The Giants Baseball Blog

Immediately upon posting our last post a couple days ago, we finally got word of a significant trade rumor regarding the Giants. Finally something to ponder aside from whether or not Troy Tulowitzki wants to come here to be a super utility guy. The talk out of Chicago according to the popular 'Fansided' baseball page,  Call to the Pen , the Giants and Cubs have had discussions surrounding  Jason Heyward, Will Smith and Mark Melancon . The thing with this one is I really don't get this move from the Giants prospective. From the Cubs prospective it makes all the sense in the world. They would get rid of arguably their biggest blunder of the last half decade while shedding some payroll and opening an outfield spot for a potential Bryce Harper signing. They also would really reinforce their bullpen with two plus relievers, both of which have closing experience and are coming off seasons in which they've proven their health. For the Cubs this deal has win-win-win potential...

I thought we'd see some sort of movement from the Giants by the end of the winter meetings. Something that would help indicate what direction they'll be headed in 2019, but now on the doorstep of the Christmas/New Years period in which nothing significant is likely to happen (though you never know), it could be at least a few more weeks until we get that answer. The Giants have popped up in news recently though, and they did make an addition to their bullpen in a very interesting fashion. San Francisco added switch-pitching reliever , Pat Venditte to the mix on a one-year deal worth just north of the league minimum at $585K. I haven't seen a dollar amount that the Giants will be guaranteeing the 33 year-old, but from everything I seen I do like the addition. It's going to be fun to watch him flip that glove around and throw from both sides next year, but also to see this guy continue to grow despite being in his 30's. Zaidi knows this guy well, as he had him in b...

The MLB offseason has really started gaining some steam the last week or so, as the top starter has been taken on the market and a blockbuster trade shook up the NL West. I expect the Giants to get into the action by the time the winter meetings wind up. The big signing thus far has been Patrick Corbin heading east to the Nationals on a 6-year, $140M deal, which is a huge sum for a guy who really is a #2 or #3 starting pitcher on a good staff. This has significance for the Giants because of the Madison Bumgarner rumblings and what this deal does to a possible asking price the Giants would seek in a potential Bumgarner deal. Coming into the offseason I wasn't completely opposed to dealing Bumgarner, but I thought the best time to do so, if they were to go that route, would be at the deadline next season. That's when teams that think they're that one big starter away from a World Series run will pay the extra player or two in order to obtain a player of Bumgarner's tale...

What's up Giants fans! It's been a while since I've posted here at the Giants Baseball Blog, taking the most time away from posting that I ever have since I started this website back in high school over 10 years ago. I needed a break for various personal reasons and figured since the season was going in the same direction as 2017 and the talking points were becoming redundant, it was a good time to put down the keyboard for a few months. However, now with the season done and the offseason is upon us and ready to start picking up in the coming weeks, it was definitely time to get back at it. Plus, the fact that the Giants just hired Farhan Zaidi to run their baseball operations in what will be the most pivotal offseason, in my opinion, that they've entered in quite some time (probably since the last front office overhaul when Brian Sabean came in and traded away Matt Williams prior to the 1997 season). I think Zaidi was a great hire for this club at this time in this e...

It's been a very tough year, injury wise, for the San Francisco Giants in 2018, probably more so than any other season in recent memory. Still, they've managed to stay relatively in the mix in the NL West but with just over a month left and the waiver trade deadline approaching, they once again have some decisions to make as they look towards 2019. While they've played .500 baseball for most of the year, they've done it without ever really having the 25-man roster they envisioned having when they arrived in Scottsdale in February. Starting off the year without Madison Bumgarner, Jeff Samardzija, Will Smith and Mark Melancon, to then losing Brandon Belt, Johnny Cueto (multiple times), Joe Panik, Hunter Strickland and Evan Longoria, all for significant amounts of time in-season never allowed them to really come together as a full unit. When they would start to get momentum and start getting guys back from injury, someone else would go down. The biggest losses, obviously...

