While the Athletics still face an uncertain path to finally landing a new ballpark, the club’s announcement of a target site has gained some support from the business community, Kimberly Veklerov of the San Francisco Chronicle writes. It certainly seems as if there’s some public relations jockeying going on as the ballclub attempts to ramp up its efforts. As Veklerov notes, some of the initial political response was less than fully supportive. And as the Chronicle further reports, there may be some environmental concerns with the site under consideration.
More from out west:
- Across the bay, the Giants have stumbled through a disastrous season. CEO Larry Baer discussed the state of affairs as the campaign comes to an end with Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News reports. It’s an interview you’ll certainly want to read in full, as Baggarly pushed the executive on some interesting subjects. Baer emphasized that the organization can hope for turnaround efforts from some key players, noting in particular that the club got much less than anticipated from key pitchers. He explained: “I’m not proclaiming that’s what is going to happen, but I am saying that we believe with the talent level, we can get back.” In addition to discussing the state of the organization’s finances and the ongoing fan support (and, thus, revenue), among other topics of note, Baer also addressed the role of GM Bobby Evans with his predecessor, Brian Sabean, still a figure in the organization. Baer says he’s still confident in the front office “structure,” explaining that it’s a “pretty collaborative” unit that consists mostly of “all the same people” that built the club’s recent, better-performing rosters.
- Mariners skipper Scott Servais discussed his team’s season in comparison to that of the division-leading Astros, as Greg Johns of MLB.com writes. Though Servais notes that he’s not focused on what the Houston organization is up to, he acknowledges that it has “set the bar” for the rest of the division. The second-year skipper believes his own ballclub needs to continue to “get more athletic and be able to defend” over the winter — though, of course, he also notes that the M’s haven’t given up on sneaking back into Wild Card position this year.
- The Dodgers are continuing to monitor the balky elbow of star shortstop Corey Seager, as skipper Dave Roberts told reporters including MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick (Twitter links). While it still seems some sort of offseason procedure may be required, the joint is in “playable” condition. Dealing with the pain and preventing any compensation-related problems are surely some of the factors at play here; an injection, though, isn’t considered an option, Roberts notes.
Lack of defense is not why the Mariner’s are stuck around ,500. Their defense is pretty good and the outfield is one of the better ones. Their starting pitching and bullpen are a different story. In my opinion they also have a problem with their offense which isn’t consistent. They can score 10 runs in one game and then 3 in the next four. Their outfield lacks power but does add speed and defense so I’m not sure where they can get more athletic unless they move Cano to first and find a more athletic second baseman.
You can only throw so much money
If your farm is decent you cannot field a complete team within their means
Example the angels
They got so much money on the field and a barren farm. Something happens… they’re screwed
They’ve done pretty well with something happening to every pitcher they have, Trout being out for over a month, and still being hamstrung by Hamilton and Pujols contracts. Parker Bridwell, JC Ramirez, Alex Meyer, Troy Scribner have started games for them. Don’t blame the Angels for how bad your Padres are lol
You get what I’m saying though
They are set to win now. One thing goes wrong or 2… and they tail spin
Without depth or a strong farm teams set up like this will fail
Consistency on offense, no doubt. But the biggest issue is pitching. They’ve used 40 pitchers last I looked and when your pitching is that bad and you’re jogging out journeymen and AAA guys every couple games, inconsistency with the offense is going to show much more than if you had pitching capable of limiting opposing offenses to say two or three runs a game instead of five or six.
That Larry Baer interview was pure delusion. He probably thinks unicorns fly out of his butt. Using managerial failure Matt Williams as council and forging your hopes on a DBacks turnaround is fantasy. Weeping about how much pitching you lost this year is mitigated by pitching depth, the Dodgers are a blueprint for this strategy.
The interviewer should’ve pummeled him with recent successful rebuilding endeavors (Cubs and Astros) and made this whimpering simp show his true motivation of lining his pockets in the short term while selling the Giants fans on a cotton candy fairy tale.
Honestly, I think the Giants could possibly rebound. I mean.. every meaningful player except Posey had a down year.
Yeah but if you watched them this year, in a lot of cases it looked a lot more like “new normal” or “getting old” than “down year.” I can see Crawford returning to form and MadBum staying healthy, but that’s about it. Pence and Cueto are getting old (and in the latter case, is out of shape). Panik never was all that good except for one season. They have no LF, CF or 3B to speak of, and no competent starters after Samardzija (and barely him). They’re a bad team with a couple (Posey, MadBum) stars who aren’t getting any younger either. What they should do is sell.
“Panik never was all that good except for one season.”
Apparently you haven’t been watching him lately; you might want to check some stats. This is his 4th year and 2016 was his only bad year, and that can be attributed to coming back from injury. He did lose his swing for a little while, but he’s been as hot as anyone lately. In the second half of the season he’s slashed .310/.372/,454, and he’s been on a tear over the last 28 days when he’s slashed a .367/.438/.544.
