2021 'BEST TEAM' IN BASEBALL, Part 1 - REAL or MEMOREX?

 2021 'BEST TEAM' IN BASEBALL, Part 1 - REAL or MEMOREX?

ANTHONY DESCLAFANI

DeScalfani had his best year ever in 2021 after coming to the Giants, reduing his ERA almost a full point  (or 25% improvement ) over the previous full season , at Cincinatti, and over  his career average (4.06).  Now 31, the journeyman pitcher went from becoming a good pitcher to becoming an excellent second man in the starting rotation with the Giants. 

KEVIN GAUSMAN

Gausman did DeScalfani even one  better.  He dropped his ERA 1.20, from 4.03 to 2.81 this year with his new team, the Giants, after his move from Cincinatti, which was good enough to make him the ace of the Giants pitching staff! Quite a feat for a guy in his mid-30s . With Gausman, DeScalfani, AlexWood  and Webb, the only holdover starter from last year, Johnny Cueto, could barely make the starting rotation now. Imagine an entire new,top performing starting core in one year made up of mostly players not even on the team last year.! 

WELCOME TO SAN FRANCISCO, WHERE YOU CAN LEGALLY SHOPLIFT UP TO $980 AND NOT WORRY ABOUT ANYTHING HAPPENING TO YOU

Nobody gave the Giants a chance. Everyone thought they would fold - and for good reason.

But, they haven't. In fact, the Giants have their best record, 107 wins, not only since coming to San Francisco but all time! Not just since 1904 but these Giants are the best of all time ! Wow! Great? Resilient? Or something else?

You wonder 'How can a team devoid of any here-to-fore real star power but with a lot of journeyman players past their primes, if they even had a 'prime' - accomplish such a feat until now, late in their careers. (Sounds a little reminiscent of names like Huff, Burrel, Renteria, Ross, Scutaro, etc).   It seems not so strangely similar to  how the 2010-2014 Giants teams won there first (three) world series in 56 years.  

We know for fact the 2010, 2012 and 2014 World Series winning Giants had seven known PED users on the team (five of whom who had been indicted during or prior to coming to the Giants) - and there were likely more who never got caught. 

Remember, this was the team and era that spawned Barry Bonds, he of the 'cream and the clear' - or what he wrote off as 'flaxseed oil.' It was only three years since Bonds was effectively forced into 'early' retirement - though he was a still productive 42 year old player- following the Mitchell Report on steroid / PED use. Despite appearing nearly twice the physical size before coming to the Giants from Pittsburg where he was a very good player, his unworldly exploits since coming to the Giants at age 30 in 1997 included breaking single season (73) and career homerun records. Yet, Bonds was never convicted of anything in liberal San Francisco other than a single perjury charge for denying the use of steroids which was later overturned in similarly liberal 9th District San Francisco courts.

This year you only had one KNOWN PED player, Logan Webb, having been indicted in his rookie year of 2019, but he's been the 'best' player for the Giants for the latter half of this season. You ask how do players like Webb and Bonds come back to perform so well AFTER PEDs. Well, who says 'after'? Especially in San Francisco, where the science of PEDs was well honed in the labs of Victor Conte and BALCO, you have to be 'dumb or dumber' to get caught using PEDs - especially a second time- according to Conte. And, if one DOES get caught in San Francisco, it doesn't seem to matter like it might in other parts of the country. Bonds has maintained hero status in San Francisco, after being shunned by baseball fans elsewhere. People have become so blase' in San Francisco, there was hardly a mention by media or fan alike when a new Giant indicted PED player, pitcher Gregory Santos, was announced by MLB last month. And, this, supposedly after the steroid era was over.

San Francisco stores like Target and remaining Walgreens are closing

early, at 6 pm, so they'll still have some merchandise on 

their shelves the next day, 19 Walgreens have already ceased operation

Some now call San Francisco the city where 'anything goes,.' especially

clothes right off the shelves, like this guy on bike shows you.

San Francisco is where stores like Target and Walgreens now close early, at 6 pm, so they'll still have some non-pilfered items on the shelves the next day. It's the same city where the mayor, London Breed, can go out dancing without a mask after mandating everyone else to wear one. Or, the leader of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, can get her hair done without donning a mask, even before or after the cameras caught her at a supposedly 'locked down' salon. This was the same Pelosi who invited everyone to come to San Francisco to shop in Chinatown during the early days of the Pandemic not long after the Wuhan lab of China was caught leaking what they said was a 'bat virus' and allowed their own citizens to travel abroad to places like San Francisco but not within China. Not to say that 'Do what I say, not as I Do' hasn't spread to other cities - it's just that San Francisco seems to be in the forefront, and do it best, and do it more often.

Getting back to this year' edition of 'Make Believe Giants' , you have player after player having 'career' years and younger players outperforming their minor league record. (as below) PEDs may have slowed a bit while baseball took on other forms of cheating - and we say baseball because baseball never really clamped down on cheating while looking for anything to boost the game. We never saw more than a handful , or two, of players actually caught and suspended during any year , except when caught by serendipity like the Biogenesis scandal in Florida or others like the MItchell Report that found a collection. Biogenesis Lab scandal in Florida netted a bunch that baseball never could catch. In recent years we've even seen other forms of cheating such as technological sign stealing that probably gave Houston Astros a World Series win and more and helped Boston and others. More recently there's been the 'foreign substance' scandal with pitchers dominating the sport ; baseball thought they would solve the problem by requiring pitchers show their gloves between innings ; we've seen all of one or two players suspended with substance in their gloves.

Players have always been and remain ahead of baseball and there may be even more cheating than ever, today. Between various newer forms of getting advantage. Yet, it seems little has come in punitive action from the Commissioner's office. Between the various newer methods of cheating and the old tried and true ones back there may be as much or more than the 'upwards of 50%' of players Victor Conte told us were using PEDs. Yet few and fewer of them are being caught and dealt with , it would appear. Rarely, other than the Mitchell Report, have we seen any big name players apprehended. It's always the 'no names' and even if someone like a Alex Rodriquez or Melky Cabrera is caught they now seem to be like teflon and bounce right back and continue their careers, many performing as well or even better - no doubt on something bigger and better , and more disguised , than before.

