The San Francisco Giants Open the 2019 Season!

Madison Bumgarner, L, 29
The most visible Giant, for his contract status and his pitching

Dereck Rodriguez, R, 27
Last year's breakout rookie is no kid no longer; it's time to shine

Derek Holland, L, 32
The Giants' unheralded pitching ace in 2018 earned this spot

Jeff Samardzija, R, 34
Has looked strong this spring: keep your fingers crossed

Drew Pomeranz, L, 30
A fine pitcher from 2014-2017; was last year just a fluke?

Will Smith, L, 29
Inning-for-inning, the team's most effective pitcher last year

Tony Watson, L, 34
Took over the "Affeldt role" and played it exceptionally well

Reyes Moronta, R, 26
Cut down on the walks and we could have a closer here

Mark Melancon, R, 34
Seems to have settled into a late-inning, possible setup role

Nick Vincent, R, 32
A career 1.11 WHIP, 9 K/IP, 4/1 K/BB, with bad teams. Why not?

Sam Dyson, R, 31
Was the closer two years ago, now one of five righty relievers

Travis Bergen, L, 25
Third lefty in the 'pen is a rookie making his MLB debut

Trevor Gott, R, 25
Appeared in 19 forgettable innings for Washington last year

Johnny Cueto, R (DL), 33
If the TJS was successful, presume he'll be back in 2020

Buster Posey, c, 32
Can a repaired hip return this HOFer to the MVP level?

Brandon Belt, 1b, 31
Everyone's watching Buster, but a healthy Belt's the key to this lineup

Evan Longoria, 3b, 33
It's simple, really; he has to re-learn how to go deep in the count

Brandon Crawford, ss, 32
The one 2018 regular who did not spend significant time on the DL

Joe Panik, 2b, 28
Looking good in the spring; how will he look in the summer?

Steven Duggar, cf, 25
Opens season as starter, may eventually platoon

Gerardo Parra, rf, 32
No power, but brings a reputation for good defense

Michael Reed, lf, 26
He's young and he had a .453 OBP in 97 AAA games last year

Yangervis Solarte, ut, 31
He's averaged 15 homers a year, so he'll play if he can do that here

Pablo Sandoval, ut, 32
Can't explain, but the team does better when he's on it

Connor Joe, ut, 26
Giants must like him 'cause he beat out popular Alen Hanson

Erik Kratz, c, 38
Veteran trade pickup did well with Milwaukee in 2018 postseason



Well, if nothing else, it's nice seeing three lefties in the starting rotation. It's been awhile.

The cognoscenti  consensus has tabbed the Giants to lose 90 games this year, which could consign them to dead last in the NL West if San Diego gets a boost from mighty Manny Machado and Arizona isn't ready to roll over dead. On paper the upgrades from Farhan Zaidi's first winter at the helm aren't much-- Drew Pomeranz is the biggest-name addition and that's primarily because he was so awful for the world champion Red Sox last year. It's hard to see how guys like Gerardo Parra and the tongue-twisting Yangervis Solarte are measurably different from guys like Gorkys Hernandez and Alen Hanson. An awful lot seems to be riding on the notion that, having been bit by the DL viper at multiple positions all at once last year, the Giants are due for a full season of health from their infield veterans-- and that, with an outfield-by-committee, will be enough to score the 700 or so runs they'll need to contend if they get a strong year from the pitchers.

A successful Giants team this year will be a lot like an iceberg-- unimpressive above the surface, but strong and wide down below the waterline. So we'll start with the bullpen. The "Big Three"-- Smith, Watson, Moronta-- were as effective as any group in baseball last year. Newcomer Vincent brings an impressive resume. And Melancon, at full health, free from "closer" pressure, and well-rested after two years of light duty, has a real chance to start paying off that contract. Sam Dyson and the two rooks provide depth, maybe too much depth-- no one really needs 13 pitchers, even with the shift toward daily planned use of relievers, which we'll discuss in a bit.

The entertaining Will Leitch on mlb.com predicts Madison Bumgarner will not be traded, but will instead be re-signed by the Giants. We've been beating this drum for a year or so, so it's nice to have company. "Bum" is another one who's had lighter-than-usual duty for two years-- 241 innings total, which is a normal single-season's workload for him. Fatigue will not be an issue for the big guy. But everyone else in the starting rotation is a question mark. Can Dereck Rodriguez adjust, now that the league has adjusted to him? (Back in the day they called this the "sophomore jinx.") Derek Holland, after his first year in the NL, will be in a similar situation. Samardzija and Pomeranz both are in the "show me" category after disastrous seasons.

The overall trend is toward more relief pitching per game, and at the same time a slower but definite shift away from one-batter specialist relievers (there's a rule change coming, by the way). The concept of the "opener" underscores the idea that perhaps once through the lineup is best for most--that a team may be best served by planning for three to five pitchers per game, regardless of how well one of those may be doing at any given point during the game.  There will be exceptions, of course, for the Cy Young-level aces such as "Bum," Chris Sale, and Max Scherzer. But, especially at the back end of the rotation, managers may increasingly look for five innings, max. How can this help the Giants? With a strong bullpen behind them, the team's starters may find they are a whole lot more effective over five, even four in some cases, than they would be over seven. Does anyone doubt Bruce Bochy has the aptitude and experience to maximize the effectiveness of this situation? The iceberg drifts, unseen, across the bow.

With Posey, it's power. If he can drive the ball again, he's back. With Belt, it's health-- if he's well enough to play, he'll hit. With Longoria, it's walks. He needs to average one base on balls per ten AB. Minimum. If he does, watch his numbers jump. With Panik, it's left-handers. He couldn't hit them last year. With Crawford, it's still defense first. Since he won't go on the DL, he plays hurt, and when he can't make the acrobatic plays in the field you know you won't see any power at the plate. And what about that outfield? No one knows. Steven Duggar can play the position, no question, but can he wait for a good pitch to hit, and take a walk if none come his way? Will Brandon Belt move to left field when Posey moves to first base? Gerardo Parra is no Andrew McCutchen, though he's a good player. Reed, the rookie, brings good minor-league comps. Behind them are-- well, the other newcomers, Joe and Solarte, are primarily backup infielders, not outfielders, so we've generously listed them as utilitymen. It feels like sink-or-swim time for a lot of unproven talent. Is this group even as good as the outfield that was an aggregate 4 wins below average a year ago? 

