Around the Melky Way

I hate to add to the deluge of phallus stroking over Melky Cabrera, so I won't. But I had to give this post a catchy title with a milk pun so it would get mad hits on Google. I'm also loathe to talk about Brandon Belt because it's like beating a dead baby giraffe. And I'd rather not ponder what we're going to get from Timmy in a little less than an hour.

But I feel like this moment in the Giants' season is screaming out for something, a defining moment. I've seen teams like this before. We all have. They meddle around the .500 mark for a month or two before catching their stride and riding a summertime wave into the postseason... or falling off the deep end entirely, the dog days of summer slowly, agonizingly ripping away every last shred of our pride.

Hating comes full circle.

My latest obsession is #haters. But not just any haters. Haters who hate for the sake of hating. The absolute bottom of the barrel of hate. Blind hate. Senseless hate. Hate that defies all logic. And in the case of sports fans, hate without recourse. Hate that festers unfulfilled over a lifetime of anguish, eventually boiling over in a stream of vitriol directed at teams that aren't listening and couldn't care less – no matter how much money you spend on garlic fries and panda hats.

Hate borne of an inability to do a damn thing about how one's team handles its business.

Take, for use of a convenient example, the recent #FreeBelt phenomenon. Anyone who follows los Gigantes and their 253 thousand followers on the Twitter thingy knows the hate for Bruce Bochy goes far beyond his reluctance to get down on his knees and bow at the altar of the Baby Giraffe. It extends to any opportunity our grizzled ol' manager takes to tweak the lineup.

April Showers Post Mortem

Reading through the fairly standard What-Have-We-Learned-After-One-Month blogs and off day stories, I was struck by this note in @stewardsfolly's Sunday postgamer:

OK, so April wound up 12-10. Not bad, considering an 0-3 start, a struggling ace, a lost closer, a projected starting second baseman who never played and Aubrey Huff’s ineffectual start and subsequent anxiety issues.

Makes you think, don't it? Wasn't this year supposed to be easier?

Hadn't Los Gigantes kicked the injury bug that plagued them throughout 2011 after successfully avoiding major trips to the trainer's table in the Year of Glory 2010?

Wasn't Aubrey Huff supposed to rebound with his typically inflated even-year production after stealing the Rally Thong back from the Hall of Fame?

Didn't Dave Groeschner find a magic potion to heal Freddy Sanchez of his San-Francisco-itis once and for all?

Early Observations from Section 104

Courtesy of the Butch Husky Estate © 2012

Ten games in. Time for a bunch of irrational and reactionary tweeting about Lincecum sucking out the wrong side of the bong, the Melk Man going Iced Mocha over the last three contests, and the need to lock up Buster Posey into his retirement years.

Or, we could just throw a few bullet points at the white board of life and see what sticks in a month or two. Anything's better than obsessing over Matt Kemp's OPS two weeks into the season.

With that, here are my 10 observations from the first 10 games of the young season...

Game 1 (D-Bags 5, Gigantes 4): We could legitimately focus on Timmy in three of these points, but this game was instantly noteworthy because last year it would have been over after the first inning. This year, there's a little more pop, a little more bop, and a little more je ne sais quoi. This year, they're going to make every game interesting. At least we all can hope they do.

Opening Day Open Thread

#TravyonHusky

Okay, so I'm not so blind as to ignore my analytics. I don't expect a robust conversation, but it's Opening Day, and I'll probably have a lot to share, so consider this Butch's Open Thread of One...

——

Observation 1: 11:58 AM

Seriously, Bochy? After the virtual joy fest that has been the roster selection process, you're going to plug The Riot in at second base? Just when you thought it was safe to say the youth movement is on, the Brain goes and pulls one our of his old cap of tricks. Oh well, I guess I can move Manny back to my fantasy bench for now... And I thought that was such an inspired late-round steal!

An Open Letter to Larry Baer

Dear Larry,

We need to talk. It started a few years back, when Lew Wolff got it in his head that Oakland wasn’t the best home for the ballclub he’d recently purchased. The A’s play in a rundown stadium in a decrepit area of town in front of a dwindling—albeit loud and loyal—fanbase. The organization’s limited revenue stream prevents it from building a consistent winner and essentially makes them a ward of the league.