Meanwhile, many have become used to new baseball with all its enhancements and changes. Younger fans have known nothing else. And, it seems to be the same teams, usually in more liberal cities like San Francisco, Oakland, Boston and even Houston. Of the 15 players who have been suspended for PEDs since 2019, 11 of the 15 have come from those four teams - all with two or more players having been caught. And you know what they say... For every player caught there are problems at leasts several more who aren't. With out going into specifics, most of those caught were only caught because they chose to use older, more detectable forms of PEDs.

WHO ARE THESE 2021 GIANTS, ANYWAY? Let's Look at Some and Their Unlikely Feats

- Lamont Wade Jr -Who he? From out of nowhere…
He never hit more than 11 homers in a full season (majors or minors,) and has 18 w Giants playing part time with about one in  every 16 at Bats , only 331 at bats ( Babe Ruth -like numbers) . At this rate he'd have 40-60 homers if playing a full season

De ja vu all over again? Is 2021 2014 upside down? Remember?...

–Thairo Estrada  raised his average almost 25 points, from .250 to .273 since coming from the           New York Yankees to the Giants .  And, though a small sample size, Estrada , like Wade Jr. hit       homers at a Ruthian pace, 7 in 121 at bats or approximately 1 in every 16 at bats. No wonder the Giants hit more homeruns than other teams with players like this - and this only a year after the Giants hit among the fewest homeruns in baseball. And, Estrada's OPS was 200 points higher than his two year average with Yankees!

–Logan Webb– a known commodity having been suspended already. And Logan Webb with his outrageous sliders you may remember was already a member of the ‘dumb and dumber' having served a PED suspension as a first year Giant. No doubt he’s since gotten some tips from the Big Boys how not to get caught so he can once again throw those near unhittable pitches.

Logan Webb - If the PEDs helped him in 2019, something REALLY helped him this year as he lowered his ERA over two full points in one full season. from 5.47 to 2.93 while striking out more than a batter per inning.

The Giants added Webb to their 40-man roster after the season.^[10] He began 2019 with Richmond. ^[11] On May 1, 2019, Webb was suspended 80 games for testing positive for dehydrochlormethyltestosterone, an anabolic-androgenic steroid.^[12][1]

 Darren Ruf - from .796  to .930 OPS while raising his average 20 points at advanced baseball age (35)

As you can see above, Ruf has been all over the place - your prototypic journeyman with years and years in the minors, and Japan. He once hit 14 homers for the Phillies back in 2013, but, like the Brandons, he's found some new new energy - enough to hit his best-ever major league total of 16, and in in just 258 at bats. Yes, we're talking Babe Ruth again -or maybe  we should  be saying Barry Bonds-like power. Wow, another one! But wait, there are more....

–  BRANDONS Crawford and Belt -same old story but moreso-
Just keep getting higher numbers as they get older, ala Barry Bonds at advanced ages-with telltale injuries (e.g. obliques) along the way. Even with all their injuries and missed games, they're hitting homers at a higher rate than ever. Usually when homers are up , batting averages are down, but not this year with the Brandons. Even with the Giants moving the fences in a bit, We're talking better than double the homers for both and a better than 20% rise in battering average - seven years later! :

BRANDON CRAWFORD:  If someone asked you in 2014 what Brandon Crawford would be hitting in 2021 you'd probably laugh because you 'd figure he would be retired after another sub-.250 season, despite his team winning the world series.  He wouldn't still be making those plays seven years later, would he?- and that average wouldn't be above .200, would it?  What team would even want him at those prices? Well, here it is, 2021 and Crawford, 34, is having his best year by far,  with 24 homers and flirting with .300, up nearly 70 points  and more than double the homeruns from his last full season of 2019. The amazing thing is that it's not just an isolated player   but the two remaining World Series   holdovers (other than Buster Posey) the Giants COULDN'T EVEN TRADE back then now having a Buster Posey-like year, maybe better than Posey and three years older! Let's take a look at the other Brandon...Belt....

BRANDON BELT

Brandon Belt - Like Crawford, despite missing a good chunk of the season, Belt is having his best season, by far, with a whopping 29 homers (in just 380 at bats) and .274 average - at age 34! Unheard of! Even during the World Series years, Belt never hit more than 17 homers - and in many more at bats 

That's but a sampling of mostly crop of Giants 2021 hitters and what you may see in the 2021 World Series from the National League. Wouldn't it be interesting to see the Houston Astros face the San Francisco Giants?  Next time we'll feature more pitchers like former no-names as  Gausman and DeStafani, Doval and That would really rank up there for AI, or something like that. See chapter 2 to follow soon

Jose Alvarez, yet  another 'oldie' newcomer at 32, has become a 'goodie' for the Giants , rivaling his best year with a 2. 37 ERA&

Its hard to find  a Giant on his year's roster who hasn't improved over their past records- and yet most at advanced ages or at least stayed about the same like 

Yastremski and Dickerson, who had their breakout, career years last year with the Giants.

Camilo Duvol far outdid his minor career, too during his short stint with Giants. He sports a 3.00 ERA and 37 strikeouts on only 27 innings! 

But DOMINIC LEONE was even better .

He might not have had the strikeout 

Ratio -a mere strikeout per inning, 

 but he more than halved his career ERA! 

SUMMARY

We're  just reporting the facts, as shown in above statistics. Let the numbers speak for themselves in showing why the San Francisco Giants are still the top team. Though we've honed in on the Giants , there are certainly other teams that have a number of players over-performing but with the Giants it's almost everyone of them with players who, based on historic age-related success, shouldn't be performing nearly as well as they are. You could call it a 'fluke' if it were one player, but it's many. In fact, it's hard to find any players who haven't out-performed the previous full season and/or their career numbers. 

If it's not the shorter fences, alone, Could it be that the Giants just have a really good coaching staff now?  Well, that's possible, even though pitching coach  Andrew Bailey and others are in their first seasons ever coaching at the big league level and usually need some seasoning. But, we feel it's largely something else.

