Next stop the Hot Stove League. So Soon?

It is a bad sign of the time when we are even discussing such matters before the Giants even have a chance to nurse their World Series hangover and before the San Francisco city parade. Can fans at least take a breath from the end of one season to savor, enjoy and take stock of the season past before turning to the business side of the next season? Shouldn't we allow to fans to riot, burn stuff in their neighborhood and tip over a car or two before we move on? Is that too much to ask?

And seriously Frisco fans are you people congenitally stupid or what? The best day in the history of sports for your city and you act like this when you have lived under the fecal stain that is Nancy Pelosi FOR YEARS with nary a whimper? You people ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I'm ashamed to be associated with you as a fellow Giants fan. Both for pillaging your own neighborhood and for harboring Pelosi. Act like you have the brains you were born with people.

All sports seem to go here with this sort of problem. So it's not exclusive to baseball.

In hockey, it seemed like even before the Chicago Blackhawks Dustin Byfueglin had time to capitalize or bask in the glory of being a Stanley Cup icon, the team had to literally dismantle said champion to get under the onerous salary cap rules.

There almost needs to be a "to the victor, goes the spoils" exception, similar to the Larry Bird or franchise exceptions of the past, whereby you can sign your franchise icons -- even if you go over the cap -- if your team wins it all. What could be more "fan-friendly" than that?

And we all know these guys are all about being fan friendly, right?

Yeah, Riiiiiiiight!!!

It is all about the Benjamin's. Franklin's that is, not Bernanke's.

Hey Edgar Renteria, you just won the World Series, what's next?

I'm going to Disney Wor....I mean, I'm going to free-agency?

This is the business end of the sport. At $10.5M with a body that was breaking down last year, the Giants will take a step back with Edgar and a step forward with Team Sabean & Bochy. And that makes sense.

As for the others:

Jose Guillen - GONE!! And take those DHL...er HGH packages with you. DANG FOOL!!!
Pat Burrell - Probably gone. Maybe back to the couch until May.
Jose Uribe - BACK
Aubrey Huff - BACK, BACK, BACK, BACK
Guillermo Mota - BACK, if you can afford him. Someone may overpay and promote him.

The arbs other than Fontenot and Chris Ray were significant pieces, keep 'em happy and see if they continue to develop.

But Sabean and Bochy know that. The rings are proof.

From mlbtraderumors.com

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2010/11/giants-notes-.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+MlbTradeRumors+(MLB+Trade+Rumors)

Giants Notes: Sabean, Bochy, Renteria

By Tim Dierkes [November 2, 2010 at 7:48am CST]

You just won the World Series. What are you doing next? A few notes from the Giants' celebration...

Giants president Larry Baer and owner Bill Neukom are expected to have discussions about extending the contracts of manager Bruce Bochy and GM Brian Sabean, writes Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News. Both are under contract through 2011 with club options for '12.

World Series MVP Edgar Renteria remains undecided about playing next year, reports Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports. Given the free agent market for shortstops, the 34-year-old would be able to find work. He's already filed for free agency; the team buying out his $10.5MM club option for $500K is a formality.

The Giants' other free agents, all of whom already filed: Jose Guillen, Pat Burrell, Juan Uribe, Aubrey Huff, and Guillermo Mota. They've got eight players eligible for arbitration: Andres Torres, Jonathan Sanchez, Ramon Ramirez, Mike Fontenot, Santiago Casilla, Cody Ross, Chris Ray, and Javier Lopez.

From the list of potential free agents out there, I like Jayson Werth of the Phillies as a good fit for a lot of reasons. He would bring the kind of pop that Pat Burrell gave the Giants, only more consistently. A side bonus, addition to the Giants while at the same time subtraction from the rival Phillies.

Bring on the Hot Stove League.

Wait a minute, what just happened here? I'm not sure how that picture got there. A virus perhaps? This is not the type of behavior we condone here at this blog even if it appears to be remotely linked to the subject at hand.

Clearly not appropriate or safe attire for the preparation of scalding hot food and food by-products. Is this what passes for culinary arts education in the public schools nowadays? What a scathing indictment of the system.

People, please if your cooking at home, or even if you're all by yourself....remember to wear a smock or an apron.

Giants get Ross, an OF they didn't really want

At least according to the San Francisco Chronicle report by Henry Schulman.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/22/SP6S1F1NKE.DTL

(08-23) 04:00 PDT ST. LOUIS -- It appears the Giants have a new outfielder, whether they wanted him or not. They placed what was believed to be a blocking claim on Cody Ross of the Marlins to prevent the Padres from acquiring him. Florida elected not to pull Ross back and instead handed him to the Giants, who must pay the $1.1 million left on his 2010 contract.

The only question in my mind is, why wouldn't they have wanted Cody Ross? This guy seems like he would be a better player overall than Jose Guillen. Career stat wise, it appears to be a virtual tie, same type player. Maybe after this season, you find a way to let Guillen walk and keep Ross around.

