David Weathers pitched for us in, what, 2004? 2005? He was picked up off of waivers in August, right? I can't see anyone on the current 40 man roster to trade for him.

I've already voiced my opinion on the issue so I'll make this quick. If we make a trade, it had better be for someone that when you hear their name, you can't help but smile. And I've got to think it would be a corner infielder. Because once Roberts comes back, we have 4 outfielders, and the last thing you want to do is add another slow guy in the OF. Lets face it, he would be slow because we need power. With that said, it would have to be either a 3B or 1B. Of the guys mentioned, both today and yesterday, none really stand out to me and so I'm sticking to my idea of just developing talent this year and pursuing a power hitter with the $35 million we will have at the end of this season.

I am getting the feeling more and more that that Giants NEED to stand pat. This is going to be a lost season unless some great trades are made and frankly I just don't trust Sabes to make them. I'm dreading what is going to happen just before the trade deadline....

FYI, the Baseball Economist (Sabernomoics.com) wrote that professors at his university says that HGH does nothing to improve your body for baseball. If anything, it makes it worse because your internal organs get so large that they spill out into your gut area. (Yeah, it's as nasty as this sounds).

I've been saying since spring training the team is OK as is unless we can pick up some young hitting stud somehow without giving up Cain or Lincecum. This is a development year for our pitching staff and we should make do with what we got.

I'm thinking that's probably what's going to happen, no big trade or anything, at least right now. We'll see what happens when teams get a bit more desperate come the trading deadline.

Ride the wave, baby. The Franchise just showed us how to win 2-1 ballgames,

I think saying this is a lost season is absolute bullshit, certainly not based on a realistic assessemnt of the team - or its performance.
First, the O is just fine. We lead the West in runs scored. Yes, Barry and Ray and Richie have all colled off. ZIt's a long season.
Second, the pen is just fine. Now, it may not be as good as LA or SD, but, after a rocky start, the pen has been improving. And, Ortiz in place of Sanchez or Chulk improves it more. Bringing up Misch, who is doing quite well, may not even happen because these guys are doing so well.
Third, what has cost us, over the past 20 games (we're 8-12), surprisingly, is starting ;pitching. We went thru a stretch where each SP had a very bad outing an one of them (Cain, I think) had 2 - ie, 7 bad starts in 20 games. Lately, they have been much better.
So, I don't see anybody on either list I want. I think Barry, Omar, Richie, Ray all will start to hit soon. Feliz has hit well in May, as has Klesko. I think, now, we know why Roberts went in the tank. When he comes back, I expect he will hit to his career average.

Frank must be living some kind of parallell universe or something. Hate to brek it to, Frank, but this Giants teams sucks. The offense sucks, the old guys are predictably breaking down, and the bullpen is complete crap.

I may be living in a parallel universe but I don't let my prejudices override my logic. OK, Boof, we get it, you're a Royals fan or a Twins fan. Your conclusions are still just plain wrong.
The team leads the NL West in runs scored. I think that is the only relevant stat, as it is impossible to compare stats with Central and East division teams because they play in so many bandboxes.
Anyone who says the bullpen is complete crap has a completely bizarre definition of crap. The bullpen has lost a grand total of 6 games 1/4 through the season. Only two of the current penners have an ERA over 4. The Giants official site says "The Giants bullpen is tied for fourth in the NL with a 3.19 ERA since April 18." The entire staff has 4 blown saves, tied for 4th best in the entire league and 2nd in our division.
Our old guys are "predicatably breaking down"? This is the same, tired old criticism one gets from SI or Yahoo, and just as factually vacuous. Don't Oakland's young guys lead the league with DL time?

The Giants chances actually look pretty good to me, too, especially if the offense can keep up their game.

And although the starting pitching has been a bit rough in May, we still have four starters with an ERA under 4. That's likely to be true at the end of the season. Lincecum is likely to be in the running for Rookie of the Year and Cain has a decent chance to be in the running for the Cy Young. No team with pitching like this can be counted out of the race.

I wonder whether the Nats would be willing to trade Nick Johnson. It would be pretty weird to make a stretch-drive trade for a player who literally won't be ready till the stretch drive, and maybe not even then, but he's a terrific hitter with a bargain contract. If he's ever going to be acquirable, it would be now.

Why wouldn't the Giants want Rolen? He's aging and injury-prone and his contract is probably a bad deal in the long term, but when he's on he's still one of the very best players in the game, and he plays a position at which we have a gaping festering slop-hacking hole.

The old guys are not breaking down? Let's see, we have Bonds complaining that his non-surgically repaired knee is killing him, Aurilia has developed some kind of neck pain that has kept him out of games, Durham with his predictable leg injury, Roberts on his annual trip to the DL. But no, I guess all that is just factually vacuous.

