When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

03.14.2008
Scattered Blogging With a Slight Chance of Idiocy

Friday notes on this busy day…

* SOX TALK: The Giants and White Sox keep talking about Joe Crede but can’t see eye to eye, the Chicago Trib reports. The writer is Mark Gonzales, who used to cover the Giants for the San Jose Mercury News, so his Giant sources should be better than the typical daily beat reporter. He says the Sox want a top prospect and a “serviceable young reliever,” and have asked about Jonathan Sanchez. The Giants have offered the Sox Scott Williamson, Randy Messenger, and Dave Roberts, which hasn’t sat well with Chicago.

* DRINK UP: This is a great idea.

* TRADE PARTNER?: The Padres gambled by letting Mike Cameron walk and trading for oft-injured centerfielder Jim Edmonds. Now, as Joe Sheehan of BP reports, Edmonds will miss the rest of spring with a strained calf ,and the Pads don’t have a viable replacement. Even with Edmonds, SD could have embarrassing outfield defense in a park that requires lots of coverage. Coco Crisp is one possibility, but the Red Sox might ask too much. I doubt the Pads would take Dave Roberts back, especially as a center fielder, but it’s worth a try. Rajai Davis is more likely, but he’d leave the Giants without a right-handed option off the bench. Davis might bring back an interesting player; Roberts wouldn’t.

* SWAGGER ALERT: Giants backup catcher Guillermo Rodriguez returned to action, threw out two base stealers at second, and provided my favorite moment of spring training so far, as described by Daniel Brown in today’s Merc: “[Rodriguez’s] throw to get Diaz was so strong and accurate that Rodriguez started trotting off the field while the ball was still in flight, like a basketball player who knows the shot is good and heads back to play defense.”

* RANSOM NOTE: Ken Rosenthal reports that former Giant farmhand Cody Ransom has a shot to be the Yankees 25th man.

Noise* SMALL PRINT UPDATE: Now reading Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise, a history of alternative music in the 20th century. At times I get lost in the details — Ross loves to go note-by-note, chord-by-chord through specific passages of works I’ve never heard from composers such as Eisler, Satie or Schoenberg, but he’s put audio excerpts on his Web site, with references back to his book. (I won’t need the help when he gets to the Velvet Underground.)

Ross, the classical (or perhaps more accurately, the non-jazz, non-pop) critic for the New Yorker, is a fabulous writer who brings his subject matter to vivid life even for a pop/rock/jazz guy like me. He excels at placing the music in historical context, and The Rest is Noise, if nothing else, is a great tour through fin-de-siecle Vienna, Paris, the New York of Gershwin and Ellington, the Finnish woods of Jean Sibelius, and Weimar Berlin — and I’m only on p. 180.



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[March 16, 2008 4:03 AM]  |  link  |  reply
ChaChaBowl Rich said

Yes, Crede Crede Crede. As I just asked over on The Cha Cha Bowl, what about instead trading for the Nationals' 1B Nick Johnson? I think there's no way Johnson replaces Dmitri Young after the season Young had for the Nationals last year. And Johnson has way more upside than Sexon, and he's four years younger, to boot (29 vs. 33). And the Nationals need pitching in the worst way... and we've got pitching to deal... so.... ?

[March 17, 2008 3:30 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Matt said

Looking at the comments from White Sox fans on that story I found it interesting that most of them considered our offer of three nearly worthless players to be much more realistic than their counter of one decent player and a good prospect. Most of them feel the same about Crede as we do. Deceiving stats, a huge question-mark to recover from his injury etc... The ones who want to keep him give reasons you would expect like: I've always liked him, He's a gamer etc... But it really doesn't look like Crede has much of a place on that team at all. He virtually has to be traded. If we can get him with a couple slightly better relievers (Kline, Chulk) and dump Roberts in the deal, I think that would be great deal.

In response to Rich, I've thought Nick Johnson makes a lot of sense for us since the end of last season. The Nats are in a similar position as the Sox. Johnson doesn't really have a place to play and it's uncertain how much upside he has in the future. The Nats are opening a new park and the pitching staff is one of the worst I've ever seen assembled. You think they'd be willing to take a chance on our grab bag of near major league ready arms.