Getting Oakland out of a brown and sticky situation

If you haven't heard the hilarious/disgusting/disturbing and just plain sad situation of the Oakland Athletics take a quick ride on the magical interweb tubes and follow this link... or this warp tube to another webpage. That is so gross and sad and not at all surprising. Until Pac-Bell park opened in 2000 the coliseum was the jewel of Bay Area stadiums. That isn't saying much since Candlestick was a place that even the men of the Nights Watch wouldn't even venture. Ever since the Giants opened PacBell (now At&t) Oakland has gone down the shitter, literally. There has been a lot of internet ink spilled about how the A's are being blocked by the big-bad Giants from claiming their rightful home in either arm-pit of the Bay Area. The owners of the A's can have their choice of the left armpit of Fremont, or the right pit of San Jose. Ok, neither of those places are that bad, but I have lived in both cities and they have little to offer compared to keeping the team in Oakland.

I loathe moving professional teams, unless it is absolutely necessary. The Sonics leaving Seattle is so wrong it still upsets me when I think about it. The Oilers (football version) should have stayed in Houston, the Nordiques is a way cooler name than the Avalanche and first Browns NFL team should never have gone to Baltimore. The Bay Area has more than enough money to support 6 professional teams (2 MLB, 2 NFL, 1 NBA, 1 NHL), but I think it might be better served letting bygones be bygones and sending the A's off with the full blessing and support to a community that has been groomed perfectly to accept the A's into their welcoming arms. The Oakland MLB ball-club should move to Portland, Oregon.

Portland clearly makes sense; we'd become immediate rivals with Seattle in the AL West and they'd still  have a bitter fan-based rivalry in San Francisco to see who is the more hipster/weird fan bases in all of professional sports.

I have begun work on a $1,100,000,000.00 Kickstarter to make this happen. Please stand by for more information... this is going to be seriously awesome. BEST. IDEA. EVER!

Stupid Marlins... seriously wtf

Miami, you are supposed to be bad. You have a terrible lineup. Please stop your voodoo and let the world fall back into place. The Giants are the defending world champions but when you come to our house we play like an asthmatic 12 year old:

Wild horses hijack speculation

Its time to start the speculation about the future of the San Francisco Giants. I'm not talking about what we are going to do in the current season, but how the 2013 offseason will shape up. The Giants for the most part will keep most of the team past this year, including most of the infield, but there are some major cornerstones of the current roster that will create some tough decisions from the brain trust of Sabean, Barr and Bochy. The key G-men who will be under consideration for roster spots are:

RF - Hunter Pence
SP- Tim Lincecum
SP- Barry Zito**
SP- Ryan Vogelsong**
RP - Javier Lopez
RP- Jose Mijares
OF- Andres Torres
OF- Gregor Blanco**
1B-  Brandon Belt^
SS- Brandon Crawford^

** - Team option for 2014
^ - not enough MLB service time for free agency

Carlos Beltran vs. Hunter Pence

Battle of the Mid-Season Right Fielders: Carlos Beltran vs. Hunter Pence

By: Emika Abe

In both 2011 and 2012, the San Francisco Giants brought in new Right Fielders as mid-season replacements in hopes of saving the day (or the season). The Giants traded the Mets for Carlos Beltran in 2011 and then traded the Phillies for Hunter Pence in 2012. Looking at a wide array of statistics, cold hard facts, photographic evidence, and of course, my biased personal feelings, I will examine which of these two Giants contributed more to the Giants in their respective seasons.

Sure, Carlos Beltran is statistically a better hitter

As an individual player, Beltran had significantly stronger figures than Pence when it comes to, well, almost all ways of looking at hitting strength. Beltran’s BA was a solid .323, whereas Pence’s was a measly .219, putting Pence just a hair above Emmanuel Burriss in 2012.

Pence had a rough year in 2012. And I don’t blame him - it would take me a few months to recover from being on the Phillies, too. But Pence had the good fortune to be on a stronger overall Giants team than the 2011 squad, which led to more runs scored by Pence (28 vs. Beltran’s 17) and RBIs (45 vs. Beltran’s 18). Of course, it’s also worth noting that Pence played more games and had more at bats as a Giant than Beltran, so looking at the total numbers of runs and RBIs is a bit skewed compared to the averages. However, it leads me to my next point...

Hunter Pence was a larger presence on the team

On the field, Pence was more present, playing 15 more games with 52 more ABs than Beltran. But more importantly, Pence was a more visible, vocal presence in the dugout and the clubhouse. Although Beltran was known for giving batting pointers to other Giants during BP, Pence’s famous pre-game speeches in the post-season were the rallying cries that very noticeably kicked the Giants into high gear, leading directly to their World Series Championship win. While Pence may not have lived up to his potential on the field, he far surpassed any expectations as a leader off of the field.

It's a baseball kind of day

It is a gorgeous outside today. So much so that I'm a little depressed because there isn't any baseball that I can go see above a little league level. It's not that I can't go see some random game, but I've seen enough To Catch a Predator that its probably best that I stay home and watch MLB.tv instead. Unfortunately watching a game on TV misses so much of what makes baseball so amazing.