Orlando Cepeda

    Most fans think of Orlando Cepeda as a San Francisco Giant and Cepeda played most of his career with the Giants but I'll always think of the Hall of Famer as a St.Louis Cardinal and a long-time favorite of mine.

I think most of that is because of his 1967 Topps card but some also is due to the picture to the left, a 1968 (I think) Topps poster from a series that Topps inserted into each pack that year.

The 1958 Rookie of the Year, Cepeda was the San Francisco Giants' first breakout young star after the team's move to California. At the time, if not forever, it was Cepeda who was the most popular player on the team as San Francisco fans regarded Cepeda as "theirs" compared to Willie Mays "belonging" to the team's former home in New York City.

Cepeda would lead the National League in homers and RBI in 1961 but the Giants had a big problem in the first half of the sixties- they had two players that could play first base well and struggled in every attempt to fit both players at other positions to allow both big hitters into the lineup.

Both players were destined for the Hall of Fame-Cepeda and Willie McCovey.

Cepeda began having knee problems with the Giants and would barely play in 1965 before returning to the lineup early in the 1966 season. This showed that Cepeda was healthy enough to attract interest from the St.Louis Cardinals, who traded pitcher Ray Sadecki to the Giants straight up for Cepeda.

Cepeda hit .303 in over one hundred twenty games for the Cardinals in 1966, winning the Comeback Player of the Year award.

The stage was set for 1967, the best season in " The Baby Bull's" career.

Cepeda was unanimously named MVP after leading the Cardinals to the world championship, defeating Boston in seven games.

Cepeda hit .325 with 25 homers and a league-leading 111 RBI for the pennant winners and his numbers dipped as all batters did in 1968, "The Year of the Pitcher" but it still came as a surprise when the Cardinals traded Cepeda one for one for Joe Torre in 1969.

Both players had issues with their previous teams (Cepeda for reporting late for spring training without permission, Torre holding out for a new contract) but rarely are two terrific players swapped for each other without any other considerations.

Atlanta and St. Louis each have a case for who "won" the trade.

Cepeda gave the Braves two excellent seasons in 1969 and 1970 (.305, 34 homers, and 111 RBI in 1970) and helped them to the 1969 National League Western Division title before his ailing knees held him to only seventy-one games in 1971.

Torre played longer with the Cardinals (playing in St. Louis through 1974), and won the 1971 National League MVP but the Cardinals didn't win a division during Torre's tenure and his final three seasons in St.Louis saw a drop in performance, particularly in the power department, so I'd say the trade was pretty even.

Cepeda appeared ready for retirement after his continuing battle with his knees allowed him to play only thirty-one games in 1972, twenty-eight with Atlanta and three with Oakland but in 1973, the American League instituted the Designated Hitter and it was Cepeda who was named the top DH after he hit .289 with 20 homers and 89 RBI for the Boston Red Sox.

But Cepeda had reached the point of immobility, and it was difficult to play him despite his hitting abilities. As Bill Lee wrote in his book "The Wrong Stuff," if Cepeda singled, it would take three hits to score him because he couldn't move up two bases on a base hit.

Cepeda's career was over in 1974 after thirty-three games with the Kansas City Royals, finishing with a career batting average of .297 with three hundred and seventy-nine homers and over 1,300 RBI at the age of thirty-six.

An eleven-time All-Star, Cepeda should have been an easy selection for the Hall of Fame within a few times of appearing on the ballot. Still, a conviction for drug possession and ten months in prison hurt Cepeda's candidacy.

Cepeda would fall nine votes short of induction in 1994, his final year of ballot eligibility but was elected by the Veterans Committee in 1999.

Cepeda's number thirty was retired by the Giants in 1999 and was honored with a statue outside the Giants home stadium in 2008. 

Buster Posey retires

    After a return to the game that could possibly boost his case for induction to the Hall of Fame, San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey is reported to announce his retirement tomorrow according to The Athletic.

Posey bounced back from an injury-plagued 2019 that forced him into hip surgery and missed the 2020 season due to the Covid-19 with a 2021 season that put Posey in line for another possible Silver Slugger award, which would be his fifth in his career to lead the surprising Giants to over 100 wins.

The thirty-four-year-old Posey finished 2021 with a .304 average with 18 homers, 56 RBI, and an OPS of .889 which was the second-highest of Posey's career.

Posey's accolades in leaving the game at only 34 are many: Rookie of the Year, MVP, four (and maybe five) Silver Sluggers, a Gold Glove, a batting title, two Comeback Player of the Year awards, two defensive player of the year awards, and caught three no-hitters.

The announcement comes before Monday when the Giants were expected to officially pick up a team option for twenty-two million for 2022 to keep Posey in San Francisco.

Buster Posey became the face of the Giants franchise for a dozen years as the top position player for the franchise since Barry Bonds.

And that face helped bring San Francisco their first title since arriving in Calfornia in 1958 in 2010 with two more added in 2012 and 2014.

Posey's somewhat early retirement makes me wonder how Posey will fare in the balloting for Cooperstown when his time on the ballot.

Buster Posey is the first catcher in MLB history to hit over .300 in their final season and Posey is one of only two players (Pete Rose) to have won the Rookie of the Year, the MVP, and won three World Series championships.

Baseball Reference's numbers crunchers rate Posey fourteenth among catchers in baseball history and only three of those thirteen ahead of him are not in the Hall (Joe Mauer, who has yet to appear on the ballot, Thurman Munson, and surprisingly Gene Tenace).

Mauer being a contemporary of Posey is ahead of Posey in the overall ratings, but their career numbers are very close except that Mauer has a bit over 600 hits more than Posey and that can be attributed to a longer career.

I would think that if you believe one player is deserving, then the other should receive your vote as well, but the voting for Cooperstown often evades such logic so I wouldn't be surprised if one had more trouble getting into the HOF than the other.

What may work against him is 1,500 career hits over only a dozen seasons and while I would be surprised if Posey made the Hall on the first ballot, I do believe that he will eventually be inducted into the shrine.

Posey stated at his retirement press conference that he planned all along to empty the tank for 2021 and his excellent season wasn't enough to change his mind to return for 2022 even if it meant an added twenty-two million dollars to the bank account and you have to respect that Posey wants to go out on top.

As for the Giants, I would imagine that this will be the time for Joey Bart to step up and assume the role that he was drafted for as the long-term replacement for Buster Posey behind the plate.

Bart only made six plate appearances in 2021 for the Giants, spending his season with AAA Sacramento, where he hit .294 with 10 homers and 46 RBI for the River Cats.

I haven't made it a secret that Buster Posey has been my favorite player of the decade that I wasn't fortunate enough to meet.

Most of the players that I root for are players that I met on the minor league/autograph circuit and Posey skipped the AA Eastern League as he moved quickly through the minors as he moved from the Giants High A San Jose to their then-AAA team in Fresno.

What I liked about Posey was that he always seemed to be a player that gave his all on the field yet did so in a manner that did so in the team concept, not in a look at me way that showcased him as an individual. 

Likable and a little goofy as someone not afraid to poke fun at himself to show some personality in various commercials, Buster Posey was an easy player to root for and considering his heart in two comebacks that either of which would have ended the careers of many players, fans admired the grit that he showed in returning to the field and prospering when he did so.

Buster Posey played hard, battled through adversity, and ended his career with one final great season.

One cannot beat that for a final season to cap off a career.

Giants add Kris Bryant and Tony Watson

    The San Francisco Giants had to have seen the moves that the Los Angeles Dodgers had made in acquiring Max Scherzer and Trea Turner and felt they had to do something to level the playing field.

San Francisco's three-game lead didn't feel secure enough to stand pat and the Giants grabbed a huge bat for their lineup along with a familiar arm for their bullpen and will now hope that they have enough muscle to hold off the West Coast version of Steinbrenner U.

Kris Bryant's power bat will serve the Giants' needs perfectly into a lineup that has been productive even without names that would only be recognizable by the hardest of minor league followers, but where the intrigue with Bryant begins goes beyond the postseason run.