  There would be just too many coincidences and past history to determine otherwise. You've seen the numbers. Keep in mind that the Giants are among the top four teams with the most PED-indicted players since 2019 and we know of at least one player, Garrett Brohius, then a 27-year-old Giant farmhand at Salt Lake City some years back who told his story of how  Giants scouting had encouraged him to use  PEDs to help his flagging career. When GM Farhan Zaidi come to the Giants he spoke of rebuilding a team of young, talented players based on analytics. That didn't seem to work, what with Giants' last four years of sub-.500 ball. Now the Giants have the OLDEST team in baseball. So, perhaps it was play B that seemed to bring the Giants success ala 2010-2014 by inexpensively acquiring former PED players, 'black market' or 'renegade'  players other teams didnt want who were willing to do most anything to jumpstart  flagging careers ala the seven KNOWN PED players who were largely responsible for putting the Giants 'over the top' in 2010, 2012 and 2014 with their first (3) World Series victories in 56 years. Call it desperation. 

Call it what you will.  Put it all together, with some more reference articles, below, and YOU help determine  how a Giants team of  mostly journeymen players / rejects could suddenly lead the league in homers and most victories in baseball.  RESILIENT? Or, something else. 

Jose Alvarez, yet  another 'oldie' newcomer at 32, has become a 'goodie' for the Giants , rivaling his best year with a 2. 37 ERA&

Its hard to find  a Giant on his year's roster who hasn't improved over their past records- and yet most at advanced ages or at least stayed about the same like 

Yastremski and Dickerson, who had their breakout, career years last year with the Giants.

Camilo Duvol far outdid his minor career, too during his short stint with Giants. He sports a 3.00 ERA and 37 strikeouts on only 27 innings! 

But DOMINIC LEONE was even better. 

He might not have had the strikeout 

Ratio -a mere strikeout per inning, 

 but he more than halved his career ERA! 

MLB and PEDs

While MLB may cite the minuscule proportion of failed drug tests as evidence of its drug policy’s success, critics of the testing regime believe the continued use of both conventional and “designer” drugs by players only serves to prove that many players remain able to stay one step ahead of detection, even in the “post-steroid era.”

Tom Verducci quoted a former major leaguer in a column for Sports Illustrated last year as saying, “I think we are back up to large-scale use again,” adding that without the “nuclear option” of a lifetime ban for a first offense, “it still seems to be worth the risk.” >

https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/31/us/balco-fast-facts/index.html

More References

How Many Baseball Players Are On Peds Today?https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=567020051169192&id=100044294208489

https://www.insidehook.com/article/sports/baseball-mlb-ped-steroid-problem

:

Plenty of ways to get away with PEDs that aren't easily detectable,

like those that Lance Armstrong used and many ballplayers who don't seem to have a Problem staying ahead of the testing curve (the MLB players union is so strong t he players seem to always be ahead of the owners And are currently challenging one popular drug ,DHCMT, that is said to stay for months or years in ones system but may be more dstectable, AND resulted in at least one recent 80 game suspension.

Feature:
Baseball Players Are Testing Positive for a 50-Year-Old East German Steroid. They Can’t Explain  DHCMT

The players’ association has proposed to MLB that a player’s urine sample should register with at least 100 picograms per milliliter of DHCMT before the test counts as a positive

Tony Clark, head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, shook hands with Chris Colabello before an exhibition game in a 2018 photo, not included here.
 

By
 
Jared Diamond

>>>

https://www.wsj.com/articles/baseball-players-are-testing-positive-for-a-50-year-old-east-german-steroid-they-cant-explain-why-11597845610

⁶

2019 SF Giants Still in the Shadows - On Dickerson, Yastrzemski, Solano

 

  

2019 Giants Still in the Shadows 

       The Giants are at it again. Seems like the All Star break is their key time to either go on a spurt or fold it in. This year-not even an ‘even’ year- the ‘Jints’ must have decided it’s finally time to give Mgr. Bruce that big send-off instead of playing like one of the worst teams in baseball for the third year in a row.   The Giants have called upon their remaining 'core' players  from their World  Series run (2010-2014) to summon up and act on their old mantra, ‘When the going gets tough, The Giants go to the Juice,’ or so it would seem based on empirical evidence over the past two decades since a guy named Barry Lamar Bonds got it all started in the town that gave us BALCO,  PEDs, Victor Conte and more KNOWN ‘users’ than any team during that time period.

ALEX DICKERSON

Babe Ruth Redux

Following the 2019 All Star break, like magic, all of a sudden the Jints started performing back to their early 2016 pace, when they had the best record in the league (the Giants in late June and July have won an incredible 90% of their games with approximately the same people they were losing over 200 games with over the past two and a half seasons – a period during which they had given Bochy an overall losing record in his 13 years as manager (nobody talks about it but he had more losses than wins with the Giants until this latest, unlikely, crazy streak.)  

  

So, the team that had to resort to 'no name' outfielders (Conor Joe?) who had never played a game in the majors to open the season, have run thru a myriad of players in trying to fill those spots, until finally settling on, not a big trade name, but, as in the World Series years, players with no productive history, other than, perhaps , having a famous last name . No, it hasn’t been the core guys Posey, Crawford, Belt and Panic but, rather, mid-career outcasts named Dickerson, Donovan, and Yaztrzemski who have come on to do most of the offensive ‘damage ‘ that saw the giants win 25 of their last 30 games. (Then, there are the young pitchers suddenly pitching above their heads that we can discuss in a future update.)  Yes, once again, you go through enough bodies and you find one or two, or three, who stick to the wall. That's your San Francisco Giants , circa late July, 2019. Shades of 2010 - 2016.

Mike Yaztrzemski

Trying To Live Up To A Name

Most teams will make trades for known entities. The Giants, not known as great traders despite their bloated payroll, will pick up whomever they can – often at the expense of their own minor league prospects, thrown under the bus again and again until they finally get traded and often succeeding with another team . Not only that, the Giants will keep around a guy like ‘Panda’ Sandoval that no other team wanted but somehow thrives with the Giants, and, perhaps, plays an even bigger role in the back room shenanigans. (Sandoval was instrumental in the Giants acquiring old buddies Parra and Co. to begin the season-even though they were among the many who went through the recycle door. (Who's REALLY running this team, anyway?)  