If you think that this bullpen is going to perform well over the course of an entire season led by the utterly unreliable Buttmando Benitez, you are in a paralell universe.

Oh, and just in case you didn't notice, The Giants are in 4th place in the NL West playing .500 and, by your definition playing pretty good ball. That is about as good as it going to get for them, unfortunately.

I am not a Twins or Royals fan. I have been following the Giants probably longer than you've been alive. I just don't let my fandom color my reasonable judgement.

Take a look at a major league team-by-team injury report. Having three or four players with minor aches and pains in mid-May is pretty standard fare.

Boof, it seems a tad bellicose to say there is no way the Giant's can play better than .500 ball. Only time will tell--but they WERE in first place two weeks ago after a eight game winning streak. And that was before they called up one of the premier prospects in baseball who just outdueled Roy Oswald in his third start.

By the way, major league futures betting currently lists the Giant's at 4-1 odds to win the division. Dodgers are listed as 1-1, Diamondbacks 4-1, Padres 5-2.

I agree with Frank and Barton. This team is indeed a decent team. It may not be built/designed/constructed in any kind of a conventional way, but it is working. Sure, they don't have a lot of pop in the lineup. Sure, the heart of their lineup is pretty old. But the starting pitching is very exciting and the bullpen is solid enough. The offense, like most other offenses, will be (and continue to be) sporadic in output.

The "injuries" that the team is facing right now is not really a big deal at all. As Barton pointed out, three or four players with a few minor injuries by the middle of May is normal. I'd actually say that the team is really fortunate none of their primary cogs are are of commission.

This team is capable of playing above .500 ball. They're capable of winning the division. They are also capable of everything opposite of that. They're capable of playing below .500 ball. They're also capable of ending up in the cellar of the division.

Thats what makes baseball what it is. Every game is played for a reason. Until they are, no one really knows whats going to happen.

The team is, what, 3.5 games back? Can anyone even guarantee the Dodgers will keep at the pace they're on? No. This division is wide open, and the Giants are right in the thick of it.

Barton, you make some good points. It is true that since the 8 game winning streak the SPs have gone through some tough times. Each of the six has had at least one really bad start, with Cain having 2 really bad outings. That accounts for 7 losses (in our 8-21 doldrums), including bad starts in Colo on this road trip by Zito and Lowry. The starts have just concluded 5 games with 4 of the 5 of them throwing very, very well. Zito has always been a slow starter, so it is too early to tell on him. But Cain, Lincecum, and Lowry all seem to have worked thru their earlier difficulties and Morris has been pretty steady all year.
Clearly, if one wants to be objective, the offense is more than good enough if the 10-11 primary position players hit to their career averages. I think we now know why Roberts went into a tailspin, but i expect him to hit to his career average after he returns. Same with Aurilia, Durham, Molina, Klesko, Winn, Omar. Feliz was hitting about 280 for May and I think he will hit 265-275 on the year. Actually, there are a lot of weapons and no really automatic outs - which is why we have been scoring runs. Sure we've got several guys going thru slumps right now. What team doesn't?

This is a .400 team if it wasn't getting the good pitching. Let's hope the pitchers don't get discouraged.
Do what it takes to pry Duncan away from the Cardinals, put him at first. Send Morris back where they love the guy.

Frank and Boof: You both make some good points. What's too bad is, if you each listened a little more to what the other wat trying to say, you might realize that together you paint a more more accurate picture of the team that either of you do by yourself.

Yes, the team's health is beginning to show a few cracks in predictable places (Durham's legs, Barry's knees, Roberts, etc.), but overall the team health is pretty good.

No, the bullpen is not crap. In fact, it's been pretty damn good, especially recently. If you don't believe me, look at the stats. Hennessey has been a revelation, Correia has put a couple of shaky outings behind him to post great peripherals. And while nobody enjoys watching Benitez, the hard truth is he's been pretty good, saving 8 of 9, with the blown save coming on the cheapest HR I've seen in a long time. Just because we EXPECT him to suck, doesn't mean he HAS sucked.

And no, the offense doesn't suck, either, but it is shaky and has been wildly inconsistent. Just looking at the run total doesn't tell the whole story. In the past 10 days, they have had a 15-run game and a 9-run inning, but have also gone long stretches without putting anything on the board, including their current streak -- 2 ER in 23 innings (One of those coming on a complete fluke). Aurilia and Durham might be the least intimidating #3 and #5 hitters in the league, and the team needs to acquire another power hitter for sure, but neither of those guys has hit like they can yet, so there's plenty of room for improvement.