It says here the National League overall, and the West in particular, will not be as strong as it was in 2018. Colorado and LA are obviously superior to the Giants as the season starts, but it's doubtful  both are 20 wins better. One is likely to win the West, and our money's on the Rockies. The question is whether a .500 Giants team this summer will be fighting for second place, or for third. The Central has Milwaukee, who jumped forward, Chicago, who fell back, and St Louis, who are likely to improve, with Pittsburgh about where the Giants are and Cincinnati a year or so away. In the East, Atlanta could easily have a fallback/consolidation year. Philadelphia, if Bryce Harper delivers a 8+ WAR MVP season, could approach 90 wins. More realistically, we see one of those two and Washington converging at about 85 wins, with two of the Central powers a few wins ahead.  And if the division leaders get way out in front, it will tend to drop the rest of the pack below .500.

Where does that leave the Giants, if they can play .500 ball into August? About where they were at that time a year ago, except the wild-card contenders will likely be fewer in number and easier to catch. And, if they can't play .500 ball past the All-Star break... well, Mr Zaidi will be asked to start earning his money.

This is Bruce Bochy's last season. No Giants manager has ever gone out a winner. Dusty Baker came close, but his final year saw so much second-guessing it almost obscured his legacy for a time. The beloved Roger Craig finished with two losing years. Herman Franks and Alvin Dark never had losing seasons in their four-year terms, but neither won a championship.  If nothing else, a strong 2019 campaign in which the Giants contend, win or lose, would avoid the last few months of the season being devoted to morbid speculation over Bochy's successor. The greatest manager in San Francisco history, retiring after a record 13 years, deserves a better farewell.


  

Snow Way This is Spring

"The Giants have spent every year of essentially the last five trying to rally the troops and squeeze one more title out of the Bumgarner/Posey/manager Bruce Bochy crew. Well, this is Bochy’s final season, and with Bumgarner a free agent after this year and a new sheriff in the front office, this is all there probably is left. Zaidi didn’t dismantle the team in the offseason, so he’s giving them one last chance. If the Giants get off to a slow start, the dismantling might begin early. But if they can hang around the postseason chase, maybe Zaidi decides to add rather than subtract. It’d sure be nice to send Bochy out a winner."

-- Will Leitch, " 20 questions that will define the NL West", 2/27/2019, at  https://www.mlb.com/giants/news/2019-nl-west-preview

It's always nice to find agreement out there. This is the same message we've been sending out since the disastrous 2017 campaign. The Giants have, for the last two years and this one, committed themselves to one more shot at the brass ring with the "core"-- essentially Buster, Bum, and Crawford-- before any serious rebuild will be considered. 

Team ownership and management know that getting to the postseason is the key-- that, as Billy Beane has long maintained, the playoffs are a crapshoot and any team can get hot and win. The Giants are proof positive, especially the 2014 team. The 2010 team, such a great outfit in retrospect, only got to the postseason because San Diego collapsed down the stretch and the Giants took advantage. The 2012 team was the best of the three, and the only one of them that could legitimately claim to be the best in baseball that year. The difference between the 2014 team, which went all the way, and the 2016 team, which didn't, was one game: 88-74 versus 87-75. And until the ninth inning of Game 4 of the NLDS, it sure seemed like the 2016 Giants had every chance of doing what the 2014 team had done.   

A lot of the weeping and wailing that has accompanied this chilly offseason has been overly influenced by September of last year, when the Giants essentially took the month off, trading or inactivating every effective position player and fielding a Triple-A team for 30 days, which went 5-21.  We forget the Giants, with Gorkys Hernandez, Steven Duggar, Austin Slater, and a declining Hunter Pence at two of the three outfield positions, were 68-68 on August 31. That's a 15-game improvement over the pestilential 2017 team, which was 53-83 at the same point and lost 98 games.

By comparison, take a look at the 2013 Giants. They were 60-75 on August 31, 2013, eight games worse than last year's team. They finished 76-86, just three games ahead of last year's team. They won the world championship the next season. And they got older, not younger. That's what Farhan Zaidi and Larry Baer and Brian Sabean are looking at right now. It's a thin line when five teams qualify for the postseason and a .500 record in July means you're a contender. They don't just know this intellectually; they've seen it played out, with this team.

Contrary to revisionist claims, the Giants did not get younger each year they won the World Series. In fact, they generally got a little older. In 2010 the big contributions were from veterans-- Aubrey Huff, Pat Burrell, Cody Ross, Juan Uribe-- plus the Rookie of the Year, Buster Posey.

In 2012, Marco Scutaro, Hunter Pence, and the healthy Angel Pagan, veterans all, balanced out against the youth of the Brandons, Belt and Crawford, and MVP Posey. 

In 2014, Joe Panik was the lone youngster added to a veteran group with a bunch of part-timers-- Mike Morse, Gregor Blanco, Juan Perez, Travis Ishikawa-- at two of the outfield positions. Sound familiar?

And while the Giants' best pitchers in 2010 were younger than the overall team age, it was the same crew in 2012, except they were two years older and 34-year-old Ryan Vogelsong had replaced then-29-year-old Jonathan Sanchez. And the whole pitching staff, starters and "Core Four", added veterans and was much older in 2014. 

So there is no recent precedent for an "influx of youth" transforming the San Francisco Giants from losers to winners overnight. There is ample precedent for an influx of veterans doing it, though.

An influx of youth means a rebuild. Houston, Atlanta, Boston, and Philadelphia know all about it. And in San Francisco, the rebuild is coming, but not yet. A year ago we had figured on 2021, but with Zaidi's arrival the timetable has moved up. It will be next year, no matter what happens this year. Except for Buster Posey, probably Brandon Crawford, and perhaps Madison Bumgarner, every position player, and every pitcher over 29 years of age, will be tradeable next winter. And the selling will begin this summer if the Giants are below .500 the last week of July.

So don't give up the ship just yet. She's getting one more chance to circle the globe.

  

Robby

It’s no knock on Frank Robinson, who passed away last week at the age of 83, to note that from a San Francisco perspective he probably hurt the Giants a lot more as a player from 1956 to 1965 then he ever helped them as the team’s manager from 1981 to 1984.  Sure, he was a pretty good manager. He was a great, great baseball player. And, to paraphrase Muddy Waters, he was a man—spelled M-A-N. There’s never been anyone else quite like him.

In just about any other era, Frank Robinson would have been hands-down regarded as the best of his generation at his position. But it was his lot to play right field alongside three other magnificent Hall of Famers—Henry Aaron, Al Kaline, and Roberto Clemente—all of whom were active at the same time at the same position. Inevitably, at times Frank Robinson, great as he was, may have gotten lost in the mix during his nine years in Cincinnati. Even today, his career totals are phenomenal, but they are also short of Henry Aaron’s.  What sets Frank Robinson apart from everyone else are two things—his epochal MVP and world championship season in 1966 after one if the most controversial trades of all time, and  his pioneering career as the first black man to manage a major league baseball team.