Enter San Jose. After it became abundantly clear that the City of Oakland has no earthly idea what it’s doing, and the fever dream that was Fremont faded quickly away, Northern California’s largest city was left to reap the spoils: a professional franchise in a sport that actually draws national interest.

OMFG! Spring Training!!!

© SB Nation Bay Area 2012

Alright, everybody. Take a deep breath... Hold it... Now let it out, slowly... There, doesn't that feel better?

Every year around mid-February, I'm consistently shocked by how shocked I am that fans get so damn hyphy for the beginning of baseball operations in Arizona. Seems like there's enough hunger among the faithful to rival a medium-sized third-world nation – or Detroit.

Obeying Newton's laws and taking advantage of today's 24-second news cycle, the beat writers come along for the ride, tweeting and blogging updates every time Brian Wilson blows his nose or Tim Lincecum ponders an In-N-Out run.

Today was a prime example, as Giantsland was rocked by news of Wilson throwing off a mound for 15 whole minutes, Charlie Culberson dropping a weight on his finger, and Ryan #Vogelstrong tweaking a muscle in his back and coming down with a cold.

It's enough to make you wonder: Does the media obsess over this stuff because we do, or do we obsess over this stuff because modern technology makes it so darn obsess-ible? I mean, accessible.

Deep, deep, Jacques Cousteau pockets.

In case you missed it, while the 49ers were turning a dream season to mud, Timmy turned down five years at $100M from los Gigantes. This is not a huge red flag, so you can catch your breath and try to avoid having a coronary. It's just another salvo in the never-ending cock-measuring contest that is contract negotiation.

The Giants are doing their best to keep costs down by lowballing Timmy on the back end of the deal, and Timmy's agent is doing his best to get his client every cent he rightly deserves. These are the standard postures of labor-management relations, and it's not surprising to see them arise again and again in baseball. After all, the MLBPA is one of the strongest private sector unions in the country.

Labor negotiations are all about comparisons and precedent. Good union reps know what the best-compensated employees in their field are making, what kind of benefit plan they enjoy, how many bathroom breaks they get every day. They use this data to force management to bring their contract offers up to par.

Where the sun don't shine.

Before I start, a quick reminder that it's easier for me to squeeze in a tweet than squeeze out a blog. So if you'd like more than intermittent updates, I advise you to visit me @ButchHusky.

Okay, shameless plug aside, let's talk numbers...

According to Baggs' Friday night missive, Brian Sabean has successfully brought his team in at the $130M payroll ceiling established by the Super PAC that pulls the strings at 24 Willie Mays Plaza. The coup de grace will be the contract currently being forged with a two-time Cy Young winner with wavy hair, a funky windup, and the heart of a champion.

It's no small feat, but I doubt we'll be hearing much about the front office's uncanny ability to work an abacus over the din caused by so many millions of dollars going to someone so young. If Sabean's minions merit a mention, it will most likely be to deride their choice to avoid a gratuitous contract for a power hitter who would quickly sour of AT&T's spacious confines in favor of investing in the proven horses who won us one World Series and could easily win us another.

Tinkering around the edges.

© Getty Images

Picking up where we left off last week, now that the roster is pretty much set, it's time to put on our size 8.5 hats and play inside Bochy's head a bit. Watch out, because it's kinda dark in here, and slippery...

The good news? There are a number of switch hitters on the 40-man, which means Bochy will get more length out of his roster on a day-to-day basis. This becomes important when your field manager treats every game like the Game 7 of the World Series and you'd like to be home in time to catch the late Sunday game on ESPN.

The bad news? There aren't a lot of lineup permutations where Angel Pagan isn't be featured in the leadoff role. While I like having someone to cement the position, I'm still not convinced he can pull it off every day in our yard. But he's what we have, so you have to use him. Right?

In the end, beyond the leadoff spot, there's a plethora of options at Bochy's fingertips. Let's survey just a handful of his potential lineups...

Devil or Angel?