Bryant is a free agent at the end of the season, but Bryant is from Las Vegas (the Bay Area is the closest MLB market to Vegas) and the Giants may have more money to spend in next years free-agent market, so this not only helps the stretch run for the Giants, but it also gives Bryant and the Giants a chance to kick the tires and see if the player, organization, and ballpark are a good fit for one another.

Bryant was hitting .265 with 18 homers with 51 RBI for the rebuilding Cubs and had problems with the organization going back to his rookie season over the team manipulating his service time for arbitration eligibility, so he was almost certainly not going to return to Wrigley Field.

The righthanded hitting Bryant would seem to be a perfect fit for a Giants team that lost Evan Longoria to a shoulder sprain in early June and have been running out various options to third base since then, but the Giants could also use Bryant at first until Brandon Belt returns from his injury (Belt is on a rehab assignment as of this writing) or even the outfield in a possible scenario that includes Belt and Longoria.

The cost was not cheap as toolsy outfielder Alexander Canario was so highly prized by the Giants that the team placed him on the 40 man roster despite Canario only playing 49 games for the now-defunct short-season Salem-Keizer Volcanoes in 2019, due to fear that a crummy team could take him and stash him away from the Rule V draft.

Canario was hitting .235 with nine homers for Low A San Jose this season with fifteen steals, but at 21 is highly thought of as a prospect.

San Francisco also included pitcher Caleb Killian as the second player in the trade and Killian has been the breakout pitching prospect for the Giants this season at two different levels.

Killian was drafted in the ninth round from Texas Tech in 2019 and has been excellent for High A Eugene (3-0 1.25 ERA 32 strikeouts in four starts) and AA Richmond (3-2 2.43 ERA 64 strikeouts in eleven starts).

Killian was considered as a possibility for the Giants rotation next season, so he is certainly a prospect that the Giants hate to lose.

One can never have too many arms for the bullpen and the Giants brought back an arm from the past as they obtained lefthander Tony Watson from the Anaheim Angels.

Watson was 3-3 and 4.64 ERA in 36 appearances for the Angels and could fill into the lefty specialist role in the late innings.

San Francisco sent three minor league pitchers to the Angels- Sam Selman, Jose Marte, and Ivan Armstrong.

The thirty-year-old Selman appeared in seven games for the Giants (0-0 4.50 ERA) but has spent most of the season with AAA Sacramento (1-0 1 save and 4.03 ERA)

Marte spent most of the season with AA Richmond ( 2-0 3.57 ERA 36 strikeouts in 22 innings) in their bullpen and has been reported to have been clocked near 100 MPH at times this season.

At twenty-five, Marte is a bit old for the level, but those types of arms from the bullpen will receive many opportunities to show a power arm.

Armstrong is the most interesting prospect to me at 21 with low A San Jose, the 6'5 righthander was 4-1 with a 1.88 ERA in twenty appearances.

The San Francisco Giants are a team that is exceeding expectations, but in a division with two free-spending teams in Los Angeles and San Diego, the Giants needed to do something to try to upgrade and at least make those teams deadline deals a wash in the overall picture.

Players like Kris Bryant come at a high price, even as a rental, but the Giants needed to do something to show that the effort is there to make a run in the homestretch.

Next writing will look at the various deals by the Cleveland IndiGuardians and whatever their deals brought in or rather what the hell is going on in Cleveland? 

Baseball Openers!

    I wrote yesterday about Opening Day and what was taking the joy away from baseball from me, so I decided to spend the day watching the Indians in the afternoon in Detroit against the Tigers in the snow and then the Giants from the road office with their opener in Seattle in an (ahem) interleague matchup.

The avenues may have been different, but the destination ended in the same manner for each team= an L.

And the worst part? Both teams' losses may have played out as many eventual defeats could as the season moves by.

In Detroit, a day filled with snow showers along with lots of wind, saw the Tigers drop the Indians 3-2, but the game played out as many could for the Wahoo's-they fell behind and didn't have the offense to catch up.

Shane Bieber struck out twelve Tigers in six innings and allowed only five hits, but the game was decided in the first inning when Miguel Cabrera drove a Bieber serve to the opposite field through the falling snowflakes and barely over the right-field wall for a two-run homer.

The snow shower caused visibility that was bad enough that Cabrera didn't know the ball carried into the seats and slid into second base.

Cabrera, who is attempting to reach career goals of 500 homers and 3,000 hits, both of which are likely should he stay healthy this season, looks to have lost twenty pounds and looks in better shape than he has been in recent years.

The Indians would not score until a two-run homer by Roberto Perez with one out in the ninth inning cut the lead to 3-2, but Cleveland would score no more.

This game was exactly what I (and every Cleveland fan likely) worried about entering the season- receiving a good pitching performance and not being able to stay in the game due to a weak offense.

Three runs allowed is respectable, but it could reach the point that the staff cannot allow more than two to have a chance to win and that is called a very narrow needle to thread.

One thing that I did notice about this game was from myself.

I noticed that I was counting a large number of Tigers that I had met/seen as they moved through the minors and the number of them that hadn't started in the Detroit system.

Of the nine starting position players (Including the DH, but not starting pitcher Matthew Boyd), I had met/seen eight of them (only Miguel Cabrera missed the cut) and of the eight, only one had been with the Tigers when I saw him, (Shortstop Willy Castro with AA Erie after he had been acquired from Cleveland that year).

It'll be interesting to see how many players that I can count this season under that scenario because as each season goes by, those numbers are going to dwindle.

Nine hours after the start in Detroit, the San Francisco Giants started their season in Seattle.

I would imagine that there are few readers here that don't know how much I dislike interleague play, so it was an extra sting that the Giants started their season not only in interleague but on the road as well.

Still, I kinda like Safeco Field of the retractable dome stadiums, so it could have been worse- it could have been Anaheim.

The Farhan Zaidi-led Giants have been frustrating, not because they are rebuilding, but due to the revolving door of players that can make it hard to follow and enjoy the team.

I don't have a problem with trying to find a gold nugget from a prospect pool with players that might need a break, and it worked out very well with Mike Yastremzski and to a lesser extent with Alex Dickerson.

However, the batting average is never going to be great and how could it be, if they didn't have questions the player wouldn't be available, still it doesn't make it easy.

The Giants jumped out early with a second-inning two-run shot from the returning Buster Posey, would add another homer from Austin Slater in the fifth to build a 5-0 lead after six innings and a 5-1 advantage after seven to combine with a terrific start from Kevin Gausman, who allowed only two hits and a seventh-inning run to seem to be cruising to a win.

And then, the wheels came flying off.

Gausman was replaced for one out by Caleb Baragar to finish the seventh and so far so good.

That worked, but Gausman had thrown ninety pitches and while the "analytics" swear by their pitch counts, I'm a believer that if a guy is pitching well then ride the horse.

I'm not saying throw 180 pitches and I can give a pass on this one because it was the opener, but it sure seemed like Gausman had another inning in him.

Matt Wisler starts the eighth, doesn't retire a batter on two hits and a walk, and leaves the bases loaded for Jarlin Garcia, who manages to strike out one, but walks in two runs.

Here comes Tyler Rogers and he does get the two outs to finish the inning- after allowing the Mariners to wind up with a 7-6 lead after a double, a hit batsman, and a fielders choice on a Jose Marmelejos (Former Hagerstown Suns) grounder to Brandon Belt that could have ended the inning with a double play, but Belt's throw to Brandon Crawford was low and away from the bag to allow the leading run to score rather than an inning-ending twin killing.

Rogers would retire the next two batters, but a five-run lead had melted into a one-run deficit in one Seattle at-bat.

Seattle calls for closer Rafael Montero, so Gabe Kapler calls for lefthanded hitting Alex Dickerson to face the righthanded Montero rather than righthanded hitting Austin Slater.

Dickerson takes Romero downtown and suddenly as I watch this game, Fred Landucci informs me that MLB is using the runner starts on second in the extra-inning rule that was used in the exhibition that was 2020's season.