Sandoval was and is probably the most recent main artery to the Balco heyday/Bonds era. Though he was never indicted for PED use, he’s put up some interesting numbers, like hitting three homers in one post season game against a top flight pitcher after hitting only 12 during the entire regular 162-game season; like hitting 50 points above his season average during the post season in both 2010 and 2012 -close to .350 with half as many homers as during the entire 162 game schedule. His one self-described ‘friend’ on the team, at the time, Hunter Pence , was the only other Giant to put up similar, surprising .300 + numbers. Interesting. Bonds called it 'chemistry,' an interesting choice of words. (But Sandoval or Pence didn’t even show up in baseball’s lax drug testing, for which Conte estimates up to 50% were/are users- with the highest propensity being with the Giants, who had seven KNOWN users during their three World Series years. But less than a dozen players were indicted for PEDs in the entire league during any one year. 2019 has seen only four.

Donovan Solano

One Last Shot At The Ring

Late-Twenties/Early-Thirties, Down on their Luck, Doing Whatever It Takes  

   

So this year, new GM Farhan Zaidi has followed closely in Sabeans footsteps - don't think Sabean is still around for nothing- bringing in anyone and everyone, finally with with Dickerson, 29, Yaztremski , 27, and Solano, 31 sticking- players perhaps on their last gasps who would do literally anything for that last chance at the gold. (Shades of aging Giant farmhand Garret Brohius (sp) at Salt Late in the early 2000s, who admitted to a reporter that a Giants coach encouraged him to seek outside remedies to help him ‘survive.’ Brohius elected not to cheat while recounting his short Giants career to Salt Lake City press following his retirement.  

Today, when many –other than perhaps Bob Nightingale in his recent column – believe or pretend that drugs are all but eliminated from the game today despite the record number of homers being hit, we find yet another Giant, top pitching prospect Logan Web indicted this past May. Only four major leaguers have been indicted for PEDs this year, and not surprising, the Giants have one of them.  

In 2014 it was Scutaro, in 2010 it was Ross, among others, coming to the Giants for that second half push while in the twilight of their careers, only to perform way over their heads. Others like Andres Torres, Aubrey Huff and Pat Burrell came earlier in the years -‘no name’ Torres had a career year in 2010- at age 36 or 37- only to go into a steroid (Adderall) crash, much like Huff did in 2012 and who would document it in his book, BASEBALL JUNKIE. Even if Adderall was technically legal its still performance enhancing drugs with some- er, many(?)- player(s) using it for the wrong reasons. We don’t need to go into ‘Milkman’ Melkie Cabrera and his short-lived, PED-infused first half of 2012 that catapulted the Giants into the 2012 series with enough wins to coast all the way- the one year the Giants made it without a wild card. That’s Cabrera, best buddy to fellow-countrymen Sandoval, Scuturo, Gregor Blanco and other Venezuelans.  

So , this year we have Dickerson suddenly hitting 100 points over his career average in a growing sample of nearly 100 at bats, with Solano and Yaztrzemski not far behind (See their STATS in these pages. And Dickerson and Yastrzemski are hitting homers at Ruthian paces despite playing in the Giants huge park that normally is said to deter power hitters from signing with the team. So, the Giants culture and pattern seems to repeat itself, though you won’t see stories like this in the local papers. Afterall, the Giants hire their radio announcers and have close ties to the local newspaper and its writers. This stuff has been going on now over 20 years with the Giants having had over 25 KNOWN PED users since Bonds – by far more than any other team. And now they’re at it again- even after team President(?) Larry Baer told us in 2014 that the team would ‘shy away’ from getting an even worse reputation by hiring any more PED players. Nobody could figure the streaky Giants and why they suddenly stopped hitting midway through 2016. Now it’s 2019 and the pressure is on for the team to serve its large, cranky, season ticket-holding base to which the team refused to utter the word ‘rebuild’ despite giving mixed messages with a revolving door of players. So, it looks to us like Déjà vu all over as they pick up where they left off in 2016 midseason with still many of the World Series core players – but more importantly those intangible, ‘no name’ newcomers (wall stickers?). THE NAMES MAY CHANGE but it’s the same MODUS OPERANDI in America’s most liberal city where the fans could give a hang if players like Bonds are KNOWN cheaters. (Only in San Francisco, where Bonds, Sandoval and others could remain heroes-baggage and all).  

Stay tuned to these pages for the next chapter(s)

How the San Francisco Giants REALLY Won Their First 3 World Series in 56 Years -MORE GIANT SHADOWS Ebook Sale

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Honoring the Great Bob Uecker, A Better Broadcaster and Funnyman than Baseball Player

Honoring the Great Bob Uecker, A Better Broadcaster and Funnyman than Baseball Player


On the ocassion  his 81st birthday we look backto 1993 and Bob Uecker's induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame,not as a player - he had but a .200 lifetime average- but as a broadcaster for the Milwaukee Braves.

Giants Will Pay 'Mediocre' Samardzija Half MIllion Per Start, Little Upside in Cueto Deal

Jeff Samardzija 30 year old on downside
of career

Johnny Cueto will make more than half million per start
after lackluster season

HOW THE GIANTS 'PULLED OFF'  CUETO AND SAMARDZIJA TRADES

By some measures, Jeff Samardzija is a mediocre baseball player. Since he became a full-time starting pitcher, in 2012, his ERA ranks 63rd of the 90 men who have thrown at least 500 innings. Last year, as he approached free agency, he allowed more hits and runs than any pitcher in the game. His career record: 47 wins, 61 losses. This year he will make more than the best   talent in the NFL; namely, running-back Calvin Johnson, who will have collected $113 million in his first six years in the NFL, making him one of of the wealthiest non-quarterbacks in league history.  Samardzija, by virtue of the five-year contract he just signed with the San Francisco Giants, is guaranteed to have earnings of $122,725,000. The Cueto signing may be even worse, with no apparent upside, as noted below. Assuming  both stay healthy the Giants will be paying out a cool combined MILLION DOLLARS PER START for the two pitchers

SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS FANS GO 'GAGA' OVER RARE GIANTS FREE AGENT SIGNINGS - BUT ARE CUEDO AND SAMRDZIJA REALLY WORTH IT?

In San Francisco, delighted Giants fans and pundits are asking (in a postive way) 'How did the #SFGiants pull off the deal that brought big name pitchers Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardja to the team suddenly within a week of each other when it looked like the Giants were going to go bust again in the free agent market.'