The Giants have essentially been floating around the .500 mark for much of the last month, getting as many as 6 games above at one point but consistently staying above it for much of the last few weeks. Add that to the fact they're 4 games back of the first place Dodgers in the NL West and 5 games back in the Wild Card race and it's really giving the Giants' brass a lot to mull over between now and the July 31st non-waiver trade deadline, now just a few short weeks away. Now, I know Giants fans would like to hear that the Giants are going to be active and be buyers at the deadline, swooping up a power hitting left fielder they've needed since Pence, Mac Williamson and everyone else they've put out there this year have collectively provided the league's worst production. Couple that with the fact that they haven't gotten top-end production from center or right field either and you can obviously see where the Giants primary focus will be if they are indeed ...

We talked a lot a couple weeks back when Evan Longoria went down, Jeff Samardzija rejoined the DL, then Brandon Belt hit the the shelf that the Giants would need more and more players to continue to step up and keep them afloat It seems like the theme of the season for the club has been a game of musical chairs of the Disabled list variety. Just as one guy comes off the DL, it seems like another one takes his place almost immediately. After getting Mark Melancon back earlier in the month, closer Hunter Strickland promptly broke his throwing hand by punching a clubhouse wall in anger after blowing a save, taking away one of the teams most potent bullpen arm until at least sometime in August and that's really how it's been going all season long. Madison Bumgarner missed 2 months, Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija each have missed about the same amount of time and still have yet to return for good. We then started to see the positional players go down as Brandon Belt missed 3 w...

The Giants have played over 1/3 of their season now without Madison Bumgarner as well as Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija for most part. They've also been without projected closer Mark Melancon and have gotten very little production out of the outfield trio they trotted out on opening day. Not to mention, Buster Posey hasn't come close to providing the run production the Giants are accustomed to from their all-star catcher. Now after taking all that into consideration, and without looking at the standings, you'd probably assume the team would be one of the worst in baseball. However, that hasn't quite been the case, and the team has found a way to keep themselves in the mix and right around .500 despite all the hurdles they've had to overcome so far. After Wednesday's victory over the D-Backs in San Francisco, the Giants improved their record to 31-31 and are just 1.5 games out of first place in a deep NL West. The Giants are technically in 4th place, howeve...

Right as the Giants finally looked to have found a nice groove for the first time this season, they all of the sudden got hammered with some more bad injury news prior to Saturday's first game of a double-header vs. the Dodgers. Before we get into the new injury news, the silver lining, I suppose, is that the Giants got both Shark and Cueto back quicker than expected. On another positive note, the big guy every one's waiting on to make his 2018 debut, ace Madison Bumgarner, had the pins removed from his surgically repaired left hand, and while it's obviously still to early to tell an exact date for his return, the Giants are hopeful it will be right around his May 28th eligibility date. Now, that could be a little optimistic as that's exactly one month from today and the big lefty hasn't begin to throw a ball yet. Even with Shark back and Cueto looking as strong as ever, unfortunately it's not all roses and sunshine on the Giants' injury front. Outfi...

The bad news for the Giants since their quick 2-0 start in LA is that they've gone just 3-6 over their last nine. On a positive note, the losses haven't been bad at all, and most of them have been 1-run ballgames. I mean had they come up with a couple of clutch hits in certain situations that were very doable, they could just as easily be looking at 7-4 instead of 5-6 as they heading down into San Diego for a four-game stretch. The most impressive game they've played all season thus far, at least in my opinion, was not their huge offensive output in game two of the Mariners' series. It was that 14-inning victory over LA on Saturday night after not playing the previous two nights. We all saw Andrew McCutchen's game winning home run in the best pitcher/batter battle I've seen in 2018, and I really thought that would get them jump-started but they've gone just 1-3 since that game and have scored only 9 runs in their last 4 games games combined. You can't ...