I didn't know that they had kept that silliness, but apparently when the players refused a certain offer for the season, the league was allowed to make certain decisions and some genius decided to stick with this mess.

As I rooted to avoid the tenth, the next three Giants were retired, new Giant closer Jake McGee did the same to the Mariners and here we go.

You can cut the tension with a paper-knife as Evan Longoria trots to second for this farce, but does not score after two ground outs and a Buster Posey flyout.

The new pitcher for the Giants is Jose Alvarez and it's Seattle rookie Taylor Trammell starting at second as Alvarez tries to work through this fake crisis.

And the thrilling conclusion?

Alvarez walked Dylan Moore.

Alvarez walked Evan White.

Alvarez walked Jake Fraley.

Ball game. Whoo Hoo.

Manfred baseball, everybody!

A Giants loss and an excellent outing from Kevin Gausman wasted for nothing.

It was fun to watch baseball again, but I have a feeling that this is going to be a frustrating season with both of these teams for two very different reasons.

Opening Day and Baseball Talk

   Opening Day! or opening day.

Jim Bouton wrote that phrase in Ball Four before the 1969 opener as he played for the Seattle Pilots and it has never been more true for me than this opener.

With a new item to feed my disenchantment with baseball every day for months it seems, it's now time for the game to take the field for what may be a full regular season.

I'm not going to do season previews, because honestly, I just don't feel like doing them, but because I've paid so little attention to the Cactus League (where both the Indians and Giants train), I'm not even sure I'd be satisfied with them.

I've written often of the litany of decisions and changes due to Rob Manfred and his reign of terror, but there's more than Manfred to disappoint me.

The Indians continuing to develop pitchers at a surprisingly stunning rate and their ineptness of doing so with outfielders ( the decision to keep Bradley Zimmer rather than Clint Frazier in the 2016 Andrew Miller with the Yankees could haunt this team), the unwillingness or inability (depending on whom you ask) of the Dolan family to spend any type of money on what could be a contender with a few roster moves, the state of the game that allows a home-grown superstar in Francisco Lindor to walk away because you cannot afford to keep them and if you actually tried you would handicap yourself to put a team around that player, and a stadium lease that expires after 2023 all add up to a storm around the Indians for me that makes it very difficult for baseball enthusiasm.

Add the continual rebuilding of the Giants in a division with the National League version of the "Evil Empire" and the suddenly cash-flush San Diego Padres with has-been's, faded prospects, and never were players has made the proverbial "need of a scorecard to tell the players" often for the Giants.

Even the networks that televise the games have cut their budget as the Giants, who won me over as a fan with late-night games with the best broadcast bunch in the game with Duane Kuiper, Mike Krukow, and Amy Gutierrez, won't have one-third of their unit doing the games as NBC Bay Area decided not to renew Gutierrez's contract and the team will not be using anyone in the reporter role this season.

Fortunately for Giants fans, Gutierrez was quickly hired by the team and will be doing all the types of features for the team website and social media that she had been doing for NBC Bay Area.

That's a smart move to keep someone that is very popular with the fan base in the organization by the team, but it shows the stress that the financial losses from last season aren't limited to the franchises.

Cleveland's broadcast team returns on the newly re-branded Bally Sports Ohio with Matt Underwood, Rick Manning, and Andre Knott.

The Indians bunch isn't awful, but it's not outstanding either.

They aren't top of the line as Kuiper and Krukow are, but they are decent enough and certainly aren't enough to make you reach for the remote button or your bottle of choice as can be the case with Pittsburgh's Greg Brown or Washington's F.P. Santangelo to name two.

I nearly did not order the MLB plan this season with my current feelings, but Cherie thought that I should in order to give me something to do with so little live baseball in store for me this season.

I know I've written often about having a summer without baseball in Hagerstown or Frederick, but for someone that was consumed by going to games for the last decade and a half, the summer looks very bland.

Assuming that things progress to anything close to normal, my season looks like a July visit to Harrisburg to see the Akron Rubber Ducks (Cleveland AA), one visit to Altoona in August for the Richmond Flying Squirrels (San Francisco AA), the usual trip to Eastlake, Ohio for the Lake County Captains (Now Cleveland's High A team) for their annual Cleveland Sports Night, and maybe a late-season trip to Lynchburg, Virginia for the Lynchburg Hillcats (Now Cleveland's Low A team), and that's likely the ballgame, no pun intended.

As far as autographing goes, I'm not sure many players will even sign at all and I'm not sure that I even care all that much.

I have decided that I still want to do the Indians minor league teams that I can and Richmond, as long as they stay with the Giants as Richmond is now the only Giants farm club on the East Coast, but otherwise unless a team has a coach or manager from the "old days" that I may need for a set, I don't think I'll be bothering with more than that.

The netting all over the field now and Covid have created an environment that has melted the hobby and without a team close by, I think I'm finished for the most part and that's saddening.

I've met so many great people during my collecting time, both on the field and in the stands, so I'll miss that, but I see no other choice.

It's a crazy time in baseball as a man and his minions seem bent on twisting a game away from the people that love it most to favor others that aren't likely to care no matter what they change.

Hopefully, I can find something that I can continue to care about as the marketing majors and bean counters take a game I love and pass me by...

Giants sign Tommy LaStella

  The San Francisco Giants attempted to fill an infield hole with the signing of veteran second baseman Tommy LaStella to a three-year contract worth 18.75 million.

The severely backloaded contract (two million this year, 5.2 million in 2022, and 11.5 for 2023) gives the Giants more payroll space currently with big contracts on the ledger and will pay LaStella more in the future when theoretically San Francisco will have fewer big contracts to dole money to.

The thirty-two-year-old LaStella hit .281 with five homers and twenty-five RBI in the shortened 2020 campaign that he split between the Angels and Athletics.

LaStella has never made more than the 360 plate appearances than in his rookie season of 2014 with the Braves and was a utilityman with the Cubs from 2015-18 before his breakout season with the Angels in 2019.

LaStella hit .295 with sixteen homers in eighty games and made the All-Star team in 2019 and his solid season last year could tab him as a late-bloomer, but there is a risk as the Giants could be playing eleven million-plus for a 35-year-old utilityman.

LaStella can play first or third and the Giants were noted in the Athletic as thinking that they could shift him to one of those two positions in the final season of his contract, should he be unable to handle second defensively.

The Giants also love the walk rate for LaStella, who walked twenty-seven times and only struck out twelve last season.

LaStella was the only player to have twice as many walks as strikeouts in the entire league in 2020, which the Giants and many other teams value almost as highly as extra-base hits and was specifically mentioned by Farhan Zaidi when announcing the signing of LaStella.

I'm not entirely sold on this one.

Three years seems a bit long for LaStella's track record and I'm not thrilled with the reasoning of the weight of the contract on the back end of the deal.

Using the Giants' reasoning because their commitments for 2022 and 2023 are lower than they are for the 2021 season, it makes sense for the team to pay the contract in this way.

And yes, there are several hefty contracts that will expire between now and then.

However, doesn't it make sense that the Giants will have other large contracts that are needed to fill holes and improve the team for those seasons and that paying a thirty-five-year-old player that may not be able to play a full-time position defensively is an albatross to carry?

And I would counter one thing with the walk/ low strikeout percentage- Yes, LaStella may be one of the best in the league at putting the ball in play, but couldn't his numbers fluctuate from year to year as players catch the ball?

That may be simplistic, but the numbers can vary severely in how often a player's contact to out ratio from year to year and a contact hitter, as LaStella has been other than in 2019, is at the mercy of the defenders surrounding him.

I don't think this is an awful signing, but I do think that this could be a bad signing.

I would have preferred a two-year deal or in the best choice, a one year deal and a team option, 

even if that would have been a bit more than they are paying per year now.

Say along the lines of ten million for 2021 and a ten million team option instead of that awful 2013 number would be a better signing in my opinion.

