Just wanted to get a quick post out there for you HARDCORE Giants fans. The San Francisco Giants start a 10 game road trip tomorrow against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The San Diego Padres will be home for 10 games starting tomorrow, so we should see where the Giants stand after this road trip..
Scoreboard Watch
Giants are 3 GB of the Padres in the NL West
Giants are 1.5 GB of the Phillies right now in the NL Wildcard
Side Notes
Tim Lincecum went 0-for-August, and got his first win last night since July 30th.
Darren Ford made his major league debut as a pinch runner. He scored the winning run, and it was also his first time ever in a major league park. Oh and did I forget to mention he also didn’t arrive to the game till the 2nd inning. Talk about a crazy day for Ford.
Ford was acquired from the Milwaukee Brewers in 2008 in the Ray Durham trade.
Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times says former San Francisco Giants outfielder Dave Roberts expects full recovery from cancer.
Roberts played with the Giants in 2007 and 2008. He played a total of 166 games in a Giants uniform.
Roberts Stats as a Giant 07-08
Games – 166
AB – 503
Hits – 127
AVG – .252
HR – 2
RBI’s – 32
Runs – 79
SB – 36
CS – 8
SO – 84
It’s nice to hear that the speedster is going to make a full recovery. Roberts may not have had the numbers/games played that Giants fans thought he would, but he did always play the game hard!
Bob Dutton of the Kansas City Star tweets that the Royals have designated Jose Guillen for assignment. Which means if the San Francisco Giants want to bring him over then this could be happening within then next 10 days.
Guillen hasn’t been swinging the bat well as of late. In the last 10 games his AVG has dropped from .271 to .255. He was hitting .081.with 0 home runs, and 3 RBI’s during that span.
The Giants twitter page has a tweet saying “Today’s SF transaction: Denny Bautista has been designated for assignment. Todd Wellemeyer has been reinstated from disabled list”. This was a move that I’m sure a lot of us seen coming. Bautista just couldn’t get it together. The way he was pitching (wild) he wouldn’t have been able to hit water if he fell out of a boat.
Mychael Urban of CSNBayArea.com says (via twitter) the Giants are working hard on a deal at this hour. That was around 9:30pm Pacific time last night. Nothing has come of that tweet yet, but I’m sure they got the ball rolling with a potential trade.
Scott Miller of CBSSports.com says the Giants have shown interest in Toronto Blue Jays reliever Scott Downs, and the Washington Nationals slugger Adam Dunn. Dunn talks aren’t to serious yet, as the Nationals are hoping to sign him to an extension.
Miller also says Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Jim Edmonds would make sense for the Giants since they are looking for an outfielder who can improve the offense. I would say the Giants will have to pass on that suggestion. If were not adding a bat with some power. We are fine the way we are now.
Giants President Larry Baer was on KNBR last night and said it’s less than a 50% chance that they will make a deal by the trading deadline. I’m sure that was just said, so fans won’t get over excited in case only a minor trade is made (no power bat).
Mike Krukow was on KNBR this morning and said he would love to see the Giants add to the team, but would hate to see them lose some prospects.
The Giants might be starting to feel a little pressure after the Dodgers added Scott Podsednik and the Padres adding Miguel Tejada. I think the Giants will be adding a reliever and probably Jose Guillen.
As the trading deadline starts to rapidly approach. I wanted to share some names that I have gathered that the San Francisco Giants have shown some interest in.
Erik Swanson and Brian Helfrich of Sports Business Daily have done it again! They share with us the results of their exclusive survey of 50 sports business execs and media personalities. This time it’s the MLB’s Most Marketable Under The Age of 25.
MLB’s Most Marketable Players Under The Age of 25
1. Stephen Strasburg, Nationals
2. Evan Longoria, Rays
3. Jason Heyward, Braves
4. David Price, Rays
5. Bryce Harper, Nationals
6. Phil Hughes, Yankees
7. Ike Davis, Mets
8. Pablo Sandoval, Giants
9. Felix Hernandez, Mariners
10. Matt Wieters, Orioles
11. Colby Rasmus, Cardinals
t12. Austin Jackson, Tigers
t12. Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers
t12. Mike Leake, Reds
t15. Clay Buchholz, Red Sox
t15. Mike Stanton, Marlins
17. Andrew McCutchen, Pirates
t18. Buster Posey, Giants
t18. Justin Upton, Diamondbacks
t20. Starlin Castro, Cubs
t20. Drew Storen, Nationals
The San Francisco Giants have two players on the list. The Kung Fu Panda (Pablo Sandoval) and Buster Posey. I’m sure if they do this survey again in the near future, Madison Bumgarner will be added to the list. The Giants future isn’t looking too shabby!