There are trades that drive you nuts — like you just caught your girlfriend with another dude — and there are trades that give you perma-grin — like you just caught your girlfriend with another girl, and they asked you to join the party. But then there are trades that are necessary, trades that are surgical, trades that are so businesslike that they would fall under the radar if we weren't refreshing our Twitter feeds every five sec... Hold on... Okay, where was I? Right, let's call them "trades of convenience".

The Giants weren't bringing back Andres the Giant — much as we'll miss him. They would like to have kept Ramirez, but as has been noted in many other places on the interwebs, they're pretty deep as far as right-handed relief. And Angel Pagan fills a genuine need. Again, nothing to poop your pants over, but another solid move in an offseason where Brian Sabean has had to get creative. With the Care Baer in charge, it's back to brass tacks. The hangover is, well, over.

Let's get real.

Photo © tanmanforlife

There's always a lot of talk on the Twitter thing about what it means to be a "real fan". Pissing contests erupting 140-characters at a time. Grown men whining back and forth like old married couples. Ladies behaving... well, rather un-lady-like.

It's getting fricking dangerous out there, folks, and the whole shebang has got me thinking: What exactly constitutes a "real fan"?

In the wake of the team's first title in 56 years, life-long Giants fans watched with trepidation as the park filled up night after night in 2011 with out-of-the-woodwork casual fans decked out literally from head to toe in their freshly-purchased World Champions-branded gear.

Catching up.

As I've said before, the hardest part of being a part-time blogger is keeping on a schedule, especially if you spread your passion across a wide swath of industries, hobbies, and pastimes. Which I do. But that's really another way of saying I'm lazy. I have no problem admitting that sometimes baseball is the furthest thing from my mind, and sometimes I don't feel like I have anything to add to the conversation.

So if you're looking for a daily dish, go to the big boys like MCC or BASG. Me, I don't really do this for page views. You won't see any Google ads on this Google site. I come here to vent, to let loose, to get a healthy dose of catharsis. If somebody actually reads what I write and likes what they read, that's just the all-natural whipped cream on top of my gelato.

With that disclaimer out of the way, let's dig into some recent news and notes before we dig into our turducken...

Locking up the lefties.

Forget for a moment that the Giants just committed $9.25M to two relievers for the 2012 season — one of them an above average LOOGY, the other a very bad chef.

Forget that they'll pay Javy Lopez another $4.25 in 2013.

Forget that our team was woefully inept hitting with RISP in 2011.

Forget all of that, kick back, grab yourself a Racer 5, and think about this double-down move in the appropriate context: reality.

Blame Game

What is the nougat at the center of the American obsession with scapegoating? Why must there always be someone or something to blame for our misfortunes? Are we that full of ourselves? Is it so incredulous to think that sometimes shit just happens, without judgment or discrimination? I don't think so, and I've got a lifetime of experience to back me up.

But if you want to play the blame game, then let's play...

There is no "I" in Brandon Belt.

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few... or the one." - Vulcan Proverb

Managing the 2011 San Francisco Giants might be the most impossible job in the world. What do you do when only two guys on your roster have even a shred of a clue at the plate? How can you build a productive offense around a see-the-ball-hit-the-ball, rolly-polly thirdbagger and a preppy-lookin' dude with Zito socks and a penchant for taking it back up the middle? What do you say to a pitcher who throws eight innings of two-run ball against one of the league's best offenses and takes the loss? Who do you go to for advice when you're ready to pull out every hair left on your head because the middle of your lineup just went down in order on 7 pitches in a one-run game?

These are the questions I ponder as I study the face of Bruce Bochy — the chiseled jaw of a former Navy brat, the fine lines around his eyes, the squinting gaze of a guy who's seen his fair share of bus rides and red-eye flights in a sport where chance plays just as much of a role in the difference between victory and defeat as talent and ability. I really pity the guy when he's up at the podium in the postgame pressers, groping for cliches to cover for his bottomless frustration with what has to be one of the most pathetic offenses ever to lead a division in August.

You're a good man, Charlie Manuel.