It'll be interesting to follow and see how this plays out.

Rule 5 Fever: Giants select Dedneil Nunez

   The San Francisco Giants are always looking for unseen gold in the baseball mine and in the Rule 5 draft, the Giants selected one player in the major league half and three in the minor league side of the draft.

San Francisco lost one player in the AAA draft for their only lost player.

San Francisco used their first choice (14th overall) on a pitcher from the Mets system in righthander Dedniel Nunez.

Nunez is a typical Rule 5 pick as he is a little older (24), throws hard (the mid to high 90s), and hasn't proven himself at a high level, but has one specific stat to recommend him.

Nunez has never pitched above High A and split 2019 between Low A Columbia and High A St.Lucie, finishing 5-4 with a 4.39 ERA between the two levels in 16 appearances, 15 of those being starts. Those numbers are pretty pedestrian, until you look at 94 strikeouts in 80 innings, walking 23, and hitters hit only .239 against him.

Add in the Giants' lack of righthanded relievers (at this time) and you have the template for the perfect Rule 5 pick- Throws hard and can be hidden in the bullpen.

San Francisco selected three players in the AAA draft and all are interesting players for different reasons.

25-year-old outfielder Vince Fernandez was selected from the Colorado Rockies with the first of their three picks.

Fernandez has shown power since the Rockies picked him in round ten of the 2016 draft from UC-Riverside with sixty homers in his four years as a pro. 

Fernandez hit .257 with 15 homers in 230 at-bats for AA Hartford in 2019, so he has some pop from the left side of the plate, but he did strike out 86 times (once in a little under every three at-bats) with Hartford and I'm not sure that he'll make enough contact to hit the bigs.

The Giants have hit on similar types before, but as always with the Rule 5 draft, it will take luck.

Fernandez will, at minimum, provide power to either AAA Sacramento or AA Richmond.

In the second round, the Giants selected Ronnie Williams, a pitcher from the St.Louis Cardinals organization that was once thought of as a top prospect after the Cardinals selected him in the second round of the 2014 draft out of high school.

Williams turns 25 in January and reached AA for the first time in 2019 when he split the season between High A Palm Beach and AA Springfield.

Williams career has been hampered by injuries and was moved to the bullpen by the Cardinals before 2018,

Williams is noted to throw in the nineties, but his strikeout numbers ( 58 in 58 innings in 2019) are good, but not great considering the scouting reports.

Williams seems worth the check because the scouts seem to love him even if the results haven't lived up to the reports.

Williams will likely start with AA Richmond.

And the third-round selection is familiar as the Giants took Mitchell Tolman, a second baseman from the New York Mets.

Tolman signed with the Mets in the off-season after being released by the Pittsburgh Pirates in June.

Tolman hit .254 with four homers in 401 at-bats for AA Altoona in 2019 before a twelve game cameo at AAA Indianapolis to finish the season.

The second baseman was drafted by the Pirates in the seventh round from Oregon in 2015 and will turn 27 in June.

Tolman will likely play at either AAA Sacramento or AA Richmond as an organizational soldier, depending on which team is in need of a second baseman/utility infielder more.

Tolman also stands out not because I've seen him play often as a member of the now-defunct West Virginia Power and the Altoona Curve.

Tolman stands out because of the infamous "Toastman" Rod Blackstone and his chants during one of our trips to Charleston.

For whatever reason, Rod's chants for Tolman "He's our Soul Man, Mitchell Tolman" was the one chant that stuck with me and I had to recite it to Mitchell when I met him two years later in Altoona at the Meet the Curve dinner.

Mitchell started laughing and several of the Curve players that had played in West Virginia started doing it as well...

The Giants lost one player in the draft, infielder Jalen Miller, who was selected by Atlanta in the second round.

Miller was the Giants 3rd round pick out of Smyrna Georgia as a high schooler in 2015 but has struggled to make contact as a pro. 

Miller turns 24 next week and after taking two years to get past High A, Miller hit .216 with 14 homers and 27 steals for AA Richmond in 2019 but continued a string of striking out more than 100 times in each of the four full seasons that he was in the Giants system.

I'll be back later with the PPM and the boxing challenge headed by Anthony Joshua defending three of the four heavyweight titles against Kubrat Pulev on Saturday.

Giants draft Patrick Bailey

The San Francisco Giants had been connected to a catcher in the first round of Wednesday's major league baseball draft.
The Giants didn't disappoint those predictions by position, but it was a mild surprise with the catcher that the team selected in Patrick Bailey of North Carolina State.
Not that I'm disappointed in Bailey, who was rated as the top catcher in the class and most mock drafts had Bailey rated as a top ten player, but the Giants had been noted by many mock drafts as interested in California high school backstop Tyler Soderstrom, but in those mocks, Bailey was likely off the board by the Giants choice.

Bailey hit .296 with six homers and 20 RBI in the shortened college season in which Bailey played only seventeen games.
The 6'2 Bailey has been credited with being the best defensive catcher in college baseball with a plus arm (as shown in the video below) and his six homers in seventeen games show that he does have power, but .296 in college is respectable, but not extraordinary and there may be questions about hitting for average in the majors.

The question asked by many Giants followers about Bailey is why him when the Giants already have Joey Bart in the system with both selected out of ACC colleges (Bart from Georgia Tech) in two of three drafts?
Bart, however, will turn 24 in December to Bailey's 21 and from what I saw (and I didn't put nearly as much time into looking at the draft prospects this year) from and about Bailey, the Giants decided to take the best player on the board and not worry about position.

This is what successful teams do in the draft, especially in the MLB draft as developmental time can vary, but there is one concern- college catchers usually are moved quickly as their prime can be short and they are often close to the majors coming out of the college game, so Bart and Bailey could find themselves arriving within a year or two of each other with a team that still could have Buster Posey for a little while as Posey is signed through 2021 with a club option for 2022 at twenty-two million that I would think (as of this writing) that the Giants aren't likely to pick up.
I do wonder a little about that, but if Bart, who should get there first, is hitting well and establishing himself as a starter and Bailey is moving through the minors quickly as a top catching prospect, the Giants should be able to move Bailey as catching prospects that are close to the bigs are always in demand.

All and all, I'm rarely going to rap a team for taking the best available player and if this was a situation with two players at any other position than catcher, it would be scarcely mentioned.
It'll be interesting to see how the catching situation eventually plays out, but dealing from a position of strength is always preferable and part of building (and maintaining) a winning program.
The Giants hope to see that problem of too much talent arriving sooner than later.

I'm hoping to find time this morning to look at the Indians' pick with a very familiar name.
Should time be short and it may with some evening responsibilities, I'll write on it tomorrow.

Signing free agents in the warm Arizona sun

With pitchers and catchers reporting today in Arizona, both the Cleveland Indians and San Francisco Giants added to their outfield situation with players that would add pop to positions that need it for both teams.
Farhan Zaidi and the Giants added other players as the Giants continue to sign players first and ask questions later.

The Giants signed the flashier name as they returned fan-favorite Hunter Pence to San Francisco on a one year contract that could see Pence make 5.5 million dollars, should he reach all of his incentives.
San Francisco allowed Pence to leave last season and Pence hit 18 homers for the Texas Rangers in just under 300 at-bats.
Pence also hit .297 for Texas and won some Comeback of the Year awards last season, so Pence might have more in the tank than was thought when the Giants allowed him to leave.
Pence will platoon in left field with Alex Dickerson and play mostly against left-handed pitching.

San Francisco also re-signed Pablo Sandoval and continued to throw darts at the wall and hope to hit the board with various players.
Sandoval hit .268 with 14 homers for the Giants in his return to the Bay Area in 272 at-bats before his season ended with an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery.
The Giants signed Billy Hamilton in what I hope will be as a defensive replacement and pinch-runner should he make the team.
Hamilton stole 22 bases last year between the Royals and Braves but hit a combined .218 in
a career that hasn't seen Hamilton be more than an offensive liability.
San Francisco also added second baseman Yolmer Sanchez, who hit .252 with two homers for the White Sox but did win the Gold Glove so Sanchez should have a shot at making the club, as Wilmer Flores should after hitting .317 with nine homers in 89 games with Arizona.
San Francisco also signed former Phillie's first baseman Darin Ruf after Ruf spent the last three years playing in the Korean league.
Ruf might provide some power for the always power-needy Giants, but he'll strike out a ton doing that.