Frank Robinson is still the only player in history to win the MVP award in both leagues. That he followed the big trade by leading his new team to their first world championship while winning that MVP award and the Triple Crown— well, that’s never been done by anybody else. Baltimore won 316 games in three seasons from 1969 through 1971, and so for a few years there Frank Robinson, a towering presence, an on-field leader of that great team, was not only respected by everyone in the game, but right in the middle of any discussion regarding baseball’s best player.

Then came Aaron again, beginning his heroic pursuit of Babe Ruth’s home run record in earnest in 1969, and ultimately taking the spotlight back. While the two were similar ballplayers in many respects, they were different in others. Aaron was quietly intimidating, studious, focused.  In Cincinnati “Robby” had a fearsome reputation at the plate and on the basepaths; he was a challenging, intimidating opponent, standing in against “brushback” pitchers—his battles with Don Drysdale, whom he hit like a “cousin” despite frequent spills in the dirt, are legendary—and barreling into bases like the second coming of Ty Cobb. Due to this he lost some time to injury while with the Reds, and that may have led the team’s management to conclude he’d have a shortened career, and hence the trade that changed everything.

His hiring as the Cleveland Indians’ manager in 1975 was historic-- and, as he himself said at the time, so was his firing in 1977. Any hint of tokenism was banished at that moment; he was subject to the same merciless expectations as any other manager.  And then, so too with his second hiring, by the Giants three years later. If baseball teams in general have been known, and often criticized, for regularly hiring “retread” managers, Frank Robinson’s re-hiring sent a pointed message across every ballpark in the land. As a black man fully aware of his situation in a country that had, until recently, embraced legal racial segregation, the lesson could not be more plain, or blunt: don’t look at my color, look at my achievements—and my failures—as you would any other manager.    

There was a Miller Lite television commercial from the late 1970s featuring Frank and his longtime teammate Brooks Robinson, the “bookends,” if you will, of one of the greatest baseball teams ever assembled. Since retired, the two took turns making the usual pitch for the product; then Brooks, commenting on how much he and Frank had in common, felt obliged to remind the audience that they were not, in fact, identical twins. “Naw,” Frank agreed, with a snort of laughter, “I’m at least two inches taller than he is!“

Would such a silly, yet thoroughly humanizing and, yes, brotherly example such as this be well-received in today’s hostile, race-obsessed climate? I think we all know the answer. What, exactly, has happened to us since the 1970s—for that matter, since the 2000s?

Robinson’s hiring as manager of the Giants was met with great fanfare locally. After two dismal seasons the team needed a jolt, and his fierce, demanding attitude provided it. The ballclub “broke even”— an improvement by itself-- during the strike season, then exceeded all expectations by launching themselves into a pennant race in 1982. Robinson told young players such as Chili Davis and Jeffrey Leonard and Al Holland and Fred Breining he believed in them, and he expected them to perform, and they did. He batted the erratic, error-prone Johnnie LeMaster, a career .222 hitter, leadoff-- not a brilliant tactical move at all, but a way of telling his starting shortstop he believed in him, too. He took a completely remade starting rotation—all four starting pitchers from 1981 were swapped out for new ones—and made it work, backed up by the game’s deepest bullpen. The Giants took on the perennial Dodgers and the rich, free-agent-fattened Braves, and played them dead even up until the final weekend.   

It didn’t last. In 1983, Robinson may have felt he was being undercut by the front office; several players on whom he depended, such as Joe Morgan and Reggie Smith, were traded or released. Darrell Evans was moved off third base.  LeMaster regressed back to unreliable form. Reports of alleged conflict between Robby and GM Tom Haller surfaced, and local newspapers, one hack sportswriter in particular, fanned the flames of discontent with cynical, leading, innuendo-based articles. It got ugly. His players knew Robinson was not the villain, and when he was fired a year or so later-- yep, just like any other manager whose team is on a downhill slide—several remained outspokenly loyal to him. Jeffrey Leonard adopted his number 20. In the aftermath it’s worth remembering that some of those young players Robinson believed in—Leonard, Davis, Bob Brenly—were key figures in the Giants’ 1986 resurgence and gave that team much of its confrontational, in-your-face spirit.

He went on to manage his beloved Orioles for four years, winning AL Manager of the Year for a dramatic if short-lived 1989 turnaround. At age 67 he took over the thankless job of managing the Montreal Expos in their final years. He got two winning seasons out of that team before moving with them to Washington and becoming the Nationals in 2005. A decade later his old friend Dusty Baker took the same job; by then nobody was looking at the color of a manager’s skin, just the number of games he won.

Frank Robinson, by the way, won 1065.

Peter Magowan

Peter Magowan, who passed away earlier this week at the age of 76, saved the Giants for San Francisco not once, but twice. Yes, we know other men were involved, and it was, especially from a financial perspective, a group effort throughout. But from the start Magowan was the man. He was Ayn Rand's "prime mover," the pioneer who had the vision and was willing to risk his money and his name and his reputation to champion two game- and City-transforming projects, neither of which seemed like anything but a sure thing when he started them. And he delivered.

Oracle Park (or The Ballpark Formerly Known as the 'Bell) stands as a visible monument of that vision and accomplishment, and soon Magowan's likeness will adorn the Wall of Fame alongside such worthies as Mays, McCovey, and Marichal.  It's a most fitting tribute and memorial to the man who, like the team he loved, started out in New York and made the move to San Francisco and fell in love with it-- and then did something about it when that team and that city needed him. In the pantheon of Giants ownership, only Jim Mutrie, who named the team in a moment of exuberance in the 1880s, and Charles Stoneham, whose family name was synonymous with the club for 50 years, loom as large. But if you're talkin' San Francisco, Peter Magowan is your man.

It's one of life's many delightful eccentricities that we, as politically conservative as it is possible to be these days, swear, and have sworn for 54 years, our allegiance to the team representing perhaps the most leftward city in America. Rarely has this been a concern of ours, but in 1992 it came bubbling to the surface as the City, which then was only a few miles away instead of today's 2700, seemed utterly indifferent to the impending loss of its major-league baseball team. It's not simply that "voters refused to spend their money on a plaything for the rich" (or however the boilerplate is etched); many of those voters had good reason for their refusal. It went deeper than that, to a pervasive attitude of "who cares, anyway?"  (And many of those voters had, whether they knew it or not, spent their money to upgrade Candlestick Park for the football 49ers.)