Well, it turns out that other teams didn't want to pay Smardja anything close to the big bucks for Samardija w, who is just that, a 'big name' only , living off one good  year of 2014 , but only  a 11-win 4.50 ERA pitcher last year. Nor, did other teams want to pay Cuedo  $130 million for six-years for an even worse 11 win 4.76 ERA last year - and maybe the worst part of the deal a two-year opt-out clause . It's the first time a team has ever signed two pitchers for more than $90 million each as we understand.

'MORE GIANT SHADOWS'  Hidden Story Behind SF Giants first World Series in 56 Years SALE TODAY buff.ly/29zgm04 New  'MIND-BLOWING' fascinating,5 STARs' ‪#‎ebook‬

 At least the  A's got Smardja cheap. With Cuedo there is really no upside for the Giants: 1) If Cuedo performs well in those two years he could be gone or demand a lot more money and 2) if he does poorly, the Giants are stuck with him another four years at $20 million per year.  

How quickly the Giants forget about their decision not to go after more long-term signings after Barry Zito, who ended up sitting on the bench most of his last four years collecting his millions from a similar long-term signing. The parallels are amazing between Zito and Cueto. Both pitchers were about the same age when signed by the Giants, coming to them with  good track records but not so much   histories as they approach late-career status..  It would be very surprising if Cueto had more than two good years left in the tank. Yes, if Cueto could somehow return to form and help put the Giants in the World Series again, it wouldn't make it necessarily a good deal but could  help diminish the downside of   eventual eroding production during the last four years.  With Samardja, maybe the Giants are also on the hook for all those years; it's doubtful you'll see five good years out of the 30-year-old Samardja, who already appears in his decline. And, we haven't even discussed paying these guys through injuries - a more likely occurrence with older players. 

Giants announcer Duane Kuiper was interesting, complimenting the Giants (of course)   not on the quality of the pitchers but their 'loud' personalities that will 'energize' the mostly -quiet existing clubhouse of 'quiet' players including Posey,Crawford, Duffy, Panik, etc.

The Oakland A's - say what you will about Billy Beane and company - have been pulling off what appear to be multiple bargain deals in recent months.  So now you know how the Giants, never known for great trades, acquired Cueto and Samardja, probably far more than Beane would have ever paid. For there to be a possible  upside, Cueto would have to return to form and a major contributor to another Giants World Series or two in 2016 or 2017 and then continue to do well with the Giants , or another team, for years after, however odds-makers would find this occurrence as  very unlikely.

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Giants Don't Need Trade - Names Don't Matter - Lightning In Bottle Gets Job Done #Deals #Health

 Giants Unlikely Transformations Exposed - Only 6 Months in Majors Duffy, Panik, Heston Lead Giants  

  1)   HOW DOES A GUY WHO NEVER HIT A HOMERUN OR ABOVE .266  IN COLLEGE HIT 9 AND OVER .300 IN THE MAJORS  

MATT DUFFY - HOW DOES A GUY WHO NEVER HIT A HOMERUN OR ABOVE .266 IN COLLEGE HIT 9 AND OVER .300 IN THE MAJORS?

 

Even in college, at Long Beach State, MATT DUFFY's  power numbers were low-- non-existent to be exact. Once in the Giants farm system, Duffy must have started lifting weights or used 'other means.' We don't think Duffy is a big weight lifter at 6 ' 2" and 170- and even weight lifting only does so much to help with power numbers.  We know from former Giants farmhand Garrett Brohius that at least one Giants minor league coach encouraged him to use  'other means'  , if you will, and that is the only explanation we can see for Duffy's sudden and greatly increasing power - well  over a 100% increase in homers this year based on career at- bats (as well as  with average)  as he climbs through the  Giants system where he now has a higher SLG (slugging percentage) any time in his career, including minors and college, while maintaining a batting average over his minor league average.  

A's Have More Wins But Giants Have 3 World Series

 

 2)
  

 JOE PANIK - HOW DID A .257 DOUBLE A HITTER IN 2013 BECOME A WORLD SERIES STAR IN 2014 AND ALL STAR IN 2015?

Like Duffy, 2014 was the key year JOE PANIK just as the parent San Francisco Giants would doing anything for a decent second baseman after going through six (including .166 hitting Dan Uggla).  Panik was so raw and 'unlikely' the Giants hadn't even considered him but when Uggla couldn't BUY a single hit during his short stay  the Giants, in total desperation, called up Panik, only in his first year at AAA.   As if God had called from above, 'Panik Will Hit like Duffy'  young Joe inexplicably  raised his average going from Double A (AA) to Triple A (AAA) ball - but in his case it was almost a 70 point increase (from .257 to .332) - shades of when Marco Scutaro came from Colorado to the Giants in 2012, raising his average from .262 to .350 the second half of the season.  At least with the 37-year-old Scutaro, he was going from one major league team to another. Panik was somehow able to increase his average significantly going from the low minors to the high minor leagues when, if anything, it should be the other way around;  it's normal for a player to drop somewhat in average at each successive level. But not Duffy or Panik.


PANIK VS DUFFY - Best Ever Slugging for Skinny Third Baseman, Sandoval Way Behind   It's a fact that there's been a  challenge between Panik and Duffy  to 'out-homer' each other. You'd think these guys were goofing around in the minors. But here, they are in the majors, you have these neophytes in their first full seasons, after undistinguished minor league careers , challenging  team leader Buster Posey in batting average - AND  home runs with Duffy only a few behind the team leader  and rivaling second baseman Brandon Crawford  - who also, inexplicably, is having his best homer season of his career with 11 .   Meanwhile, while Duffy is just getting used to his relatively new third base position, he's somehow managed to have his BEST -EVER SLUGGING percentage  (total bases/at bats) of .466. By comparison, Posey's slugging percentage is only 35 poings higher!




DUFFY vs. SANDOVAL Remember Pablo Sandoval, the $20 million dollar man  who Duffy replaced?  It's not even close with with Duffy slugging 100 points higher with more homerruns and hitting 50 points higher!  Three months ago if someone told you a skinny 23-year-old banjo-hitter  named Duffy would be out -hitting Sandoval in all categories you would have laughed. Not to mention the price differential. All we can do is say that there's something wrong with this picture. And we thought Sandoval was an UNREAL  hitter- at least the way hit hit the ball LEFT-handed. If you figure Duffy's power and along with batting average, he's never had a better season than he's currently having, even if you go all the way back to low minors, and of course college, where he didn't do much.   With Duffy there wasn't the dramatic one-year batting increase as with Panik.  It appears that Panik was already 'asserting his power' which will usually lead to a drop in batting average.PANIK   Then, there's one more 'miracle.' When it comes to Pitching...   TO BE CONTINUED...  