Ross has had some productive years for the Fish, he's down this year almost across the board. He's going to strike out 100+ times in a full season but will provide some pop. His O-Swing% is up this year around 33.9% from a career 28.6%. Maybe a change of scenery is all he needs.

This could be turn out to be one of the better moves the Giants never really wanted to make.

Cody Ross stats

Year AB HR RBI Avg. OBP
2006 269 13 46 .227 .293
2007 173 12 39 .335 .411
2008 461 22 73 .260 .316
2009 559 24 90 .270 .321
2010 448 11 58 .263 .315

Giants playoff chances still alive, but it doesn't hurt to plan ahead

The Giants are one step closer to being out of the playoffs after yesterdays debacle against the Phillies. An early 2-0 lead melted like an ice cream cone in the August heat into a disappointing 9-3 loss to the Phils.

The Giants began the scoring doing what they do best offensively, with Aubrey Huff grounding into a DP, as Andres Torres scored after leading off the inning with a 2B. Pat Burrell added a solo HR after Huff's DP. Newly acquired Jose Guillen added a HR late in the game. Zito and Oswalt pitched equally well, but a couple of stats stood out. Giants 10K and 0 BB. NO WALKS, REALLY!! This is contrasted by only 2 K's and 3 BB's on the Phillies side of the ledger.

Giants pushed only 3 runners into scoring position vs. 13 for the Phillies. Understood that reliever Chris Ray threw a lot of gasoline on the fire late, but this is symptomatic of a lack of diversity in this offense. Not good for late in the season play or, God forbid, we manage to squeak into the playoffs. The lineup looks better on paper, with a disturbingly old-style American League feel. Wait for the 3-run HR. If you don't get it, runs are hard to come by. Two solo HR's look good on the stat sheet, but only count for 2 R's. Not very efficient.

The G-men are almost dead on the MLB average across the board in the major offensive metrics.

BA (.260 vs. .259 MLB avg.)
OBP (.326 vs. .327 MLB avg.)
SLG (.405 vs. .405 MLB avg.)
OPS (.731 vs. .732 MLB avg.)

Average will likely not get it done down the stretch. The offense simply has to start picking up the pace.

I know the pundits and most fans will want to continue to hang our hats on the strength of the Giants superior pitching. However, even here the starting pitching is beginning to show some cracks and the middle innings relief, which was a strength has already faded somewhat due to injuries.

The most disturbing stat is that the Giants pitching staff leads the majors in WALKS. Which turns a good-looking .243 BA against into a near league average OBP.

The Padres, with perhaps more depressing offensive stats than the Giants, just seem more diversified offensively. At least in the limited number of games I've seen the Pads play this season.

We know that the Phillies--the other main threat to the Giants playoff chances--are beginning to reload their lineup with a returning Chase Utley and Ryan Howard. Their offense is more than ready to pick up the pace into September. They are a veteran team that has been there before.

The Giants have seemingly been on a 90 win pace all season. Unfortunately, it seems like it may take 92-93 W's to secure the wild-card berth. The Giants, of late, show more signs of fading to 85-87 wins than closing the race like legendary track stars Jim Ryan or Kip Keino.

It's time to pick up the pace and close the deal or start making other plans for mid to late October.

Giants get Guillen....is Guillen a good get?

He will be if his bat perks up as a result of being in a playoff race and his attitude calms down again as a result of being in a playoff race. His 3 year / $36 million deal ends after this season, so he's strictly a mercenary at this point. The PTBNL is an issue, but as long as it is not an upper tier prospect, this is a low-risk, high reward pick up.

Guillen should be well motivated to keep his nose clean and produce. I'm sure his agent will advise him as much. No guarantee, but I'm not sure there was an impact bat out there that could be had as reasonably as this one.

This looks like a good get. His numbers this season are 16-62-.255 with a .743 OPS a little below his career OPS of .762. If he can goose that number as much as Pat Burrell or Aubrey Huff is so far this season, we might be able to begin to think seriously about the playoffs. There's still a lot of baseball left but this weekend Padres series is shaping up as rather large.

According to the AP:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP)—The Kansas City Royals have traded outfielder Jose Guillen(notes) to the San Francisco Giants in exchange for a player to be named later and cash considerations.

The Royals announced the deal Friday, hours before the Giants hosted San Diego in an NL West showdown.

The 34-year old Guillen was hitting .255 with 16 home runs and 62 RBI in 106 games for the Royals prior to being designated for assignment on Aug. 5. Kansas City had 10 days to trade or release him.

Guillen, an outfielder-designated hitter, was signed three years ago to a $36 million, three-year contract that made him the Royals’ highest-paid player per year in team history. He is owed approximately $3.93 million from his $12 million salary this season.

The Giants will be Guillen’s 10th major league stop.