The Giants Baseball Blog

The Giants excercised their options on Jason Schmidt and Randy Winn on Thursday. LaTroy Hawkins, Moises Alou, and Ray Durham all decided to return to the Giants in '06 as well. Non of these moves should come as a surprise. If they wanted to get rid of Schmidt they would have done it in July. Randy Winn could do no wrong once he put on a Giants uniform. Brian Sabean wants to sign Winn to an extension before the '06 season starts. Winn will be making 5 million this year, and so he'll probably command about that in an extension. I'd say a 3 year, 15 million dollar deal sounds pretty good. Ray Durham is as fragile as they come, but when he's healthy he's an offesive force. The Giants need to figure out a way to keep him healthy, because he's sticken around for another year. LaTroy Hawkins may finally rebound now that he has a legit closer behind him and he will never be asked to close. He has such a live arm, but I can't help but think Felix Rodriguiz every ...

The Giants recently invited all their coaches back for the 2006 season, but it doesn't look like a lock that they will all return. Last thursday, Giants' bench coach Ron Wotus was interviewed by the Dodgers regarding their Managerial position. Also, pitching coach Dave Righetti is on the Yankee's radar as a possible replacement for Mel Stottlemyre. I doubt Wotus will land the Dodger job, but New York may be a good fit for Rags. He had some of his most successful seasons in his career pitching for the Yankees. The Yankees haven't asked for permission to speak to Righetti yet, but If Raggs were to leave, it would open up a door for Mark Gardner to possibly take over as the pitching coach. I don't think a change would be all that bad. Outside of Russ Ortiz, there is no pitcher who came up under Righetti who has had a really solid career. As far as Wotus is concerned, many viewed him as next in line on the Giants managerial list, it's not too surprising he's get...

Well, here we are, right in the thick of the Major League baseball playoffs, and for the second dissapointing season in a row, no San Francisco Giants. It's tough for me to become excited about the playoffs when the Giants aren't in it, but I'm a diehard baseball fan, so I still tune in and have interest. As much as it still hurts me to say, I was picking the Angels to go all the way this year, and still am even though they are currently down 2-1 to the Chi Sox and are without their ace for the rest of the series. If the Angels don't go, I predict the winner to come from the NL, I'm still not sold on the White Sox. The NLCS is very evenly matched, and tough to pick, but I think Houston's pitching may prevail. Enough about the post-season for now. The world series is right around the corner, so that means we are inching closer and closer to the offseason. This is going to be a very interesting winter for Brian Sabean. Right of the bat, as soon as the series is ov...