San Francisco has also added some interesting arms over the last month with one being handed a spot in the rotation after an awful season with Texas and Philadelphia as Drew Smyly finished 4-7 with an ERA over six in twenty-one starts.
Smyly allowed 32 homers in 114 innings and I'm really dubious of this signing, especially after Smyly missed 2017 and 2018 due to injury.
Tyson Ross was signed after a 1-5 season with Detroit that saw his season ERA finish over six and Jerry Blevins was added as a situational reliever after spending last season with Atlanta.
Nick Vincent split the season with the Phillies and Giants, was mediocre with the Giants before being released, but excellent with the Phillies in two months.
I suppose that stretch made Vincent attractive enough for a return at a minor league contract.
The most interesting addition to me was Jarlin Garcia, a one-time top prospect for the Marlins, who finished with an ERA around three in fifty-three appearances.
I'm not sure why the Marlins would waive Garcia, but he could be an excellent addition to the Giant bullpen.

And the Indians?
They did add Domingo Santana for a crowded outfield situation that could use power from someone other than Franmil Reyes and Cameron Rupp for a veteran catcher for Columbus in case of injury and that's about it for a team that cut its payroll for the season by twenty-five percent.
Santana hit 21 homers for Seattle last season and hit 30 for the Brewers in 2017, so Santana can provide some power, but he also struck out 164 times in 507 at-bats last season and with Reyes in tow, Cleveland has two of the top six strikeout leaders in the game.
Plus Santana is notorious for his awful defense and if the Indians start a game with Santana in left and Reyes in right, that will be the worst defensive outfield in the game no matter who the centerfielder is on that evening.
Still for one million dollars, if Santana hits twenty homers he'll be a bargain- just make sure that the Indians have a defensive caddy ready for those late innings.
Cameron Rupp will likely be the veteran presence in Columbus unless he has the type of spring that pushes Sandy Leon to AAA.
Rupp hit 30 homers for the Phillies between 2016 and 2017 but has spent the last two seasons in AAA for various teams.

That wraps up the recent additions as the training camps in Arizona open this week for pitchers and catchers with two wildly different management styles.
I'm not against what the Giants do in signing anyone with a pulse and seeing what they have left and you could argue that the more flyers that you take the higher chance that you find a contributor.
As for the Indians, well the lack of even a little spending is yet another red flag for a franchise that continues to spend like K-Mart in a Tiffany's world.

Giants Hot Stove

With all that has been going on of late, I have been lacking the time to catch up on the San Francisco Giants actions at the Winter Meetings.
I still have plenty from the inbox and still other things that I wish to write about soon, but before I fell too far behind, I wanted to finish this.

The San Francisco Giants biggest loss occurred after the Winter Meetings when Madison Bumgarner signed with fellow NL West member Arizona.
Bumgarner signed a five-year contract in Arizona worth 85 million choosing it over a four-year agreement to stay with the Giants that was competitive in dollars, but lacked the extra year that the Diamondbacks were willing to offer.

The Giants signed two pitchers to one-year contracts in an attempt to strike gold with pitchers that have disappointed in their chances in the majors.

Soon to be 30 year old Tyler Anderson started five games for the Rockies last season and didn't pitch well in his twenty innings as he finished with a record of 0-3 and an ERA of 11.76.
Anderson did strike out 23 in those innings if you are looking for a silver lining, but there isn't a lot of silver in those numbers.
After those five starts, Anderson was demoted to AAA Albuquerque, but his season was over, due to continuing knee problems.
Anderson was taken by Colorado 20th overall in the first round of the 2011 draft and Anderson has a career record of 18-24 with an ERA of 4.69.
Anderson will receive 1.75 million in base salary with a chance to take home another 850,000 dollars in bonuses.

Kevin Gausman will turn 29 before the season starts and the former 2012 first-rounder by Baltimore is the more interesting pitcher of the two signees.
Gausman split last season between Atlanta and Cincinnati, combining for a record of 3-9 between the two teams with an ERA of 5.72.
Gausman made 17 starts with all but one for the Braves, but also made 14 relief appearances for the Reds after he was claimed from the waiver wire.
Gausman was a disappointment for Baltimore, who took him fourth overall in 2012 from LSU, but still won 11 games in 2017 for the Orioles and combined for another ten wins between Baltimore and Atlanta in 2018.
Gausman's career numbers are 47-63 with an ERA of 4.30 and still throws in the mid-90s and if you are looking for the type of candidate for revitalization in a pitchers ballpark such as Oracle Park, Kevin Gausman could have the type of arm that might be a good fit.
Gausman is far more expensive than Anderson at nine million with a few performance bonuses, but Gausman is durable and doesn't miss starts, so I'm more comfortable at the cost for the former LSU Tiger.

There aren't many deals that are made to save "cap space" in baseball, since there isn't a true cap, just a "luxury tax", but give the Giants credit for making a trade that gained them a solid prospect for taking on salary.
The Anaheim Angels needed to save some cash for their signing of third baseman Anthony Rendon from the Nationals and considering that Rendon would be replacing Zack Cosart as the regular third baseman and Cozart was going to be making 12.6 million to sit behind Rendon, it only made sense for the Angels to try to find a place for Cozart.
The Giants became that place as they took Cozart and that 12.6 million commitment for 2020 in a trade to help the Angels out a bit.

It was not out of the goodness of their heart though as the Angels added their 2019 first-round pick in shortstop Will Wilson to the deal.
Wilson was the 15th overall pick from N.C. State, where Wilson hit .339 and 15 homers along with being named the ACC defender of the year.
Wilson was paid a signing bonus of 3.5 million by the Angels, so the Giants essentially added a first-round player for paying the final season of Cozart's overpaid contract.
The righthanded hitting Wilson hit  .275 with five homers in 46 games for Orem of the Pioneer League and considering his college experience, my guess is that he'll be assigned to High A San Jose, although he could go to Low A Augusta to start the 2020 season.


As for Zack Cozart, the Angels signed him to a three year, thirty-eight million dollar contract after the 2017 season.
Cozart had his best season in 2017 for the Cincinnati Reds, hitting .297 with 24 homers, but in two seasons in Anaheim Cozart hit only .190 with five homers in 96 games and last season Cozart played only 38 games without hitting a homer with a tiny average of  .124.
Cozart injured his left shoulder in 2018 and reaggravated it in 2019, undergoing surgery on the shoulder in both years.
At 34 and with injury problems, the Giants likely will either use him as a backup or could also decide that Wilson is more than enough of a return and release Cozart.

The Giants sent right-handed pitcher Garrett Williams to the Angels as the "return".
The 25-year-old Williams appeared in 29 games with 20 starts for AA Richmond last year finishing with a 7-8 record and an ERA of  3.60 in his second season with the Flying Squirrels.

Moving to the Giants in the Rule 5 Draft, the Giants took one player in the major league portion and another in the AAA portion.

In the major draft, San Francisco tabbed righthander Dany Jimenez from the Toronto Blue Jays.
Jimenez is a 26-year-old righthander that split last season between the Blue Jays High A affiliate at Dunedin and then was promoted to AA New Hampshire.
Jimenez blossomed after the promotion with tremendous numbers of  2-2 with a 1.87 ERA with six saves and striking out 46 in 33 innings.
Jimenez sits in the mid to high 90's and has an excellent slider, but there are concerns about his command.
The selection of Jimenez is the second rule five pitcher in two years that San Francisco took from Toronto after picking Travis Bergen from the Blue Jays last year.
Bergen appeared in 21 games for the Giants before they offered him back to Toronto for $50,000, which the Blue Jays paid for his return.
Jimenez will have to stay on the Giants roster all season or the Blue Jays will have the chance to return him to Toronto for that fifty thousand dollar sum.