The thought of the "St Petersburg Giants" taking the field on Opening Day 1993 was so galling, so unacceptable, so-- so wrong, on every level, that it prompted our last use of the "F-Bomb" in print (and as we recall, we also referred to then-Senator Connie Mack II, who threatened to revoke baseball's antitrust exemption if the Giants didn't move, as a "two-legged disgrace to his family name"). National League president Bill White, the former Giants first baseman who went on to a great career in Philadelphia and St Louis because the team already had Cepeda and McCovey, convinced 9 of 13 NL owners to-- temporarily, mind you-- reject the St Petersburg sale. He then made the call: "Who among you in San Francisco will stand up?"

"Nobody," we groused.  "Nobody's coming. It's over."

Peter Magowan stood up. The San Francisco Giants took the field on Opening Day 1993.

Seven years later, Peter Magowan and his group of investors opened Pacific Bell Park, the stadium everyone-- and we do mean "everyone"--said couldn't and wouldn't be built. The 'Bell wasn't just the most beautiful ballpark in the land, it was also the lifeline that kept, and, God willing, will keep, the Giants in San Francisco for as long as the game is played.  Peter Magowan knew that his and his investors' money, which prevented the Giants from leaving San Francisco, would not be enough to save the Giants for San Francisco unless this ballpark could be built, and built within a decade. He, and they, did it.

Seventy-six is not old these days. Peter Magowan's family's loss is our loss, too. He was blessed, as we have been blessed, to see the team he'd loved since childhood-- his team, now-- win three world championships after decades of disappointment. He had his mountaintop moment. But he still left us too soon.

Goodbye and Godspeed to a true Giant among men.  Peter Magowan, your legacy is secure. 

The Big Guy

The official address of the San Francisco Giants baseball club is well and formally known as 24 Willie Mays Plaza, San Francisco, California 94107. It's an address and an honorarium chosen, with great public fanfare, by the club itself to honor the greatest of all Giants, if not the greatest all-around baseball player of all time. A fitting and official tribute.

The small inlet off San Francisco Bay leading into the China Basin estuary, roughly bounded by the Third Street bridge, the South Beach harbor, and AT&T Park's right-field wall, is well and informally known as McCovey Cove. No official designation accompanies this name; it was chosen by Giants fans, in more or less spontaneous manner shortly after the park opened, to honor San Francisco's favorite baseball son, the great Willie McCovey, who passed away last week at the age of 80. And that really tells you all you need to know about Willie McCovey and the San Francisco Giants.

"Mac," or "Stretch," or the "Big Dipper" (that one never caught on) was an overnight sensation, and peculiarly and intimately a San Francisco overnight sensation, from the moment he stepped to the plate at Seals Stadium on July 30, 1959, and went 4-for-4 with two triples and two RBI. Yes, San Franciscans knew how great Willie Mays was; they could hardly know otherwise, given the ceaseless New York-based media barrage they'd received as soon as the Giants arrived in the City. They knew, but San Franciscans tend to be a contrarian lot, and provincial, too-- in fact the only major city we've ever visited that's even more provincial than San Francisco is, you guessed it, New York City. Willie McCovey, 21 years old, six feet four inches tall, with those long arms and that instantly memorable and lovely sweeping left-handed swing, was San Francisco's Own, and nobody who ever wore the orange and black generated more affection among the fans.  The venerable Charles McCabe, himself a transplanted New Yorker, recalled the reaction of a City cab driver the day McCovey made his first  splash: "Sure, an' it's about time they brought 'em in an Irishman!" Even to those a little unclear on the concept, Willie Mac was an instant hit.

The photograph above was taken at RFK Stadium in 1969, the night Willie hit two home runs in the All-Star Game on his way to an MVP season: 45 homers, 126 RBI, .320/.453/.656, and 8.1 WAR. All told he played 2,256 games for the San Francisco Giants in his four-decade career from 1959 to 1980, with a short, weird hiatus in San Diego and then in Oakland in between. He led the league in homers three times, in 1963 and 1968 as well as 1969. In the "Year of the Pitcher," 1968, Willie Mac was a one-man opposing force, leading the league in homers, RBI, and OPS. His six-year run from 1965-1970, during which he gradually and quietly took over from Mays as the team's greatest offensive threat-- "I could hardly believe it," he told a reporter in '68, "They walked me, to get to Mays"--  is one of the greatest any player of our lifetime has ever put up. He hit 226 home runs in those six years and averaged 106 RBI; he also scored 531 runs and slugged over .500 each season. Add in his 44-homer total in 1963 and his 29 in 1973 at age 35, one of his several "bounce-back" years, and you get an idea of what it was like to face this guy in those days. The Mays remark above shows becoming modesty; on another occasion, he revealed a more honest evaluation of his own talent. Asked "How would you pitch to you?" he responded, "I'd walk me."

Though opportunities were few, Mac could and did turn it up in the postseason, too. Everyone remembers the rocket line drive that ended the 1962 World Series, but consider that McCovey had already tripled off Ralph Terry that day (and been stranded) and he had homered off Terry in Game Two. Willie started four of the seven games, facing only right-handers. In 1971, after an injury-plagued season in which he missed 57 games, Willie was at his Hall-of_Fame best in the NLCS against Pittsburgh-- two big home runs, 6-for-14 with 6 RBI in 4 games and an OPS of 1.413. Giants lost that series too, of course.

Had Mac not been the Giants' Slugger-Without-Portfolio for three years, there is no telling how many home runs he may have hit. Six hundred is not an unreasonable guess. Those "bounce-back" years were wrapped around seasons-- 1964, 1971, 1972-- in which Willie was plagued by nagging leg, ankle, and foot injuries that got worse, as most do, with age.  He got those because in 1959, his rookie year, the Giants were blessed with one of the greatest-ever concentrations of talent at one position at one time-- Orlando Cepeda, Bill White, and McCovey, all great players, all first basemen, all 25 years old or less. Cepeda was the incumbent, and wildly popular. Mac was the newcomer, and even more popular, and they were back-to-back NL Rookies of the Year, so White became the odd man out, traded to St Louis for pitching. But that still left two men on first base, and ultimately, after a year of unhappy back-and-forth maneuvering, the job went to Cepeda and McCovey became an outfielder. Sort of.

How great is Willie McCovey? Consider that after 61 years he is still the third-greatest left fielder in San Francisco history, behind only a couple of guys named Bonds and Mitchell. His 1963 season, full time in the outfield, ranks with their MVP years. Defensively he was more Mitch than Barry, and he really had no business out there, but with the bat in his hand he was still Mac as only Mac could be. In a part-time role in 1962, platooning in left with Harvey Kuenn and facing mostly right-handers, he hit 20 homers in 229 at-bats, a Barry-Bonds-in-2001 pace, slugging .590 and putting up 2 WAR in what amounted to a third of a season. They had to find a place for him, and they sure tried.