 

 - From 267th Round Draft Choice to No Hitter- THE CHRIS HESTON STORY

3)
CHRIS HESTON

 

Chris Heston was a 12th round pick by the Giants and 367th overall, never had a no hitter at any level until this year with the Giants. He had a 5.80 ERA in 2013 at Fresno and was put on waivers by Giants but no team claimed him. 

As with Duffy and Panik, Heston had  below-average numbers but also began a sudden and major transformation in  2014 while in minors with Fresno, which only continued to get better after he joined the major leagues Giants and  began to  pitch regularly as what came to be the No. 2 starter on the team in 2015!  Pretty good one-year make-over for a 367th round draft pick going  all the way to No 2 starter on the World Champion Giants.


      ****   Yes, other teams and their players other than the Giants have and are still likely still using PEDs - despite what the top baseball brass might tell you - but the Giants with Barry Bonds were the ones who really opened the PED flood gates and have long been leading the way (24 PED indicted players since Bonds and six in the past three World Series years).  Despite that no players have been caught for PEDs this year -other than the first week when three were caught with the same older type of PED-  Major League Baseball  drug testing still does not appear to have kept up with players and their latest designer steroids, as PED guru Victor Conte has described to us on multiple occasions. We saw 20 players caught for PEDs in 2013- thanks to the Biogenesis leak - that MLB COULD NOT  find through its own testing.  Based on this and some still unlikely power numbers , batting averages and  ERAs among certain players today, it would appear that PEDs may likely have affected participating teams and performances in recent World Series - and continue to be affecting baseball adversely today, in our opinion.

'MORE GIANT SHADOWS'  Hidden Story Behind SF Giants first World Series in 56 Years SALE TODAY buff.ly/29zgm04 New  'MIND-BLOWING' fascinating,5 STARs' ‪#‎ebook‬

The Giants have won three World Series in five years with basically two name players (Bumgarner and Posey) and three virtually different teams, except for those two and a few others. They've won by , mysteriously(?) , coming on strong every post season and not striking out and, basically, over-performing not once but three years running, regardless of the changing cast of characters - players many of which the Giants picked up on waivers and couldn't have given away who, suddenly, inexplicably, come on in late career for career seasons, ie Andres TorrezMarco Scutaro, Cody Ross, Aubrey Huff, Pat Burrell - and of course known PED guys like Melky Cabrera, Jose Guillen and Michael Morse, which didn't hurt and provided many game-winning hits during their short stays with the Giants. 



While many have turned a blind eye to PEDs- especially in places like liberal San Francisco where 'anything goes' and certain media folks have admitted they don't care - baseball has suffered  in the ratings - especially World Series TV coverage as well as overall attendance that has dropped significantly the past five years. Maybe not coincidentally, this is the period during which the Giants have been winning their unlikely World Series.  Too bad younger fans  have had to grow up knowing nothing other than the PED era where one has to guess as to which players REALLY have talent as opposed to PED help. While a lot of players, current and past, are reticent to talk about the ongoing travesty of PEDs  (now over 20 years later) - except for Jose Conseco and Ken Camaniti, who have suffered for it- many people have  turned away from baseball.  PEDs is not a problem alone to baseball with other sports such as tennis also affected, where a lack of 'policing' also exists.  Basketball, in which is not so much dependent on musculature and power, has probably taken away some of baseball's fans with highest- ever numbers.   If MLB, its teams , the media and even the fans don't 'police' the sport of baseball better, it may continue to lose following. Many have grown tired of seeing low hit games without a competitive back and forth and overdependence on power pitching and stikeouts.

How Is It the A's Have the Better Record but Giants Have Three World Series?

 

Duffy, Panik, Heston - 'No Name' Giants Exposed - Detailing Unlikely Performance Increases

 

HOW GIANTS BEAT ALL ODDS TO WIN FIRST (2) WORLD SERIES IN 56 YEARS

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How Is It the A's Have the Better Record but Giants Have Three World Series?

  Much has been made of the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's going in different directions of late. This after both teams made the playoffs in recent years but only the Giants have made it to the World Series - and won all three. The fact of the matter is that the A's have actually had a significantly better record during this period of the last five years, as SF Chronicle writer John Shea noted in his July 26 column; in the last three years the A's are up on the Giants 278-258, a significant 20 game disparity.  san francisco giants, San Francisco Giants #PEDs, #Giants, Matt Duffy, Joe Panik, Chris Heston, PEDs, performance enhancing drugs



GIANTS UNLIKELY TRANSFORMATIONS EXPOSED


 On paper, the A's have had much better pitching - even this year the A's team ERA is 0.25 lower than the Giants and the A's hitting is respectable.  The A's make trades, the Giants rarely do, relying mostly on one of the weaker minor league systems to draw from - and an occasional unlikely waiver wire claim or roster move that, inexplicably, usually turns to gold (think  Cody Ross, Jake Peavy, Marco Scutaro, Aubrey Huff, Pat Burrell  ).    Yet the Giants seem to win at will - WHEN IT COUNTS and, even  playing in a n unfriendly ballpark for hitters, yet are LEADING THE LEAGUE in batting average  this year and continue to be up   near the top of the standings,  whereas the A's have had nothing to show for their overall record the past five years - and, now are taking a major nosedive, which , by the way, began before 'Trader' Billy Beane began his 'selloff.'



 

  From out of nowhere comes  'Duffman' -rrom zero homers in college to 9 this year with Giants, far out-performing  the guy he replaced, Pablo Sandoval, in both average and homeruns with virtually no major league experience (and no Triple A , for that matter)   



  Few teams with, frankly, as little talent have done so much. Usually, after winning a world series other teams are gunning for you, but the Giants keep winning , when necessary.  And, it doesn't seem to matter who the names are.  After Sandoval gets traded and the new highly-paid third baseman, Casey McGhee, fails the koolaid test, they bring up a kid  named DUFFY who   hit a mere .250 in college with no homeruns and never even played AAA yet  is currently out-hitting Sandoval (Boston) by far (over .307 to .258) , with more homeruns (9 to 7), and just about everyone else on the team  .   