In the AAA half, the Giants picked catcher Bryan Torres from the Brewers organization.
The 22-year-old backstop hit .283 last season for the Rocky Mountain Vibes of the Pioneer League without a homer in 67 games.
The Caguas, Puerto Rico product stole a surprising twenty-one bases for the Vibes, which is a huge number for a catcher period, let alone in 67 games.
Could the Giants be considering a position change for Torres?
It's not often that a catcher has this type of speed and staying behind the plate is a good way to lose some of that speed fairly quickly.
I would imagine that Torres would be assigned to Low A Augusta, but should the Giants decide to change his position, Torres could be left behind in extended spring training to start the 2020 season.

Still so much more to catch up on, so stay tuned and enjoy the Holiday festivities,

Ed Loyd

We start our occasional notebook of notable people that have recently passed away and this time we may have a first - someone that I knew personally.

Ed Loyd was a regular in Richmond through the years attending the AAA Braves games at the Diamond and later the AA Flying Squirrels when baseball returned after a one-year hiatus without baseball.
I read an article on Ed by Ben Hill of Ben's Baseball Biz (Hill travels around minor league parks writing about the quirky people, places and things that you find in the minors) over the summer and I didn't know that he was known for ChapStick or that he worked for the company that made it for years.
I was introduced to Ed by a mutual friend as Ed was one of the larger dealers of minor league team sets and I was fairly new to the hobby and was looking to buy from someone reasonable in price and someone that would understand that in this hobby time-sensitive purchases are pretty common.
Ed was very understanding and we hit it off immediately.
I'm not sure how long I dealt with Ed, but it had to be around ten years or so and if I needed a set on a few days notice, Ed would pack it as soon as he heard from me and within an hour or two, I'd get an email that would say "Ed Loyd Here, package sent".

I never had a cross word in my dealings with Ed, who from day one never demanded payment upfront because that would slow things up as far as getting cards to me when I needed things.
I would receive these little white handwritten invoices from him in each package and then I'd send him a check.
Almost always a check, because Ed didn't believe in Paypal and their extra charges.
Cherie used to always joke about certain times of the year being "Ed Loyd" season because, in the digital age, Ed Loyd was the only person that I ever wrote checks to.
I say almost always because the last transaction that I made with Ed this year, he wrote saying "I can take Paypal now, the times are always changing."

Over the last few years, I didn't buy as much from Ed and he understood.
As fast as Ed was, he couldn't compete with the person that I was buying from locally that I could get them even faster at the ballpark and not have the worries with the postal service getting them lost.
I still bought a few things from him though and we wrote back and forth fairly frequently.

Ed always thought of me as a Giants fan and two acts of kindness always stick out to me.
The first was Ed, who knew I was always looking for 1988 and 90 Score cards to be signed, writing to me and asking if I needed Will Clark for those sets.
Clark had just one card in 1988 Score, but three in 1990, as the Giants won the NLCS in 1989 and Clark, was on cards commemorating that series.
Ed wrote and told me to "watch my mailbox" shortly and within a week or so, Ed had sent me all four Will Clark cards signed.

The other was only a year or so ago, early in the season, Ed had a customer that needed three Hagerstown Suns sets ASAP as the Suns were coming to this gentleman's town very soon and Ed asked if I would grab these sets for him and send them straight to the customer with him paying me for them.
I was happy to do so and I wasn't worried about the money as I figured it would even out eventually.
Ed would write to me and end our notes with "I still owe you a big one".
Ed's Flying Squirrels never seem to be early in getting their sets out and when the team set was released, Richmond was finished for the year in Altoona and Harrisburg.
It looked unlikely that I was going to get the set signed for the 2018 season, but Ed remembered my constant asking when that set was coming out and when it did, he asked if I still wanted it.
I replied Yes as a Giants fan, but I wasn't going to have an opportunity to get them signed.
Ed said he would have someone do it for me and what I didn't find out until later was that Ed, who wasn't a grapher, did that set himself for me.

I actually met Ed in person only three times, once at the Chantilly VA. card show (the only time that I have ever attended that show), one at the Diamond in Richmond ( My only visit there thus far) and once in Harrisburg, when Ed traveled there to see the Squirrels on the road.
Harrisburg was the last time that I saw him in that 2018 season and we talked for most of the game about baseball, the minors, and minor league baseball cards as he was getting tired of dealing with more and more teams that were so difficult to work with.

Ed used to always push me to come down to the Richmond Hot Stove dinner as one of his guests and he used to tell me how badly he wanted to introduce me to the Squirrels owner Lou DiBella.
DiBella promotes several champions in boxing and promoted one of my favorites in retired middleweight champion Sergio Martinez, so Ed would tell me that "you gotta come down here and meet Lou, you guys will spend all night talking boxing".
I was never able to make that trip and now I wish I had made the time to do that.

I started this post as a "passings" tribute as usual and now I see I've written so much about Ed Loyd that I think I'm going to leave this as a stand-alone article.
I'm sure others have stories about Ed as well and from people that knew him far better than I, but he'll be missed by me and so many others.
I'm positive that baseball at Richmond's Diamond won't be the same without Ed holding court there and I'm also sure that the Squirrels will come up with something to honor Ed next season.
A bobblehead of Ed with either ChapStick or a pack of baseball cards in his hands would be so fitting to honor his memory at the place that he loved so much.
Rest well, Ed- you'll be greatly missed.

Giants hire Gabe Kapler.

One of the reasons that I became a San Francisco Giants fan was that it was so easy.
The team had good players that seemed like good people (this was after the Barry Bonds years), had the best announcing team in the game, and when I was sitting around late nights, they were fun to watch.
It was one of those things that happen organically without thought or planning about who to pick to root for and that doesn't happen often to me.
I'm usually thinking about teams to root for in opposite divisions or conferences to not conflict with my main team (usually Ohio based except for the New Jersey Devils) and even though the selections are often logical, the fandom usually doesn't become diehard.
I became a Giants fan by watching and all that I wrote above, which is why the hiring of Gabe Kapler bothers me on so many levels.

I'm used to my teams hiring (and especially drafting) people that I would say would be my worst possible choice, but usually the reasons that I may have for not wanting a manager/coach/player has to do with their on the field performance and maybe a person has a maturity question or question of a clubhouse issue.

In the case of Gabe Kapler, it's more than his mediocre two years as the manager of the Philadelphia Phillies.
Kapler's two years ended with a record of two games under .500 with a roster that not only signed a superstar in Bryce Harper but had the surrounding talent of a playoff team and yet never performed at that level.
If it was only that, I might not be thrilled, but I'm used to bad field bosses as I am a Cleveland Browns fan after all.

It's the side factors with Gabe Kapler that make me wonder most about this hire.
I don't claim to have all the information on the following, so I am providing links if I miss a piece or two of valuable information.
The Washington Post broke this story in February, but since I don't subscribe to their site, the paywall is up and I'm using Medium and Sports Illustrated as the sources for this story.
In 2015, when Gabe Kapler was working for the Dodgers (as was Farhan Zaidi, the current Giants head of all things baseball) as the Dodgers director of player development and as the story goes was involved in a coverup at the Dodgers spring training facility in Arizona with two players possibly involved in a sexual assault case.
Sports Illustrated claims that one of the two players involved is currently on a major league roster (the other was released) and it's also pretty clear that the young lady involved (who wanted payment to talk to SI and has a developing rap sheet) is not a babe caught in the woods either.
I'm not going to make a judgment on the guilt or innocence of the players involved, but I will state that if you read the sources that you will have to at minimum blame Kapler for poor judgment in how he handled the situation then, but even going forward Kapler's explanations of how he handled this case are those of a man that has tossed out some platitudes and the obligatory apologies, but has yet to completely explain his actions or truly accept responsibility for his handling of the matter.