But running around in the outfield, with his odd, tapered build, long slender legs, thin ankles and feet-- a physique born to play first base-- hurt him badly in 1964, and in later years it cost him a lot more. There's no question in our mind it should have been Cepeda in left, not Willie, but Cepeda's obstinate refusal to play anywhere other than first base has been well-documented elsewhere and need not be rehashed here, even though it indirectly cost the team a manager who won 366 games in 4 years.  Deep breath, and onward we go.

So, is the Giants' greatest first baseman the greatest of National League first basemen? Among predecessors, he ranks behind Dan Brouthers, Cap Anson, and Roger Connor; a more recent predecessor, Johnny Mize, is an excellent comp and is very close in National League career WAR. More recently, Albert Pujols and Jeff Bagwell have clearly surpassed him (Pujols is 20 WAR ahead based only on his Cardinals seasons).  He was the greatest when he retired; he may not be the greatest now.

But that retirement, and the three-year career coda that preceded it, is what cemented his legacy as the most beloved of San Francisco Giants. Horace Stoneham, acting, disastrously, as his own GM, had traded McCovey after a strong 1973, for reasons's we'd rather not explore. Willie had two reasonably good seasons with the San Diego Padres, playing in 250 games and looking wildly out of place in those chocolate-cake-with-frosting uniforms. He then sat on the bench for part of a year in Oakland, looking wildly out of place in those green-and gold softball uniforms. But as it turned out, that period of relative rest was just what the doctor ordered.

With nothing to lose (except maybe 88 games again) and everything to gain in terms of goodwill, the 1977 Giants invited 39-year-old McCovey to spring training. He arrived with a smile on his face, a rested and toned body, and a swing that looked years younger. Not only did he make the club, he started at first base. And not only did he start at first base, he was the team's best player in 1977, the only Giant to slug .500, leading the club in total bases, homers, and OBP. A whole generation of new Giants fans, who had only heard about those great players from the '60s, joined the rest of us in marveling over our very own living legend who still had plenty of game after years of obscurity and exile. The Comeback Player of the Year award was a foregone conclusion. "Number 44 on the field, Number One in our hearts," was, too.

It was never that good again, we have to admit, as Mac closed in on his career goal of playing across four decades. He was the untouchable San Francisco Giant and he knew it, and while it would be unfair to say he exploited that situation, he knew his value to the club, its fans, its attendance figures, its very core, extended far beyond the field. His numbers in 1978 and 1979 are not very good, and the team was trying to figure out how to gracefully ease Willie aside and let Mike Ivie take over the full-time job. Platooning was out of the question, of course; first-ballot Hall of Famers, even in their dotage, do not platoon.  He was 42 in 1980 and the front office finally reached an accomodation; Mac would gracefully and publicly retire at mid-season after two series against the Dodgers, home and away. That these plans went grotesquely awry afterward does not mar Willie McCovey's legacy; it was his duty, as it has been for so many others, to spend his final years paying for a badly mismanaged team.

In his last appearance at Candlestick Park on July 3, 1980, batting fourth as always, Mac drove in the game's first run in his first at bat, and the Giants held on to that run to beat Cincinnati, 4-3. He may have very badly wanted a Ted Williams moment when he came up in the seventh, but Doug Bair got him to ground out in his final home at-bat. Three days later, on July 6, Willie McCovey strode to the plate at Dodger Stadium amid a standing ovation from enemy fans who had witnessed some of his greatest moments. We remember still a monster home run in 1966 off what must have been a slightly awed rookie, Don Sutton: "That one's hit forty miles!" chortled Russ Hodges. "Tell it bye-bye, baby!"  Now it was the top of the eighth, tie game, one out, first and third, and another young Dodger, Rick Sutcliffe, on the mound. We all wanted Willie to turn on one and yank it into the Dodger bullpen, Ted Williams after all. Instead he skied it to center field, out where they go to die, but it was a trademark McCovey drive all the same-- full swing, good contact, high and deep, and deep enough to score what turned out to be the winning run.

"Gods do not answer letters," pontificated John Updike after Williams' walk-away-forever home run. Good men like Willie McCovey, though, do answer them, and they sign autographs, listen patiently and pleasantly to overawed fans savoring the moment of a lifetime, wave to the crowd even when they have to lean on crutches or ride in a wheelchair to do so, and they never forget the people that showed them love and affection during good times and bad. Willie McCovey made the good times great and the bad times better, and there has never been a San Francisco Giant who wore the colors with such greatness and class.

Goodbye and Godspeed. Big man. Giant.

Hank

“H” is for Hank,

‘Mister Greenwald’, to you;

A finer sportscaster,

No fan ever knew.

Eerie coincidences and the swift, almost instantaneous travel of information these days generated a jarring, and then saddening, emotional response yesterday. One moment we were surfing the ‘Net, looking for some reference to a Bay Area radio station that’s gone through more name changes than did Elizabeth Taylor. The next we found ourselves at the short Wikipedia bio of Hank Greenwald, the Giants broadcaster we remember most fondly. And we noted that both birth and death dates had been posted for Hank. Momentary surprise-- He’s passed away? Why hadn’t we heard?—gave way to sudden astonishment: October 22, 2018? Why, that’s—that’s—that’s today!

And so, the witty, erudite, and always engaging Hank Greenwald has passed on after 83 years. If you’re a fan of a certain age, there’s a Giant-sized hole where your heart should be this morning.

Hank—he borrowed the name from his boyhood hero, Hank Greenberg, out of love and because it sounded more euphonious than “Howard”-- started with the Giants in 1979, took over the lead broadcast duties in 1982, left briefly after five years to do New York Yankees games, then returned in 1989 and was the voice of the Giants until his retirement in 1996. He called the “Will Clark Game” that clinched the pennant in the 1989 NLCS, the World Series earthquake that shook Candlestick Park a week later, commiserated with us fans after the Giants won 103 games in 1993 but missed the postseason, and made a place for himself among the many great Bay Area sportscasters past and present. The Giants knew they needed a great one to succeed Hank—no one could replace him—and that’s how we got Jon Miller. And we know his heart aches this morning along with ours.

If you weren’t around then, you maybe can’t imagine the shock Giants fans felt when, after the false-hope 1978 season, the team announced it was terminating its contract with good old KSFO, which had held the broadcast rights since the team came to town, in favor of something called KNBR. And worse, that we would no longer hear the friendly baritone of Lon Simmons calling the games. Like KSFO, Lon was family, a link to those glory days. He’d taken over as lead voice after his legendary partner, Russ Hodges, retired in 1970, and in recent years he’d worked with the young Al Michaels and with Joe Angel.  Now all that was changing. Lindsey Nelson, whom we know only for his loud sports jackets and his Notre Dame affiliation, would be doing the games. (A stranger?) And his new sidekick would be some guy named Greenwald.

