SFGiantsGuy

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through Oracle Park Not a superstar was stirring, not even a spark! The banners were hanging, by the arcade with care In hopes that St. Ohtani, would soon be theirs  The fans were nestled all snug in their beds While visions of power hitting ace pitchers danced in their heads  And Farhan in his chef's hat, and you in your SF cap Had just settled down for a long winter's nap When out on Twitter, there arose such a clatter Baseball fans sprang to see what was the matter Away to the internet, we flew like a flash Tore open MLB Trade Rumors and the ESPN app The moon on the breast of the soft computer glow Gave the lustre of heartache, to the news below When what to my wondering eyes should appear But the Dodgers new superteam, instilling such fear  With a little old manager, so lively and quick I knew in the moment, it wasn't St. Nick.  More rapid than eagles his coursers they came And he whistled and shouted, and called them by na

The Texas Rangers are first time World Series Champions and the 84 win Arizona Dbacks were the NL Pennant winners. Just as everyone predicted before the season, right? Well, now that Bruce Bochy's 4th World Series champagne celebration has likely dried off, it's time to turn to the baseball offseason. As a San Francisco Giants fan, this may sound repetitive, but it's seemingly a big offseason for our boys in black and orange. More specifically, it's a big offseason for the Giants front office and ownership group to win back apathetic fans who have grown tired of the current formula of fungible players being replaced by other fungible players and a product that is, in a word, boring. Not to mention two subpar seasons following the high of a 107 win division winning season. The Giants have made the playoffs once in the last seven seasons. Fans are bored, they are angry, or worse, they are apathetic. The Giants used to sell out Pacific Bell/SBC/AT&T/Oracle Park on the

For the '23 post mortem of the San Francisco Giants season, I nearly copy and pasted the 2022 version . The Giants in 2022 were perfectly mediocre, finishing 81-81. In 2023, they were slightly below mediocre, finishing at 79-83. This isn't great news if you're a Giants fan. The Giants got even worse a year after they dropped from 107 victories to 81. Another drop in the wins column resulted in skipper Gabe Kapler getting scapegoated and fired. Going into the 2023 season, the talent on the roster didn't inspire a whole lot of confidence. As mentioned in my recap of the offseason , Zaidi's free agent bets had to pay off: The Giants did sign some free agents this offseason and... well... jury is out if this team is actually better in any real way. They could easily eclipse 81 wins and show improvements over the 20223 version. They also could rack up some injuries with some very injury prone players they signed and finish under .500, which might mean the end of Farhan Z

The MLB Trade Deadline is a week away. The Giants started off the 2nd half hot, going 5-0 sweeping the Pittsburgh Pirates and then taking the first two games against a sneaky good Reds team in Cincinnati. Since then? A complete dumpster fire. The Giants have lost 6 in a row, finishing a 11-game road trip against mostly sub .500 teams at 5-6. Although the road trip was long and somewhat grueling, the opponents represented a soft spot in the schedule for SF, a chance to make up ground on the Los Angeles Dodgers who had a brutal portion of their schedule on the road against contenders like the Baltimore Orioles and Texas Rangers. The Dodgers went 6-3 to instead put distance between themselves and the Giants and Dbacks. The Giants are broken. They have been one of the most injured teams in baseball which has led to extensive playing time for rookies who are showing they're not quite ready for a pennant race. After a scorching 18-8 June, the Giants are currently 8-11 in July. They are s

 The Giants suck! Farhan sucks! Kapler is a goober! This team has no plan! Cut Brandon Crawford and bring up Casey Schmitt! Where is Kyle Harrison!?  Those were the cries in April and the beginning of May. Coming off a very poor-for-the-optics offseason where they endured the great Aaron Judge Whiff and the Carlos Correa Catastrophe, Giants fans were up in arms. There's always the good shepherd fans out there, the ones that choose to see the light through the dark, but even for some of them it was hard. On May 1st, the Giants were 11-17, buried in 4th place, closer to last place than 3rd, and were already a full 5 games back of the first place Dodgers. Their line-up was wildly inconsistent and their offseason sextet of Mitch Haniger, Michael Conforto, Ross Stripling, Sean Manaea, Taylor Rogers, and Luke Jackson were massively underperforming or were hurt or were both underperforming AND hurt. By May 15th, things looked outright bleak and some fans were prepping for a massive sellof

Opening Day is nearly a week away so it's time for my prognostications for the 2023 season. My predictions were so bad last year I am not even going to recap them, which I usually do, but if you're curious you can view them here . My only redemption is I got the AL West standings completely right. Oof.  One of these years I am going to have the perfect predictions. Or not. But maybe this year can be the year. So without further ado, here are my 2023 MLB predictions... As always, division winners bolded  and wildcards italicized .  AL East: Blue Jays ,    Yankees, Rays, Orioles, Red Sox AL Central: White Sox , Twins , Guardians, Royals, Tigers AL West: Astros , Mariners , Angels, Rangers, A's NL East: Phillies , Braves , Mets , Marlins, Nationals  NL Central: Cardinals , Brewers, Cubs, Reds, Pirates  NL West: Padres , Giants , Dodgers, Dbacks, Rockies Best Records: Blue Jays, Phillies  2nd Best Records: Astros, Padres  AL Wildcard: Yankees over Mariners, White Sox over Twin

Pitchers and catchers report in just over two weeks to Arizona and Florida to announce the beginning of Spring Training and the start of the 2023 MLB season. While Opening Day is still two months away exactly and transactions can still be made, it appears the Giants are done adding substantial names to their roster. Farhan Zaidi will continue to tinker as he likes to do, signing dudes to minor league free agent contracts with invites to compete for a roster spot, but when you look at the roster, there isn't much room for a surprise to break through. The roster is more or less set. So how did their offseason go? Whewww boy.  My last post was lamenting the fact that the Giants struggled to sign free agents as a whole, but they especially had trouble with star level players. In a free agent market with three legit star hitters (Aaron Judge, Carlos Correa, Trea Turner), several really really good players (Xander Bogaerts, Dansby Swanson, Brandon Nimmo, Willson Contreras, Jose Abreu), a