Guilt or innocence aside, there are plenty of questions that should be asked and answered (the articles raise plenty of questions on Kapler's actions then and his regrets now) of Kapler, Farhan Zaidi, and the Giants organization.
To Kapler, Zaidi and any other person of importance in the organization, I ask these two questions- "What did you handle wrong in this situation/what would you do differently today?" and "What about
Gabe Kapler makes him worth dealing with the issues from his past with the Dodgers and considering the problems in the front office in recent years (Charles Johnson and Larry Baer), what stood out about him that of all candidates allowed you to overlook these decisions?"

That's not all though with Kapler and even Zaidi, as Sports Illustrated reported a year ago (and the investigation is still moving forward) the Department of Justice is investigating MLB for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for acquiring players from the Caribbean and Latin American under unsavory practices.
What has been revealed thus far has been centered on 2015 and 2016 and the team mentioned most prominently among many?
The Los Angeles Dodgers- with Gabe Kapler as their head of player development.
If this shoe drops and I'm not sure when and if it will- Gabe Kapler and Farhan Zaidi could very well be a major part of these investigations.

When you wrap it up, the San Francisco Giants could have picked almost anyone in the baseball world to replace future Hall of Fame manager Bruce Bochy and the choice is someone that isn't simply polarizing to your fan base, it's someone that is being panned by almost all and the few that aren't panning the hire are simply uttering "let's give him a chance" or " we will see".
If that's the best that you have to say, it's not a popular hire.
Farhan Zaidi could have picked anyone and if it didn't work out, it would have likely been looked at as the manager's fault.
Instead by selecting Gabe Kapler against the wishes of so many, Zaidi has attached himself to the hiring of Kapler and the failure of Kapler, should that occur, will be applied to Zaidi as well for ignoring all of the baggage with this hire and selecting him anyway.

I'll wrap with the similarities to another front-office (not coaching) hire that was hated from the first minute of hiring rumors began by the fan base and local media.
It's not baseball, it's football.
Remember when the Jimmy Haslam era began with his first hire of Joe Banner and despite the howlings from everyone from me to Moses Cleveland's statue in downtown Cleveland wanting no part of Mike Lombardi, Haslam hired him anyway?
Look back to Banner's statements on Lombardi that basically said: "you don't know this guy like I do, you'll love him eventually and if not, winning is great and to hell with you".
Compare those thoughts to those that Farhan Zaidi made in his first statement on the hiring and I'll paraphrase " I'm looking forward to the fans and organization getting to know Gabe as I (Zaidi) do and as they do, it'll be a strong, positive, and long-lasting relationship".

It was that statement that instantly made me think of Jimmy Haslam, Joe Banner, and Mike Lombardi answering questions and defending a hire that only they thought was a good idea with only those men believing things were going to work out as they offered the same stale platitudes on why this was a good idea.
Mike Lombardi lasted thirteen months with the Browns and when he was fired- Joe Banner was fired with him.
Let's see what the future holds for Farhan Zaidi because his decision to push for Gabe Kapler could be a decision that takes Zaidi down with his hand-picked choice.

Back later with a cleaning of the inbox as I was working on that when the hiring of Gabe Kapler was announced.

Giants add Gennett, deal others.

The trade deadline trades that one might have thought that Farhan Zaidi would have been making even a month ago didn't occur, but that didn't mean that the San Francisco Giants stood idle at the deadline as the team attempted to add to their offense for their post-July playoff try and yet still moved some players to gain for the future as well.

The one trade that added to the current roster could be a major addition with some luck as the Giants sent the always ambiguous "Cash Considerations" to the Cincinnati Reds for veteran second baseman Scooter Gennett.
Gennett (29) has struggled to a .212 average without a homer in sixty-six at-bats after missing much of the season with a severe groin strain suffered in an Arizona spring training game.
While Gennett has been having his problems at the plate since returning to the Reds lineup, his previous two seasons in Cincinnati saw his hitting leap forward after what had been an average career with the Milwaukee Brewers with averages of over .290 in both seasons, a combined total of fifty homers and 189 RBI.
Gennett will likely replace Joe Panik at second base, mainly because I cannot imagine the Giants bringing Gennett in, only to sit him behind Panik, who is hitting just .231 as of this writing,
Gennett is a free agent at the end of the season, but to add a potential All-Star level bat for what seems to be as simple as paying Gennett (who is making just under ten million for 2019) his salary for the rest of the season is a low cost in talent terms and well worth the risk even considering his recent struggles.

The Giants didn't only make trades to add to the rosters, they made three to add talent to their upper minor league levels-all of these trades would send away relievers, but none of the top relievers were moved as both Will Smith and Tony Watson would stay after being mentioned often as trade bait for contenders for months.
The Giants have drafted well over the last two seasons and their lower-level teams have several potential quality players, but their AA (Richmond) and AAA (Sacramento) are downright bereft of position players.

The first of these trades would see San Francisco trade pitchers Drew Pomerantz off the main roster and Ray Black from AAA Sacramento to the Milwaukee Brewers in exchange for AAA shortstop Mauricio Dubon.
Dubon, a 25 year old from Honduras and the third-rated prospect in the Brewers system, was acquired by Milwaukee from Boston in 2016 and made his major league with the Brewers earlier in July, batting twice before being returned to AAA San Antonio, where Dubon was hitting .297 with 15 homers and nine steals this season after missing much of the 2018 season with an ACL that was torn during a rundown.
Dubon was carrying a 23 game hitting streak when that injury occurred and seems to be ready to see if his bat will play in the big leagues.
Dubon's glove is not reported to be an issue and his hit tool has always thought to be above average and while some questioned his power, his 15 homers in a pitchers park might be a sign that despite the juiced ball, Dubon could be growing into having at least average pop.

Drew Pomerantz was signed in the off-season to be a back of the rotation arm and in 17 starts struggled to a 2-8 record with an ERA over five.
However, the lefthander had pitched well in his four appearances since moving to the bullpen, allowing only one hit in five innings and Milwaukee must have liked what they've seen, considering what they gave for a reliever that can return to free agency at the end of the season.
Ray Black has always been a player that showed a lot of talent but never seemed to get a break, either from the Giants or injury, Black, who throws over 100 MPH, never was able to have that breakthrough.
The 29-year-old pitched only two innings for the Giants this season, allowing one run as he spent most of the season in AAA Sacramento, where he was 1-0 with a 5.23 ERA in 23 innings, where as always, Black struck out plenty of batters, this time 36 of them.
I'm sorry to see Ray Black leave, but perhaps it was time for Black to have a chance somewhere else.
Besides that, I'll always have that great Ray Black story.

The Giants would also move reliever Mark Melancon to the Braves for two pitchers.
Melancon, who signed a big contract in 2017 when the Giants were expected to contend and instead finished with the worst record in the National League,was then injured, managed to bounce back with two solid seasons, although he received closer money ( a total of sixty-two million) to be a solid reliever in a non-closing capacity.

The surprising part of this trade was that San Francisco managed to make Atlanta pick up the final year of Melancon's contract in full at fourteen million dollars for 2020.
That alone makes the trade worth making, but the Giants added a prospect in Tristan Beck, the Braves fourth-rounder in 2018 from Stanford.
Beck has started eight games for Atlanta's High A team in Florida with a high ERA of 5.65 but has struck out 39 in 36 innings for the Fire Frogs.
Beck's a little old for that level (23) and those struggles are a bit concerning, but Beck has good command and is pretty polished as a college product and considering he was part of Atlanta's taking all of Mark Melancon's contract, he's well worth a flier.
Beck has not been assigned anywhere as of this writing, but my guess is he'll be sent to High A San Jose.
Veteran Dan Winkler was tossed into the deal as well as a reclamation project.
Winkler pitched very well for Atlanta in 2017 and 18 but has not pitched well this season (2-1 4.98 ERA) and was sent to AAA Gwinnett, where he pitched just as bad (0-1 4.86 ERA).
At 29, relievers can be quite inconsistent and capable of bouncing back as well as falling apart, so even though Winkler is arbitration-eligible over the winter, one never knows if Winkler can be turned around in either the short or long term.