In perhaps his first interview with the San Francisco press before starting his new job, Hank tried to assuage the concerns of Giants fans. Allowing that Nelson could be a tad homerish when it came to the Fighting Irish, Hank said Lindsey was an outstanding baseball announcer and knew the game well. As it turned out, he was right, but still, Lindsey Nelson was never really “ours.” Taking over in 1982, New York native and Syracuse grad Hank became ours, and right quickly. 

“Lindsey told me, ‘Don’t ever get caught up with wins and losses. If you do, and you’re announcing a bad team, you’ll sound like they play,’” Hank said, and that was put to the test early as he announced for some b-a-d teams in the mid-1980s. While never an overt homer, Hank could affect a bemused, affectionate tone in those days, speaking of the Giants as you would your erring but still-lovable second cousin. As one fan observed awhile back, “The worse the Giants were, the more entertaining Hank became.”  Some classic Greenwald-isms from those lean years:

“Herndon seems to be bothered by insects at the plate. I don’t know what species it is. (Pause) Maybe it’s an infield fly.”

“Coming to bat for the Phillies is a pinch-hitter, Dave Shipanoff. Let me spell that for you: D-A-V-E."   

“(Pitcher) Andy McGaffigan is batting .068. He’s got one of those Bingo averages.”

“Cincinnati at Pittsburgh, a doubleheader, was rained out. (Pause) They’ll play four tomorrow.”

Regarding would-be slugger Hector Villanueva, listed at 6-1 and 220: "Even if he hit .300 he wouldn't be hitting his weight."

In those days Hank lived in Glen Park, perhaps the balmiest neighborhood in San Francisco and one that, in the 1980s, was still family-friendly. When we first started looking at houses in the City, in 1986, that’s the neighborhood we chose, and it was painful to find that we were close, but not close enough, to affordability (affordability, in those days, meaning $159,900. For a house. But we digress.)  As with so many transplants, Hank loved the City, and he loved its idiosyncratic weather. “In the winter,” he remarked, “the good news it’s always somewhere around 58 to 62 degrees. The bad news is, it’s exactly the same way in the summer.”  And like a lot of San Franciscans, he was decidedly, well, ambivalent about his workplace, Candlestick Park. Hank was close enough to the tragedy and heroism of the 1989 earthquake to be permanently affected by it, but his inimitable dry humor emerged intact.  “The fact that Candlestick survived,” he noted, “was a bit of a disappointment.”

The “Greenwald-isms” above and others for which he is remembered were usually delivered in a casual, offhand manner, like Shakespearean asides, and that made them twice as funny when you heard them. On paper, without his trademark timing and pauses, they may not come across, but still—

                Ron Fairly: The Giants should try to trade for (Mark) Portugal.

                Hank: While they’re at it, they can trade for Spain.

Or his most-quoted line, regarding ace relief pitcher Bruce Sutter. "Three more saves and he ties John the Baptist."

In our post awhile back about the late Lon Simmons, we noted how blessed Bay Area fans have been with Hall-of-Fame-quality sports announcers. Hank knew them all. His close friend was Bill King, about whom he said, “He was the essence of what a sportscaster should be. He had the ability to capture what was happening and enable listeners to see it as vividly as if they were in the arena themselves.”  And while few would include his 1980s partner Ron Fairly in that group, Hank had a real affection for the former Dodger, and said, “Fairly would get emotional about baseball and its significance. Ron knew it was a generational game.”  Our opinion was then, and is now, that the Greenwald-Fairly team was one of the best we ever heard.

Hank retired at 61, after the 1996 season, a long, dreary, injury-marred affair that saw the Giants finish dead last, losing 94 games, with Candlestick having been renamed “3Com Park.”  Ground had yet to break on the new ballpark. It must have seemed like a good time to get out. Hank observed that he wasn’t getting any younger:  “I don’t mind turning 50,” he said. “It’s just at the beginning of the season I was 43.”

In later years, Hank went through his share of health challenges but retained his love of baseball and of books; his passion for reading, for the written word, couldn’t help but inform and sharpen his erudite but immediately relatable commentary and speaking style. Of late he took up using a cane fashioned from a Louisville Slugger; “I burned ‘Hank Greenwald’ onto the bat,” he said, “in case I forget my name.”

Hank Greenwald epitomized the old saying, “If you love what you do for a living, you’ll never work a day in your life.”  We Giants fans were and are blessed that such a bright and generous soul shared that love with us for too short a time. He deserves consideration for the broadcaster’s wing at Cooperstown, but we’ll let Hank have the last word on that, too:  “I like to tell people that I finally found something I'm really good at, and that's retirement.”

So long, Hank. It’s been good to know you.
   

End of the Regular Season

Final National League West Standings
LA	92	71	--	Won sixth straight NL West title.
Colorado	91	72	--	Wild-card game at Wrigley Field today.
Arizona	82	80	9	Lost 19 of 27 games in September.
GIANTS	73	89	18	Lost 21 of 26 games in September.
San Diego	66	96	25	This is getting to be an annual event.

With victories yesterday in the back-to-back playoff games, Milwaukee and the Dodgers now can prepare to host the wild-card winner and the Atlanta Braves, respectively, starting on Wednesday. The Rockies and Cubs will play the loser-goes-home game tonight.

We've rarely seen two players so transform a team as have Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain with the Brewers. Some of you may remember that both names were bandied about in the offseason as possible Giant acquisitions-- Yelich in a proposed trade with Miami and Cain as a free agent. Cain's age-- he turned 32 two weeks after Opening Day-- scared some people off: oh, no, not another veteran outfielder on the decline. Meanwhile, the estimated price to pay for a superstar-in-the-making like Yelich scared a lot of others: oh, no, let's not sell the farm. We're left to wonder if  Christian Arroyo, Denard Span, and two minor-leaguers (the price eventually paid for Evan Longoria) would have pried Yelich loose from the Marlins, or perhaps if adding Kyle Crick, another prospect, and some cash (the eventual price paid for Andrew McCutchen) would have made the nut. Hard to dispute that Yelich (7.6 WAR) brought a great deal more value than Cutch and Longo combined (3.9), even if that meant Pablo Sandoval and Alen Hanson starting at third base all year.

Cain signed with Milwaukee for 5 years and $80 million; the Giants took on Longoria for 5 years and $68 million (with Tampa kicking in money as well); the club can buy out Longoria after 2022 for $5 million or take a $13 million club option. Bottom line: if Cain is "too old" at 32, then Longoria, six months older, is certainly too old as well. Is anyone getting the message that, despite all the hype about teams getting younger, age is not the primary factor in player value?