Few things I’m curious about the Dodgers. Firstly they claim to be pro working for starts by production. Dre is producing, while Grandy isn’t. Why not get Dre some more ABs and let Grandy take over in later innings. Let Taylor get some starts at SS and give Seager a chance to rest. Let A-Gone take some pinch hit situations to get comfortable with the idea. Have Kiké and Joc play more CF. Play Chase against more Righties and let Logan play in later innings to let the silver fox rest. Play Barns more as a reward for productivity. I mean seriously Grandy is a great player but we need to get back to winning and build some trust with ourselves and team.
Agreed, whoever leads in WAR every week gets to play the following week! WAR is the most important statistic in the history of statistics, so let’s go by that for everything.
WAR is made for long term look at a player not week to week
Giants should trade for Chris Davis…send the Orioles Matt Cain.
Cain is done. Why would you want to pay $20M for an ERA over 6? If you *want* a starter with an ERA that high, any AA team can help you.
Hah! It’s the Giants who would never do that trade, not the O’s! Chris Davis is the third worst contract in baseball, after Pujols and MIggy. You can’t give that away.
I dunno – Giants not happy with Belt and want more power. Os are stupid enough to try Cain for a year.
I would gladly pay Cains one year of $20+Mil if it meant I could move that horrendous 5 more years of the Davis contract.
Cain is a free agent. He can’t be traded.
Cain is only a FA if the Giants buy him out. They could pick up his option and then trade him if they want to. It’s highly improbable, but Cain can indeed be traded.
Umm…The option $9 million. Who is going to want a 33yr old, coming off 3 bad years, at $9 million. He can only hope for a minor league contact.
Nope, The option is for $7.5m, But like I said, them picking it up is highly improbable.
I confused it with Matt Moore’s option. I like them picking it up. All of the Giants pitchers had sucky years. If they returned to career norms, they wouldn’t be in playoff contention, but it would be a positive sign.
Sorry, I misspoke, The option is for $21m, The buyout is $7.5m. The only way that option gets picked up is if some other team tells the Giants they want to trade for Cain and will pay the $21m salary, and that’s not happening.
The Giants are Trapped. Trapped in the flawed policies and transactions of BOTH Sabean and Evens that have the team burdened with exorbitant salaries being paid to declining and under-performing veterans. Prospects traded for veterans in the faint hope of sustaining the team for “one more year” of contention have short-changed the feeding system of their minor leagues and prompted unreasonable expenditures on free agents that has further bloated the payroll. The rebuilding needs to start and tough decisions will need to be made; perhaps some of the veterans that are viewed as “fixtures” need to be viewed as “just passing through”. Improvements also need to be made in scouting, drafting and developing players’ new talent needs to continually cycle into the major league roster.. Whatever “blueprint” the organization has for the bullpen, needs to be reevaluated. Larry Baer is in damage control mode. Clearly he is contractually stuck with players not valued to the degree of their contracts (based on their performance) in the open market. Larry is just buying time until those contracts expire and the full blown rebuild can begin.
The giants did a great job getting those 3 WS championships. They now need to dump what they can in trades, or dfa some guys and sadly trade the faces of the franchise to compete in 2020. Madbum or posey maybe both
“Prospects traded for veterans in the faint hope of sustaining the team for “one more year” of contention…”
So, who are these prospects, by them being traded away, has decimated the farm system? I can come up with only Zack Wheeler in 2011, and Adam Duvall in 2016 that are of any significance. And in reality the value of Wheeler is heavily reduced due to the injuries and Duvall is not difference between the Giants being good and what they are. Plus Duvall is not going to hit at AT&T like he did at GA.
Lucius Fox might, and might not, develop.Phil Bickford? Andrew Susac? Will Smith just might wind up more valuable than either one of them.
The Giants have gad a lot of success in the last decade so they aren’t very high which would account for some of the dearth of prospects. But, there just aren’t boatloads of players in the majors traded away by SF to validate your assertion.
Sanity has spoken. Systems get rated on impact players. The Giants probably don’t have any future-HOFers in their system. I think they have a lot of solid players. Duggar, Slater, and Arroyo all missed significant playing time this year. Duggar is the most interesting to me.
3 rings is nothing to cry about. The giants did what they had to do to won 3. Now they are paying for it, with vets and burdens on contracts. Alot of teams go thru this and don’t get any rings. So they did something right. I’m a cubs fan always have been, but I tip my hat to the giants for doing what they did.
Bingo
Most of the current Giants roster is about 30, or a little under. A lot of these players, if they returned to career averages, would return Giants to a winning season.
list of prospects dealt by SF? I know wheeler for beltran, but don’t keep up w SF
Outside of Nathan, and Liriano, they are nothing to get excited about.