I'm choosing to ignore recent baseball-related events in Cincinnati. I will expunge them from my brain before I incur any collateral damage. I shall wipe the slate clean and look upon tomorrow as another day. Instead of wallowing in pointless abandon over this horrendous lost weekend, I will roll with the post I've been aiming to write since Thursday night...

This has to do with that little series in Philadelphia and a certain manager's comments afterwards regarding the relative merits and demerits of two young starting pitchers. To provide a frame of reference for the following diatribe, please allow me to introduce you to the studly dudes in that picture there:

We've been down this road before.

© 2010 Associated Press

Antsy morning. Up with the sun, and nothing to do but watch the Sports Reporters and read Internal Affairs in the Merc. Nothing newsworthy this week. At least not newsworthy enough to bother you while you're visiting this space in search of baseball commentary. Little did you know, you've really wandered into a deep dark corner of my subconscious mind. At any moment, a crazed ex-girlfriend or a GIF of Jose Cruz Jr. dropping Jeff Conine's popup might jump out from behind a curtain and scare you shitless. Welcome to my world.

Now that we have all the caveats out of the way, let's get down to brass tacks: I hate the trade deadline. I abhor the rumor mill. I despise prognostication based on little more than idle conversation over the phone in traffic on the 405 — or Sepulveda, but who would be insane enough to sit in that mess? Team A interested in Player B but doesn't want to part with Prospect C. Oh, but wait, Team D now asking for Prospect E and a little cash to sweeten the deal long enough for Team F to jump in the mix and make things interesting... Btw, I heard this from Team G's clubhouse attendant. Yeah, it's fun to banter this shit about, but what's the point if you're not the guy who can pull the strings and make it happen?

Maybe I'm just getting old, and maybe I've been through too many Julys, and maybe I've seen Sabean make too many shrewd but wholly nondescript moves, a few of which helped us win a little thing called the World Series last year... and a few of which became Ryan Garko. My point is, it should be bluntly obvious to any Giants fan that Sabean has been reluctant to pull the trigger on the so-called "blockbuster" deal ever since he dealt Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano, and some guy named Boof to the Twins for a dude who played one season in SF, set a club record for GIDP, and went on to win a World Series with the White Sox the very next year. (It's not worth mentioning his name this early in the morning.) Prior to that much-maligned move, the man was a wheelin', dealin' machine...

Second verse, same as the first...

Can't believe it's been two weeks since I last spoke to you in more than 140-character bursts. Oh, well, that's the life I lead. As everyone else begins to relax and take a little vacay, I tend to get busy keeping myself organized. Probably why I love baseball so much. It feeds right into my obsessive compulsions. There's no shortage of stats or highlights or sabermetrics to keep my mind occupied until the wee morning hours as I stare out the window wondering... "Do I dare to eat a peach?"

This, of course, is a very long-winded — Dickensian, if you will — manner of apologizing for leaving you hanging. But then again, I sincerely doubt you lacked for online entertainment in my absence from the blogosphere. There are, as I've discovered, other baseball blogs out there. Besides, the mini-hiatus gave me time to come to a few epiphanies about our 2011 San Francisco Giants, and damned if I don't feel a little lighter in the shoulder region. I'll share them with you now in the stead of another cookie-cutter midseason report...

Smoke and Mirrors

Design by thecitygraphics.com

Let's see if you recognize this pattern: Team A falls behind early by a run or two and can't get anything done against Team B's starter. Around the seventh inning, Team B has to go to the bullpen, and Team A suddenly rallies to steal the game. If you identified this as the Giants' modus operandi at home in 2011, you are correct. But the same narrative could also be used to describe the three losses the Giants absorbed on their most recent road trip to the American Midwest.

The Giants simply aren't used to blowing leads, and we as fans are not used to seeing them blown. It's disconcerting when the best bullpen in baseball doesn't deliver the goods. Now that Brian Wilson has been elevated to a godlike status not just by the Giants and their fans but by the marketing execs at Major League Baseball™ who know a good cow to milk when they see it — please to consult the Ubaldo Jimenez mini license plate spot ("Zander?") — the ninth inning has a cone of pride and ego enveloping it. And when the cone is pierced, it lets loose a primal roar of frustration.