Brian Helfrich & Erik Swanson of Sports Business Daily give us the results of their survey on the Top 10 Marketable Players in the MLB. It’s an exclusive survey of sports business execs and media personalities conducted by Sports Business Daily.
Top 10 Marketable Players
1. Derek Jeter, New York Yankees
2. Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals
3. Joe Mauer, Minnesota Twins
4. Stephen Strasburg, Washington Nationals
5. Ryan Howard, Philadelphia Phillies
6. Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay Rays
7. Tim Lincecum, San Francisco Giants
8. David Wright, New York Mets
9. Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees
t10. Dustin Pedroia, Boston Red Sox
t10. Torii Hunter, Los Angeles Angels
The San Francisco Giants have one guy that made the list. It’s none other than “The Freak” Tim Lincecum. It’s funny that this came out today, because I’m wearing my new Lincecum shirt that I got from GrimyInk.com. You can click the on the Lincecum shirt logo on the right sidebar to go directly to the page where you can purchase it. It’s on sale for $14.99, and only takes a few days before you see it in your mailbox.
Patrick Rishe has done it again! He previously wrote an article about the worst franchises in pro sports. The San Francisco Giants were listed in the top 3 of worst MLB Franchises. That was using data from the last 5 years. Read about the “Top 3 Inefficient Franchises in the MLB”.This time Patrick is using a similar methodology, efficiency assessments were made for the first half of the 2010 MLB season. Not every team is listed in his article, but he did tell me (via email) that the Giants are not in the bottom 3 of least efficient teams this year.Patrick said so far this year, the story is a vast improvement. The Giants are the 18 most efficient or 12th least efficient. Not great, but in a relatively terms, a huge improvement.~King of Cali
When I asked the San Francisco Giants beat writer Chris Haft (via email) if the thinks the Giants are getting serious about trying to trade for Corey Hart, Prince Fielder or Ryan Braun. He told me it will take a lot to get one of those guys. The Brewers would want Matt Cain and somebody else decent, though the Giants might be able to sell them on Jonathan Sanchez.
Anthony Witrado of the Journal Sentinel said rumors have been flying regarding Hart for the last couple of weeks, and with the pitching-heavy but offense-starved Giants in town, the mill really got going with Hart-to-Giants talk.
I asked Witrado (via email) if he thinks the Giants will be able to land Hart, Fielder or Braun, and if so what does he think it would take to land one of them?
Witrado said Fielder and Braun are out of the question, most likely. Fielder would mean the Giants giving up Cain for sure. Hart is possibly, probably for Madison Bumgarner, but I don’t think that’ll happen over the next week. It will likely come after the break if it happens.
It was a bitter-sweet moment for most Giants fans as the news dropped that the San Francisco Giants traded Big Money Bengie Molinato the Texas Rangers for RHP Chris Ray and a player to be named later.
Molina really was a clutch performer for the most part of his Giants tenure and a great backstop as well. He’s a career .275 hitter with 142 homers and 692 RBI’s. Molina just wasn’t putting up the numbers this year for the Giants at the plate. The leash for Molina wasn’t long with the future backstop already on the team (Buster Posey).
One of the SF Giants Rumors swirling prior to this trade was the Giants needed to solidify the bullpen and get a relief pitcher. Well that’s exactly what they did in this trade. Ray is currently 2-0 with a 3.41 ERA, 31.2 IP and 16 K’s. He’s going to be a guy that helps get the ball to closer Brian Wilson.
This isn’t a sexy trade, but it’s one that had to be done. The Giants couldn’t continue to trot Molina out behind the plate, when it’s clear that he’s not the best catcher on the team anymore. I wish you well Big Money because you were a great Giant!
