Bay City Ball

My Metaphysical Levee of Giants Love & the Quickly Approaching Hurricane of Overpriced Free Agents or How The Off-Season Will Leave Me Whimpering and Huddled in the Corner

In baseball much like in life, timing is everything. If we, and by we I mean the Giants, had had the financial flexibility that we have this year (somewhere in the realm of 45+ mil) three years ago when Bad Vlad was on the market I might have fulfilled my illustrious dream of passing out on a pint of zima, lying half dead in the gutter during a Giants World Series celebration parade. Unfortunately, Sabes spread what money we had over the likes of Durham, Tucker and a handful of other less than laudible players and for the second year in a row the Giants have finished in the cellar and though I still realized half of my dream by drinking a pint of zima (after the Bochy hiring) and passing out, half dead in the gutter it yielded only a small fragment of the joy we all would have experienced had the Giants contended for a World Series this year that was very much up for grabs.

The prime criticism of Bruce Bochy coming out of San Diego is his resistance to playing young players and even though this year saw the likes of Adrian Gonzolaz, Josh Barfield and Chris Young all claim starting spots I suspect it was more likely a decision handed down to Bochy rather than his personal perogative. If the signing of Bochy tells us anything its that the Giants, refusing to learn from past mistakes are dooming themselves to repeat. In an oncoming year that should be dedicated to rebuilding with the likes of Todd Linden and Kevin Frandsen starting in left field and second base respectively it seems more likely that Sabean and Co. will pursue overvalued free agents in an already slim winter market and consequently burden the Giants for years to come with aging “talent”.

GOD HELP US, THESE PLAYERS WILL BE PURSUED BY THE GIANTS:

1. Carlos Lee - While a fine player at the plate he is approaching 31 years old and will most likely see a major drop in his production by the time the contract he will likely command runs out. His .OBP is also fairly dependant on his batting avg. and his glove is laughable.
2. Alfonso Soriano - Simply put, Soriano will never again have a year like he did in ‘06, thats why they call it a career year. He will command A-Rod money and would probably play 2B if he were signed by the Giants where he will be good for 20+ errors a season for 5 or 6 years.
3. Barry Zito - I don’t really have a lot of complaints about Zito, though the lack of an overpowering or even average fastball does scare me, as well as the performances of Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson after they left Oakland. Also if Kris Benson commands nearly 9 mil. a year how much is Zito likely to earn?

The Giants are famous for withholding information as to team plans and it seems likely to me that Magowan’s statements on a “new direction” and “faster & younger” were merely uttered to throw the fans and competing GM’s for a loop. As when G. W. Bush was twice elected I look forward to many years of pain and anguish in regards to Giants Baseball. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to huddle in corner and wait for reality to slowly take hold.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 30th, 2006 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Giants. The entry is tagged under You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.