The final of the deals was with the Minnesota Twins as one of those reliever reclamation projects that worked out as the Giants sent Sam Dyson to Minnesota for three minor leaguers.
Dyson, who was dominant for Texas in 2015 and 2016 and then flew off the rails in 2017 with an ERA of over ten before being acquired by the Giants, tuned a bit and returned to his previous level (4-1 2.47 ERA in 49 appearances), so gambling on relievers that have fallen on hard times can be a lucrative proposition when such pitchers work out.
The 2017 addition and subsequent revitalization of Dyson paid with three players that are far from sure things, but if one works out, the gift keeps on giving.

The main addition appears to be 25-year-old outfielder Jaylin Davis, who has broken out into prospect status with four excellent months between AA Pensacola and AAA Rochester with a combined 25 homers and a .298 average between the two Twins affiliates.
Davis does have issues with strikeouts as he has fanned 110 times already this season and the big question is this- is the power legit or is it a product of the juiced baseball with AAA using the exact same baseball as the major leagues?
The answer to that question will determine whether Davis can contribute to the big club or will be just another AA/AAA hired gun.

Kai-Wei Teng is pitching well at the low A level (Cedar Rapids) with a 4-0 record and an ERA under two in eight starts, plus at 20 Teng is young for the level, so he appears that he could be a surprise in the making.
Teng may very well be, but his strikeout rates aren't excessively high (49 in 50 innings) and this could be a case of a polished pitcher with good breaking stuff overwhelming young hitters that doesn't hold up as the pitcher rises to other levels.
Strikeouts per innings pitched is my favorite stat when looking at the lower minors because usually if you aren't missing bats in low A, pitchers don't start missing them at double or triple-A.
Still, those are strong numbers and Teng is someone to at least keep an eye on.

The other player is also a pitcher, but this one is the proverbial shot in the dark with 19-year-old Dominican native Prelander Berroa, who has made seven starts in the Twins Appalachian League team in Elizabethton.
Berroa has an ERA of over four and a half but has struck out 37 in 31 innings, but his 2018 numbers in the Gulf Coast League are what raises eyebrows with 41 K's in 29 innings, an ERA of 2.43 and allowed only eight earned runs.
The numbers aren't deep enough yet to know for sure, but I wouldn't be ready to cast Berroa as just a throw-in, he could eventually be what stands out from this trade.

One has to like what the Giants were able to do considering their fringe contender status.
They added a possible All-Star level bat for the cost of paying him for the final two months of the year., added a potential eventual starter in the infield, dumped an expensive contract and added three interesting young arms as well.
No complaints here considering what they traded and what they had invested in those assets, I think the Giants did well for what they wanted to accomplish.

Giants sell Derek Holland to Cubs

The recent run of excellent play may have changed the San Francisco Giants from sellers to buyers at next Wednesday's new "Hard" trade deadline, but the team made a minor move today by sending pitcher Derek Holland to the Chicago Cubs for cash considerations.

The 32-year-old lefthander had a record of 2-4 with an ERA of 5.90 in 31 appearances ( Seven starts) this season in his second season with the Giants after a decent 2018 in San Francisco (7-9, but a 3.54 ERA in 30 starts).
Holland started the season in the starting rotation and his first five starts weren't awful, but in what turned out to be his final two starts of the season, Holland allowed six and seven earned runs and would never return to the rotation.
Holland pitched well from the bullpen over the last month but allowed four runs in one inning in his final appearance last Saturday and in a bullpen with fellow southpaws Will Smith and Tony Watson (for now at least) Holland had become a luxury item.

The one very minor surprise of this deal is that the Giants didn't receive some type of low minors/recent signee from the lowest level for Holland rather than bank whatever cash the Cubs paid.
Perhaps that was the only offer or the Giants weren't enamored with any of the lottery tickets that might have been offered by Chicago and were just happy to get something for a player that they possibly could have been considered for release.

Two weeks ago, I figured I'd be writing about the Giants return for Madison Bumgarner, Will Smith, and Tony Watson.
Now all three could still be Giants at this time next week.
Considering the Pirates decision last year to allow a few weeks of strong play allow them to delude themselves that they were contenders and cost themselves Austin Meadows and Tyler Glasnow, I'm more than a little concerned that the Giants may be doing the exact same thing.
Could this run be fools gold in the long run?
Perhaps, but it has put pressure on the Giants to make the right decision on personnel and one that could affect the future of the franchise.

Cleaning out the inbox-Baseball

Cleaning out the inbox brings an all baseball version as I attempt to catch up here at the home office from various time spent doing several things, few of those that I wanted to spend my time doing.

One baseball goodbye of note that I didn't want to wait for a passings post as Bill Buckner passed at 69 from complications from Dementia.

Remembered by most for his error in game six of the 1986 World Series with the Red Sox that really shouldn't have happened (I still wonder why Red Sox Manager John McNamara with a two-run lead moving into the bottom of the tenth, didn't replace Buckner with the defensively superior Dave Stapleton), I'll remember Buckner for reasons other than the error.
Buckner started with the Dodgers and hit over .300 three times for Los Angeles including a .314 mark for the 1974 National League champions, but really flourished after being traded to the Cubs as the main part of a package that sent Rick Monday to the Dodgers.
Buckner won the 1980 batting title, hit over .300 four times with the Cubbies and it was his lefthanded contact first swing that I envied as I couldn't emulate that swing because I was a right-handed swinger.
Never a power hitting first baseman (Buckner's career high was 18 with those 1986 Red Sox), Buckner was similar to Wade Boggs before Wade Boggs as he consistently made contact, put the ball into play and see what happened.
Buckner's ability to make contact shows with his strikeout numbers as he never struck more than 39 times in a season and only 18 times in over 600 at-bats in his battling title-winning season.
I'll remember the error of course, but there were far more good things to recall about the career of Bill Buckner than just one miscue.

Photo Credit: Josh Bean AL.com

Alabama.com discusses the past and the possible future with plenty of cool pictures of the slowly crumbling Joe Davis Stadium in Huntsville Alabama, the former home of the AA Southern League's Huntsville Stars.
The Stars moved to Biloxi, Mississippi after the 2014 season and Joe Davis Stadium has sat idle ever since.
Joe Davis was built for the Stars franchise in 1985 and will likely be demolished rather than renovated
Minor league baseball will return to the Huntsville area next season in the Huntsville suburb of Madison as the (sigh) Rocket City Trash Pandas as Madison built a new stadium to entice the move of the current Mobile Bay Bears to the Huntsville area.

The Athletic and baseball writer Ken Rosenthal looks at the man that seems to be possibly behind the turmoil of the Miami Marlins front office as Gary Denbo isn't looking to make friends and that's good for him as he doesn't seem to be making any.
Derek Jeter's right-hand man, as the article referred to Denbo certainly has his own ideas and apparently has more than a few problems in dealing with employees.
One very interesting area was where it was an incident with Denbo that caused the Greensboro Grasshoppers to change affiliates leaving the Marlins after 16 seasons and joining the Pittsburgh Pirates.
I was surprised to hear the news of Greensboro's decision last year and the story behind it was one that I did not know about.

The Athletic is back again with an article on the Giants 2014 trade for Casey McGhee that resulted in two minor league pitchers joining the Reds organization.
Five years later, one of those pitchers is Luis Castillo, who is 6-1 with an ERA under two and a half.
The article also mentions other bad trades that were made by the Giants of that era, which has set the stage for the current state of the parent club.

We wrap up with Dallas SportsDay and their behind the scenes article on Fox Sports Southwest field reporter Emily Jones McCoy and her relationship with some of the Texas Rangers.
I found it interesting because I've mentioned before remembering McCoy in her first days in television covering various Big 12 sports and football previews, but I've met many of the Rangers mentioned in the article and I found their thoughts on Jones intriguing as well.