 When the Giants were so desperate for a second baseman they finally brought up another average minor leaguer who, like Duffy, began performing better than he did in the minors, also with more homeruns. Then there are the Brandons, career .250 - .260 hitters, Belt and Crawford, both hitting better than ever - shortstop Crawford leading the team in homeruns with more than  Giants' slugger Posey- or Belt!  Go Figure.  

  When Aoki and Pence were out, it didn't matter. Journeyman Gregor ' We look up to Melky' Blanco was also  right there hitting .300 along with half the starting lineup.  Pitching-wise, the Giants have one legitimate starter in Madison Bumgarner, who even hasn't been that spectacular (3.16 ERA) outside of the post-season, during which he always manages to become superman, last year cutting his season ERA by 1,000 percent,  from 3.00 to 0.30, not unlike previous post-seasons.  



 The Giants are a team of streaks. They barely made the playoffs in 2010 and 2012  , but when they got in there, they totally shut down all comers , even making it look silly. Last year against Kansas City, the Giants rarely struck out, driving the Royals crazy at their own game by keeping the ball in play, forcing errors, etc. This, against a superior Royals pitching staff of starters and relievers. This from , again, a Giants team with  but  ONE  lifetime .300 hitter, Posey, and one sub- 4.00 ERA pitcher (Bumgarner).  



  It wouldn't all be so surprising if the   Giants had done it  with a nucleus of players coming back year after year, but it was with largely three different teams; only Buster Posey has been a regular starter on all three teams and Madison Bumgarner a regular pitcher, and a few relievers who have performed with mixed results, except when the chips are down.

Some call the Giants 'lucky.' We think there's something else probably going on.

To win one World Series with a mediocre team,  after a 56 year winless streak , is one thing, but to win three in five years when there are many teams with better records going up against them makes one have to look at other factors beyond luck. The Giants couldn't even win a World Series with Barry Bonds (with better teams*) and his penchant for the dramatic with the Giants. But, here, with a cast of changing   characters , the Giants have three World Series for which there is no good explanation - at least not one that local baseball writers will put into print .  




WILD CARD SHOULDN'T MAKE BIG DIFFERENCE

   Some say the Giants win because of the new Wild Card set-up. We say 'balderdash.'  A good team is a good team is a good team. In seven game  series almost always the best team wins. Five games series could be a little less so. But, it's highly unlikely that a team that hasn't even gotten over .580 could win it all three times in five years.  Three of the Bonds' teams of the early 2000s had better records  -and probably better teams (though we may need to get out a lot of asterisks-for both then and now  ) - than any of these Giants teams and could only pull off one entry into the World Series, , in 2002, which they lost. As for the Wild Card, they were using it then, too, but only one instead of two. We believe, that the Giants now, with 20 years of Bondsian history -and 24 PED-indicted players later - KNOW HOW to win at all costs.  In a league where drug testing still hasn't caught up with the players --just look at the Biogenesis episode where  20 players were caught only because of a fluke after Commissioner Selig claimed that baseball was clean --  it appears liberal San Francisco may still remain at the epicenter of a what we see as a problem that's gone on way too long.   Of course,  others including the new generations who know no other way than PED baseball, could care less how the team wins - including some of the long-time San Francisco media folks who have admitted as much.   



  GIANTS THROUGH THE YEARS   Compare the above Giants record to that of the A's below and one will find the A's have a better, more consistent track record.



 Still looking for ways to explain away the Giants' recent, sudden success, many attribute it largely to manager Bruce Bochy. (http://wheredidyougojoedimaggio.downloadebooks.me/san-francisco-giants-interesting-look-back-bruce-bochy-era-bochy-rated/)   The fact of the matter is that Bochy, who appears to be a very nice man,  was a below-.500 manager until these World Series. (Just look at the chart above.)  Bochy had losing seasons much of his 20 year managerial career, including the first three in San Francisco when he took over for Dusty Baker. It's not a surprise to us Bochy has never won a 'Manager of the Year' award as a Giants manager, just as General Manager Brian Sabean has never won an 'Executive of the Year' award; baseball writers outside of San Francisco may know better, or , at least, are more realistic.



   Why Bochy's  fortunes changed, we believe, has less to do with his putting in and removing relief pitchers.  It has more to do with the culture on the team in, in our opinion , which included six KNOWN PED-indicted  players during the three World Series years  . If it were the East Coast, more would have probably come out about the Giants, and the type of 'shady' (if you will) players Sabean would go after; it took 10 years before two brave San Francisco sports writers put an end to Bonds' fun and games  ('GAME OF SHADOWS') ;  local pundits  refrain to talk about a situation that may be as bad or worse today than the Bonds days. Balco head and PED 'guru' Victor Conte, based in San Francisco himself, who probably knows as much as anyone on the subject of performance enhancing drugs, may not be so far off base when he repeats the statement time and again  that 'as many as 50% of players' are using PEDs . Other teams, no doubt, are using them , too, only the Giants seem to have been in the forefront and may with Bonds coming in from time to time to instruct, may have gotten the use of PEDs 'down to a science ', and with numbers like we're seeing now and the past five years among Giants players one has to at least wonder how the Giants keep winning with so little - and, how they get away with it.  Again, in most any other city, they probably wouldn't. Now  that Bonds is   a totally free man after 10 years of making a mockery of baseball and long-cherished homerun traditions -thanks to a recent San Francisco Ninth Circuit Court overturning his purjury indictment - it only perpetuates the problem of PEDs in baseball and opens the door to the like  Hall of Fame inclusion now  of  PED-indicted players such as Bonds while encouraging  PED use to continue unchecked in baseball, in our opinion.  We sure haven't heard much on the subject from the new commissioner nor seen any recent PED indictments (and that's not to say that baseball is 'clean').  