You know the old baseball axiom, "You're not as good as you look when you win, or as bad as you look when you lose"? Well, the Giants aren't as good as Frank would have you believe, but they're not as bad as Boof would have believe, either.

A way-out-there Saber-head question: might there be a statistical method for measuring small ball? I mean, specifically, the ability of a team to keep from being shut out or limited to less than three runs.

My hypothesis is that some teams do better at consistantly manufactoring runs and have fewer average innings between runs; further, this is not always the result of scoring the most total runs--i.e., there might be a difference between a team that scores runs in big batches and a team that consistantly scores runs but doesn't necesarily have big innings.

My hunch is that "small ball" peripherals would include On Base Percentage, team speed, productive outs, and, to a lesser degree, slugging percentage (lesser because you have to wait for home runs, which according to my hypothesis create big innings rather than consistent run patterns).

Any thoughts over whether such a pattern might exist and/or whether a statistical measurement of such an ability (the 65 Dodgers?) be useful for a team built around starting pitching?

Josh, there's no "might" to it: Richie and Ray ARE the least intimidating #3 and #5 hitters in the league. And that is much of the problem.

Frank, isn't it reasonable to expect Aurilia, Bonds, Durham, Molina, and even Roberts to decline this year? I'm not saying they have yet or they definitely will - it's just a reasonable expectation, as opposed to my fan-based reaction that Tim Lincecum is this year's Cy Young winner. So, reasonably, I don't expect us to be a good hitting team this year, with several hitters declining. And then there's Feliz. That's why I think we need at least one more power-type hitter in our lineup. And yet I don't trust Sabean to make a deal to acquire one for a reasonable cost. I think he'll overpay for a modest hitter or a slugger on the downslide. So I actually prefer we stand pat, take our lumps (as I see it), and use the improved draft position next June.

Why not mention Griffey in your Reds sum up? There's talk they want ot move his contract in order to sign Dunn long term. For all the talk over the years I don't think I've ever heard a semi-serious rumor about them moving Dunn.

Also, re the Nats a club that just turned Snelling into Langerhans may indeed be willing to trade young, cheap talent.

Lyle, I'm not knowledgeable about Aurilia to really comment on him, but with Bonds, I think it is reasonable to expect him to produce better thyis year than last - I would expect him to produce for the entire year about as he did for the 2nd half last year. With Durham, no I don't expect him to produce at the same exact level, I expect a small, but not particularly significant, decline. I would expect he would hit fewer HRs, but produce about the same # of RBIs - and provide protection when Bonds is walked. And with Molina, again, I see no particularl reason to expect decline - altho, you always have to worry when a guy changes leagues. And I think you worry more when he is a C, as he has to learn both new pitchers, but also new hitters and a new pitching staff - so yes, those factors could lead to a difficult adjustment year. I just think that Molina is such a smart hitter that he is likely to get his hits.
Same for Roberts. I don't see any reason for a significant decline; I expect him to be within + or - 10 points of his career BA. What I always noticed about Roberts, when he played for the opponents, is his high competitiveness and his doing so many small things - taking pitches, fouling off several pitches, stealing, blufing the steal, that I always thought his worth went way beyond his simple BA or OBP.
So, to answer your inquiry, I think it is unreasonable to "expect" those declines. I don't think it is unreasonable that there would actually be some declines.
Finally, I really thought Feliz would hit for the entire year as he dis for the first half of last year, which, clearly, he hasn't. I think he is fine if he hits 265-270. If he hits below 250, I think more playing time goes to Frandsen and Aurilia - which has already started to happen. Except that then Aurilia and then Durham got hurt, so Aurilia played much less, and Frandsen had to play 2nd. eliz has hit fairly well in May (275/324/406, 5BB, 5Ks), so it is a question of whether or not he keeps it up.
It seems clear several guys besides Bonds have cooled off (Molina, slightly; Durham; Aurilia, injured; Omar, again). I expect them to heat up again, cool off, heat up - it's just how seasons go.

"With Durham, no I don't expect him to produce at the same exact level, I expect a small, but not particularly significant, decline. I would expect he would hit fewer HRs, but produce about the same # of RBIs - and provide protection when Bonds is walked."

Just when exactly is he going to start doing this?

"Same for Roberts. I don't see any reason for a significant decline; I expect him to be within + or - 10 points of his career BA."

You realize that he would have to hit about .285 and get about 300 more at bats this season to get to his career average.....that is, of course, if and when he starts playing again this season. I'd say it would be pretty difficult to attain that goal at this point.

You make these statements like they are facts, but, in reality, they have very little chance of coming to fruition.