, it’s a slight reduction in power, but a significant increase in batting average, OBP and OPS.
Maybe there is hope when you add by subtraction.
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In the absence of Willie Dills, Mike and Ben face the twin horrors of Halloween and the Baseball Offseason with strength and courage, discussing the latest news, Javier Lopez and Jeremy Affeldt’s re-signings, the Giants’ departing free agents, and get a little distracted. Multiple times.
Also, Ashkon supports Ed Lee’s bid for mayor, and Ben talks the latest in Giants news!
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As they come to grips with a strange, unfamiliar Giant-less postseason, Willie and Ben discuss the departure of Bill Neukom and new tenure of Larry Baer, consider which of the current crop of Giants the team will keep or drop, and look over the MLB Playoffs.
Also: a song from the folks at KNBR…and Johnny Velvet destroys his Dogpatch neighborhood!
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After an unintentional hiatus, the guys finally make it back…to find that the Giants are finally out. It’s time to look back on some memorable moments from the season and some notable performances turned in by our boys in orange and black — and don’t forget some views from Out of Left Field, thanks to Chad King!
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By Chad King
I consider myself a die-hard Giants fan in every sense of the term, except perhaps I don’t spend quite as much time watching every game that I can due to necessary maintenance of my offspring and the fact that they usurp control of the remote control to my gorgeous HD television for such quality programming usually revolving around some mythical blue dog or dancing robot. Tangent aside, no matter how much I thought I knew about the “historical” lack of offense this year, I really had no idea how truly historical it, in fact, is.
“You don’t get it, this guy to my right doesn’t give me jack to work with.”
Baseball-reference.com elucidated any uncertainties I had about this historical run drought. The Giants franchise has been around since 1883, 2011 being their 129th season. This year marks the second-lowest production in franchise history of runs per game at 3.38 per. Although 1902 was lower (2.87), may I remind you that this was during the height of the dead-ball era. The Giants hit 6 homeruns that year. You read that right, 6 homeruns by the team…in 140 games.
All I heard last year, especially during the playoffs, is how dreadful the Giants’ offense was. Although I concur, I think all Giants fans would take last year’s production over this year, which was a whopping 27% higher (4.3 runs per game), ranking a mediocre 43rd lowest in Giants franchise history. We had no idea how good we had it.
Unprecedented doesn’t even begin to coin the term for offensive futility. Other metrics go hand in hand with lack of run production, of course. The Giants are hitting .238 this year, third lowest in franchise, dangerously close to the .237 clip produced in the dreadful 100 loss season of 1985 that I care not to recall from my childhood.
Something I also learned in my research for this post. Baseball has had remarkably stable rules since 1900, and statistics are somewhat comparable to those of the modern era (a few skew aside, of course), and is coined the “modern era.” Did you know that the four-ball walk wasn’t even instituted until 1889? Clearly walks inflate .OBP, so when one throws out pre-1900 OBP, the 2011 Giants clip of .300 is fourth-lowest in franchise history.
“Hey Charlie, how ya doin’? By the way, got any runs you can spare a bro?”
With the Giants all but mathematically eliminated from the postseason, I wonder what Brian Sabean is thinking at this point? Is he lamenting the disabled list that reads like an obituary, populated with some of the better bats (Posey, F. Sanchez, Sandoval, etc.), chalking this year’s inadequacies to bad luck? Is he regretting the Zito albatross of a contract? Will he potentially gift wrap one of our premier pitchers for two or more above-average bats for 2012? Or, is he satisfied with last season, frustrated with what he couldn’t control in 2011, and ready to wipe the slate clean and start over with effectively the same team (sans Beltran) in 2012?
An interesting offseason it will be.
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Willie Dills has stopped believing. Can anything turn the Giants’ fortunes around? After being beaten by the Diamondbacks in 2 of 3, the Gigantes are inches from elimination. The guys weigh in on whether there’s anything to be salvaged from this season, and who they want to see play the rest of the way. Also: Mike attends Star Wars Day, Ben finishes moving, Johnny Velvet doesn’t read ahead, Justin Upton needs to stop being good at things, and introducing…Cody Fett?
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Battling depression and despair, Willie, Mike, and Ben reunite to talk about their favorite lineups of previous and current Giants. We discuss the end of this road trip (even though we don’t want to), pick some new favorite guys, fear for our pitching staff, and hone our trivia skills. Also, a game and a half. A game and a half!
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With Ben and Mike both unavailable (and probably on the DL), Willie welcomes Chad King of Out of Left Field, Kids Are Hard, and Epic Diapers onto the show. We talk slumps, bumps, and bruises and our struggling team, and try to make the most of the midsummer Giants doldrums.
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The TortureCast 