Both Yelich and Cain are MVP candidates, but Yelich, who came as close to the Triple Crown as any National Leaguer in recent memory-- he's first in average, OPS, and slugging, second in runs and RBI, third in homers and OBP, plus he stole 22 bases in 26 attempts-- has our vote.

The Dodgers, who already send Clayton Kershaw, Rich Hill, Alex Wood, and Ross Stripling to the mound on a regular basis, got a one-hitter from rookie Walker Buehler yesterday in a rather important playoff game. We like our young pitchers, too, but where do you find these 21-year-olds who hold Nolan Arenado & Co. to one hit over seven innings? The Dodgers seem to grow them like hothouse tomatoes.  

In case we haven't sufficiently tipped our hand, we see the NLCS coming down to these two teams. In the AL, we're pulling for Bob Melvin's late-inning wonders, the Oakland A's, to upset the Yankees-- but we see the winner of the Cleveland-Houston matchup in the upcoming ALDS as the eventual American League champions.

Roll the Statistical Parade

As we previously indicated, no Giant is among the league leaders in any batting category, and in several no Giant even cracks the top 50. Andrew McCutchen is tied for tenth in caught stealing, which is not exactly what we're looking for; he led the team with 13 steals but being caught 6 times indicates he'd have been better off  staying put. Alen Hanson is tied for 19th with 5 triples; McCutchen and Brandon Crawford are 34th with 28 doubles each. Had Buster Posey managed to qualify, his .359 OBP would have nudged last year's batting champion, Charlie Blackmon, out of 16th place. That's about it.

Among pitchers, Derek Holland is 10th in ERA, 15th in strikeouts, 21st in WHIP, 23rd in innings pitched. Will Smith and Hunter Strickland both have 14 saves and rank 16th; combine 'em into one guy and they'd be tenth. Crawford remains the best defensive shortstop in the league now that Andrelton Simmons is in Anaheim, and Joe Panik is as good a defensive second baseman as anyone.

That's it for local highlights, gang.  Onward...

The NL Cy Young battle has four contenders from this perspective: the inevitable Max Scherzer (a league leading 300 strikeouts and 221 innings, with a 0.91 WHIP, 2.53 ERA, and a 18-6 mark), the brilliant Jacob DeGrom (1.70 ERA, 269 K, only ten homers allowed in 217 innings), Patrick Corbin of Arizona, the league's top lefthander this year, and the dark horse, Aaron Nola of Philadelphia (2.37, 224 K, 0.97). We'll say this: a win for DeGrom would be a great step forward in understanding pitchers' value apart from won-lost record, which is perhaps the most team-dependent major statistic in the game.  And we have to mention the Nationals' brilliant lefty reliever Sean Doolittle in this conversation. He saved 25 out of 26 opportunities with a brilliant 0.60 WHIP and 60 strikeouts versus just 6 walks in 45 innings pitched.  

Apart from Yelich, MVP candidates would include Cain, Nolan Arenado and Trevor Story from the Rockies, and usual suspects like Paul Goldschmidt, Matt Carpenter, Javier Baez, and Freddie Freeman. No one put up a single eye-popping stat in the NL this year. No one reached 40 homers, 200 hits, 50 doubles, or 20 triples, but a lot of guys put up great numbers across the board. Baez, Yelich, and Arenado all scored and drove in more than 100 runs. So did Bryce Harper, who keeps getting mentioned in Giants gossip; he led the league with 130 walks, boosting his .249 average to a .393 OBP to go with his 34 doubles and 34 homers. Yes, he's an outstanding ballplayer by any measure.

Big numbers tend to belong to the American League anyway, don't they? As usual, Mike Trout is off the charts, leading the world in OPS (1.088), though Boston's dynamic duo of young Mookie Betts and veteran free-agent J.D. Martinez are both over 1.000 and right behind Trout. Betts, listed generously at 5-foot-9, ought to team up with last year's MVP Jose (.837) Altuve for a series of confidence-building TV spots aimed at normal-sized kids. Oakland's Khrys Davis led the majors with 48 homers; Martinez and Texas' Joey Gallo also exceeded 40. Trout, who bats second, led everybody with a .460 OBP and stole 24 out of 26 bases, but the Angels didn't hit all that well this year and he scored "only" 101 runs, well behind Betts' 129. Twenty-three-year-old Miguel Andujar teamed up with Giancarlo Stanton to lead the Yankee parade; Andujar slugged .537 with 47 doubles and 27 homers, and all he needs to do is learn to take a walk (25 in 573 AB, which helps explain why he scored 83 runs instead of, say, 103). With Stanton belting 38 homers and driving in and scoring over 100 runs, the Yanks weathered the midseason loss of Aaron Judge (.919 in 112 games) quite well. We can't go on without mentioning a personal favorite, Cleveland's Jose Ramirez, still only 26, who has put up MVP numbers (.939 OPS, 110 runs, 105 RBI, 106 walks, 39 homers) for the third straight year.  

The eternal Corey Kluber and Tampa's fine young lefty, Blake Snell, are the majors' only 20-game winners this year. Kluber walked only 34 in 215 innings; Snell walked 64 in 181 but held hitters to a .178 average. Houston's Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander are 1-2 in strikeouts, won 15 and 16 games respectively, and are first (Verlander) and fourth in WHIP. If they split the Cy Young vote, watch out for Chris Sale (12-4, 2.11, 0.86) who was just short of enough innings to qualify for the ERA title (he'd have finished second to Snell's 1.89). One reason we relish the Indians-Astros series is that between them, the two teams have seven pitchers in the top 13 in WHIP (Trevor Bauer, Carlos Carrasco, and Mike Clevinger join Kluber in Cleveland's all-righty array, while Charlie Morton nicely backs up Verlander and Cole). 

It's not a happy sight as we have to go 'way down the list to find the future Hall of Famer, Albert Pujols, who put up just .245/.289/.411 for LA, with 19 homers. Back in St Louis he walked 80 or more times seven straight years, now he hacks at anything-- 28 walks in 465 AB. He's never hit triple-digits in strikeouts and only had 65 this year, but he'd help the Angels more if he took a few more pitches. Adrian Beltre, who might also find his way into Cooperstown someday, put up similar numbers in Texas. He's 39, Albert's 38.

