The Giants avoided arbitration with Brad Hennessey by offering the reliever-slash-closer a 1-year deal worth $1.6M, a nice pay-bump from his 2007 salary of $400K. Hennessey had his best year yet in ’07 when he took over the closers role for most of the year after Armando Benitez was traded. He saved 19 games while blowing 5 and posted a… Read more →
I’ve got a confession to make. I love pitchers with funky motions. Mostly side-armers, though, I also love the old-time throwing styles of pitchers from the 60′s, like Koufax, Gibson, and of course this wouldn’t be a Giants blog without the mention of Marichal’s rock-back-and-huge-leg-kick pitching motion. But, what really gets my juices flowing are pitchers that throw with a… Read more →
John Sickels of Minor League Ball has posted his top-20 list for the Giants. You can find the list here. Here’s how Sickels ranked the top-20 in the Giants’ farm system: Angel Villalona, 3B, Grade B+ Henry Sosa, RHP, Grade B Tim Alderson, RHP, Grade B Madison Bumgarner, LHP, Grade B- (lack of breaking ball is a caution flag for… Read more →
The Giants have announced 15 players who got the invite for spring training. Non-roster invites are usually a mix of long-shot players who’ve either played in the minors forever or have had injuries that have delayed their careers and younger rookies hoping to break camp with the big club. Let’s take a look at the invites. The Players Pitchers 1…. Read more →
Still not much baseball news going on (outside of the 24/7 Roger Clemens drama on ESPN which is fastly turning into a he-said she-said deal) but a few nuggets of information were posted this morning by Henry Schulman of the San Fransico Chronicle on free-swinging-should-be-gold-gloving 3B Pedro Feliz. Blurb #1 from Schulman: Contract talks between the Giants and incumbent third… Read more →
Sorry for the lack of updates over the last couple of weeks, the holidays plus starting a new job in December has zapped all of my free time lately. The baseball world hasn’t exactly been ablaze with baseball news either, so maybe my short time off isn’t so bad. How many times can I write about Noah Lowry in the… Read more →
A lot has been made out of the Giants’ defense in the coming years as a key component to their success. It’s a good idea in theory, as the offense looks to be bad for the ’08 season and maybe beyond. Any positives gained on the defensive front will be critical to the team. As of now, the Giants’ bats… Read more →
Baseball America has just recently released their Top-10 Prospects list for the Giants. You can find it here. Here’s what the list looks like: 1. Angel Villalona, 3b 2. Tim Alderson, rhp 3. Madison Bumgarner, lhp 4. Nate Schierholtz, of 5. Henry Sosa, rhp 6. Nick Noonan, 2b/ss 7. Eugenio Velez, of/2b 8. Wendell Fairley, of 9. John Bowker, of… Read more →
Yes, you’ve heard it right. The Giants just signed the guy that slammed his face into a wall. Gritty. Warrior Mentality. Tough. Hard-Nosed. Plays the game right. All of these words have been used to describe Aaron Rowand who just inked a 5-year deal worth $60M to play center field for the Giants. Usually upon hearing such praise for a… Read more →
The Rule 5 might not be the most exciting draft, most will pick the June amateur draft, but it nicely breaks up the traditional drought of much needed baseball news in the winter off-months. The basic rule of the Rule 5 is that whoever your team drafts, they must keep them on their starting roster for an entire year or… Read more →