    



 We know that six players, for sure, playing for the Giants on those World Series teams had used PEDs, namely Andres Torres , Guerillmo Mota and Jose Guillen in 2010,  Melky Cabrera  and  Mota (2012)  and Michael Morse (2014).  Torres, who admitted to using Adderall (which is legal in baseball with permission) , had a career year  in 2010 - his only great year, helping to propel the Giants to the Series. Cabrera was hitting close to .350 in 2012, enough to put the Giants way ahead in the standings before he was suspended for PEDs (his second time) mid-season; by then , the Giants could almost coast in , though they had help from Cabrera  protege'  Blanco and Scutaro, newly acquaired from Colorado, who would tack on .70 points to his average once with the Giants . In 2014 , it was Morse, who gave the Giants a big first-half boost with many homers and game-winning hits before injuries sidelined him.    



  We've seen with the Giants, a penchant to go after marginal, even 'shady' players other teams don't want. Some would have not only PED pasts, but questionable episodes while on the team, which were quickly and quietly covered up  by the Giants. (Remember Sandoval  and the rape allegations in Santa Cruz or Chad Gaudin and the alleged molestations of a young woman on a hospital gurney? Probably not. )  Time and again, such players come to San Francisco and suddenly perform well above their career averages - and this year is no exception.  Last year team president Larry Baer proclaimed  that the Giants would be more careful in acquiring PED-indicted players due to their past reputation (24 PED-indicted players since Bonds) , yet they still acquired Morse - and now we learn that they just signed well-known PED man Everth Cabrera to a minor league contract.           Then we've even heard from former Giant  Garrett Brohius, who even admitted that he was encouraged to 'cheat' as a struggling 27-year-old Giants farm hand, but decided to quit baseball rather than take the easy way.  With that in mind, we can't but wonder about a Chris Heston, who was also a struggling 27-year-old  minor leaguer in the Giants system who has suddenly become the second best starting pitcher on the team - the first if you go by ERA (3.14 as compared to Bumgarner's 3.16). This is the same Heston who was a 12th round draft choice by the Giants and 367th overall pick with a 5.80 ERA in the minors in 2013 before the Giants   let him go, before reacquiring him.  



  



  There are many other examples of players seemingly playing well above their heads, as it were. Ryan Vogelsong, to name one, has recently been pitching at velocity of 94-95 mph, which is as fast or faster than Bumgarner - this for a  38-year-old journeyman, who was pitching around 90-91 before.



   Some say PEDs don't really help or can't make a team win, but when you have enough players, on average , getting a 20-30% boost in bat speed and/or hand-eye coordination  it can't help but make a difference in a team winning more games. The hand-eye coordination also helps players make better contact with the ball and cut down on strikeouts. It also helps with fielding and pitching.  How else can you explain all these young players on the Giants suddenly coming  from nowhere, with no successful histories ,  to suddenly rank among the top players in the league?



   Designer PEDs can be in one's system and out the same day so players, who are warned well in advance of drug testing, can go on and off PEDs accordingly.



And, that may be exactly what the Giants players do.  From the many sudden surges, like recently, after the All Star break, when the Giants needed to make up ground, they certainly have, winning 12 of 13 games in spite of their 'one-man starting staff'' and other issues, this for a team that could barely win a game during the first weeks of July. And, it's not just because that Pence was back - as we said Blanco has been hitting .300.


     For one or two players to have career years is one thing, but for an entire team, again, one has to wonder... now three years and three World Series titles later...



         OAKLAND A's Through the Years  The A's haven't had a losing season, outside of the Bob Geren managerial era (2007-2011) until this year.  



 Getting back to the A's,  many have found the Oakland team with about half the payroll of the Giants to be the better, more exciting team, until the recent downturn and sell-off.  As we noted , the A's have had the better record as compared to the Giants for the past five years.  Other than the four year tenure of manager Bob Geren, for which A's fans revolted and finally got Beane to hire Bob Melvin, the A's have done well since 2000 - until this year  



  Not to say the A's haven't dabbled a bit  in the PED movement themselves, what with Barolo Colon in 2012 - a year only five players were caught for PEDs in baseball and three of them were among Bay Area teams(the other two with the Giants). Of course, Colon wrote it off to 'stem cell' replacement and was actually not suspended, as we recall. The A's would soon get rid of him as is their want. Otherwise, the A's have appeared to be a cleaner team than the Giants, as much as one can tell, with numbers showing a more natural curve - not the streakiness of the Giants.  



 It's too bad for A's fans that A's management seems to be going back to the 'Build Us A Ballpark Or Else' attitude and selling off its best players.  We don't quite understand how ransacking the team sets the stage for a new ball park, as per Billy Beane's explanation for what he's doing. Prove us wrong, Billy, but a team that was in the playoffs last year shouldn't be  12 games under .500.  But that's another story.    



  The A's  play in Oakland, a blue collar town where nothing comes easy. The Giants are from San Francisco , an ultra-liberal city, where 'anything goes.'  Twenty years later the Giants may have gotten the use of performance enhancers down to a science as we earlier noted, i.e.  when to go on and off them,when  not to use them too much, but when needed. We're living in a world now where marijuana is legal in several states and may as well be legal in most as people use it without recrimination. Certainly in AT&T Park during the World Series they say the smell permeated into the San Frnacisco Bay.   Likewise, maybe we're getting to the point where PEDs have become acceptable in baseball, and especially in  more 'open' cities like San Francisco. As 'old school' fans we think it severely affects the game. Sure, it may be exciting for some to see artificially-enhanced  see cartoon-like figures blast 500 foot homeruns into the Bay, ala Barry Bonds circa 1997-2007, (or nowadays even  skinny  infielders unexpectantly muscle up for more homeruns than they ever hit in the minors.)   Come playoff time and the 'koolaid' really kicks in.  And, another World Series victory.    



  BASEBALL ATTENDANCE/ TV VIEWERSHIP  DOWN   It's notable that baseball attendance and World Series TV viewing has been  down the past five years - except  in San Frnacisco.  Perhaps not so coincidentally the years that that the Giants have been in the World Series. We won't say 'pulling the wool over eyes' but after awhile people catch on.    



  Welcome to baseball San Francisco-style, circa 2015.  




 

HOW GIANTS BEAT ALL ODDS TO WIN FIRST (2) WORLD SERIES IN 56 YEARS

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How Is It the A's Have the Better Record but Giants Have Three World Series?