The Giants Baseball Blog

The free-agency filing period began Monday, and some of the big name players wasted no time breaking away from their former teams. Aramis Ramirez, Alphonso Soriano and Carlos Lee head this winters list of top available hitters. The pitching market is very thin, with Barry Zito, former Japanese team ace Daisuke Matzuzika and Jason Schmidt among the top available starting pitchers. One of the many interesting things to watch for this winter is how Brian Sabean adresses the bullpen and especially the closer situation. The only two closers on this years market who may fit with the Giants are Joe Borowski and Eddie Guardado. Borowski is coming of a solid season as the Marlis closer after a few injurey plauged seasons with the Cubs and Devil Rays. Guardado has great credentials, but he had a huge fall-off in production last season and he is getting up there in age as well. The Giants have made it pretty clear that they are going to try to unload Benitez this winter, and there already has bee...

About a week after starting talks with Bruce Bochy, he was named manager Friday afternoon at AT&T Park. It started becoming more and more apparant the Giants where going to go with Bochy during the week as they where in serious talks and Sabean hadn't spoken with another candidate in days. I think Bochy is a solid, safe pick. The Giants where obviously looking for a guy with big league managing experience which is why Bud Black and Ron Wotus weren't offered the job. Bochy has a well respected name throughout all of baseball and it will definetely give potential free agents a lot more of a secure feeling to sign with San Francisco than if the team was ran by Ron Wotus. I'm not too excited about this move, but Bochy is a better manager than both Dusty Baker and Felipe Alou so I'd expect to see this help the team. Bochy knew the team better than any other candidate besides Ron Wotus and has very good credentials. The move makes a lot of sense. It also gives me the feel...

Well the thought of Lou Piniella managing the Giants lasted all but about 2 days as he quickly removed his name from the Giants runnings a day before taking over the Cubs opening managing position. The Giants are now shifting their attention elsewhere as Brian Sabean has asked permission of the Anaheim Angels to talk with their pitching coach Bud Black. Black may now become the front-runner for the position as the Giants have already scheduled an interview with Black. Current bench coach Ron Wotus has already been in for an interview, but it seems unlikely the Giants will go that route. Wotus was also considered a candidate to replace Dusty Baker back in 2002 when Baker departed. He has all the credentials to take over the job, and has been with the organazation for 20+ seasons. The thing that seems like it's keeping Wotus back is the fact that he isn't quite as a name as the Giants last to managers. Some say Wotus would help bring along the Giants young talent as the team is s...

ESPN reported Tuesday that the Giants have had preliminary discussions with Lou Piniella about their managerial opening. Pinella was supposedly the front runner to take the New York Yankee job if it became available, but Joe Torre reported Tuesday that he'll be back with the Yankees next year. Now that the Yankees are out of the mix, it appears that the Giants, Cubs and Rangers are the 3 most likely destinations for Pinella. Pinella was interviewed Monday about all the possibilities, and he surprisingly had the most to say about the Giants. Pinella mentioned how much he likes the city of San Francisco and also said that he and GM Brian Sabean are very close friends. If the Giants did hire Pinella, it would give Brian Sabean a manager who he would actually be on speaking terms with. It wasn't a secret that Felipe Alou and Brian Sabean, while they did respect each other and got along okay, weren't friends. That being said, I also think that if the Giants did hire Piniella, th...

It took less than 24 hours from the final out of the season for the Giants to officially announce that Felipe Alou will not be returning for a 5th season as the teams skipper. This was probably the easiest decision the Giants will be faced with over the next 6-8 weeks. Alou made it pretty clear that this was his last season as a manager before the season even started, and even if it wasn't, the Giants where going to go another direction after the season anyway. Alou had a nice first two seasons as the Giants manager, leading the team to the best record in the NL in 2003, but ever since Steve Finley's home run (as a Dodger) sent the Giants home for the year in final series of 2004, the Giants have spiraled downhill. Even though Alou didn't have the best tools to work with as far as the bullpen goes, I think he overmanaged his bullpen and besides lacking good leadership skills, this is where Alou was the weakest. Again, it would have been tough for anyone to succeed having th...