The best base-stealer in the game is Jonathan Villar, of the miserable Orioles, who stole 35 while only being caught 5 times... Baltimore's 47-115 (.290) finish is the worst since the 2003 Detroit Tigers (43-119) and only five wins ahead of the worst in the modern era, the 1962 expansion New York Mets' 42-120. The Orioles ended up 61 games behind Boston, which is second-worst of all time, half a game worse than the '62 Mets and only half a game better than the Boston Braves of 1935, who were 38-115...  Speaking of the Orioles and ignominious records, Manny Machado, the most sought-after player in the midseason trade market, led everyone by grounding into 26 double plays-- 14 with Baltimore, 12 with LA. Hey, an equal opportunity rally-killer... Just kidding. Manny's great. A .909 OPS and 37 homers? He'll help LA big-time in the postseason... One reason the Padres may not be too thrilled with Eric Hosmer is that he's the most extreme ground-ball hitter in the major leagues. He hit almost three times as many grounders as fly balls or line drives, including 18 double-play balls. One the other end of the spectrum we have a preponderance of sluggers like Trout, Ramirez, Washington's Anthony Rendon, and Matt Carpenter, who put nearly twice as many balls into the air as on the ground-- and who, in 564 at-bats, did not ground into one double play!...  Cincinnati second baseman Scooter Gennett has the best range of any position player (excluding, for obvious reasons, catchers and first basemen)... We hate to rag on players, but the Yankees should seriously consider starting Austin Romine, not Gary Sanchez, at catcher tonight and, if necessary, going forward. Sanchez allowed 18 passed balls in just 76 games behind the plate (Romine 5 in 74). Oakland's Jonathan Lucroy, in 125 games, allowed ten...  Zack Godley, one of two Zacks in the Arizona rotation, led the majors with 17 wild pitches, but the Angels' snakebitten Garret Richards, before his injury, heaved 15 to the backstop-- in just 16 starts... Godley was consistently wild as he finished fourth in the majors in walks. The leader was the Cubs' Tyler Chatwood, who had an all-around awful season... Three major-league hitters exceeded 200 strikeouts this year, with the White Sox' Yoan Moncada setting the pace with 217. Incredibly, the Sox let him lead off in 97 games, 449 at-bats, one-third of which ended in K's. They went 62-100 and Rick Renteria should be fired... Stanton fanned 211 times to go with his 38 homers, Joey Gallo had 207 (and 40 homers)...  And oh goodness, what about Chris Davis? Did he typify Baltimore's season from hell? The man who hit 200 homers in a five-year span from 2012-2016 managed only 16 this year while batting .168 in 470 at-bats and striking out 192 times.

Bringing It All Back Home  

In 162 games, Giants starters put up 87 quality starts. The team won only 53 of those games while losing 34, which we would guess is a lot worse than the major-league average. 

It breaks down like this:  Holland 17, Rodriguez 15, Suarez 15, Bumgarner 14, Stratton 12, Cueto 5, Blach 5, Samardzija 3 (no, really!), Kelly 1. 

Cheap wins: Stratton 4, Holland 3, Bumgarner, Suarez. Team total 9.

Tough losses: Bumgarner 4, Stratton 4, Holland 3, Rodriguez 2, Stratton 2, Kelly. Team total 16.

We get the feeling if we counted team cheap wins and tough losses the numbers would be even more lopsided.

The best start was by Chris Stratton, on September 14 at home, against the playoff-bound Rockies, in the midst of that horrific mid-September free-fall. In fact, it was the game that broke the Giants' all-time franchise record 11-game losing streak.  Complete-game two-hit shutout, two walks, seven strikeouts. Game Score 93.

The worst start was also by Stratton, on August 3 at Arizona: three innings, ten hits including two homers, four walks, six earned runs allowed. Game Score 4.

As a group, the Giants relievers pitched better coming in in the middle of an inning, often with runners already on base (1.04 WHIP, 1.79 ERA), than they did starting off an inning fresh (1.32 WHIP, 3.18 ERA).  Having never done a league-wide study, we have no idea if this is normal or abnormal, though it seems to generally go against the grain of what we think we know about relief pitching. 

Giants middle-inning relievers inherited 232 runners and allowed 71 of them to score, about 30%. Again-- normal or unusual?  Until MLB starts keeping track of this essential stat-- perhaps the single most important stat for relievers-- and ideally as both a count and a percentage, we will have no control group to average against, and we haven't the time to count them individually for each team, for heaven sakes. It was tough enough just doing the Giants, from box scores. 

They opened an inning a total of 444 times, facing 2061 batters and recording 1427 outs. Mid-inning totaled 148 appearances, 348 batters, 266 outs. Strikeout-to-walk ratio and K-per-9 ratio were about the same. 

Counting only those who made the majority of appearances-- Watson, Dyson, Moronta, Smith, Strickland, Melancon, Blach, Johnson, and Black-- we get this:

Watson and Smith were equally outstanding in both roles. Dyson also did well in both, though not to the same degree.  Neither Blach nor Black showed much difference either, though their mid-inning appearances were few and may not be large enough to represent. 

Strickland and Melancon did much better starting off an inning fresh.

Moronta and, surprisingly, Johnson did better coming in and working out of a jam. Moronta especially showed a large differential. Starting off an inning he had a 1.27 WHIP and 2.59 ERA, with 31 walks in 49 apperances. Mid-inning he was lights-out: 0.82 WHIP and 0.42 ERA with only 7 walks in 28 appearances.  Moronta stranded 32 of the 41 runners he inherited. Johnson also did much better in those situations; he was lit up opening innings, allowing 50 runners in 30 appearances. Mid-inning he allowed 8 in 13, though he did allow 7 of 17 runners he inherited to score.

We have no idea if Bruce Bochy, or any manager in the game, makes these distinctions when evaluating his bullpen. We'd all like our relievers to be able to handle any situation with aplomb. But the facts tend to suggest they don't, and long ago we decided it was better to live in the world of "is" than in the world of "should."


A few Giants fell off the radar this year; guys we'd been keeping track of, who had made recent contributions, but who ultimately did not show enough staying power. Chris Heston, Nori Aoki, Eduardo Nunez, and Cory Gearrin are hereby dismissed.

Chris Stratton's ten wins earn him a reprieve for now. Sam Dyson and Mark Melancon are still on the list.

New Giants coming on board, welcome:  Tony Watson, Reyes Moronta, Evan Longoria, Steven Duggar, and Austin Slater.

So long, Bobby Evans. You gave it a shot, and you fell short. We'll see who comes next, and what happens next, on another day.


And finally, happy trails, Hunter Pence. As did Matt Cain, Pence as much as anyone exemplified the spirit of the three-time World Champion San Francisco Giants. When we were great, he was great, and we won't forget that any time soon. His farewell to the fans on the season's last day was generous, funny, and above all, one of  a kind, as is he. Hunter Pence will be a San Francisco Giant forever.