2010's Last IGT - 106th World Series: San Francisco v Texas

[Frayed Knot]

How weird has this got to be for Barry Zito?

You sign a huge contract with a mid-level team - mostly because they offered the most money but maybe partly also because it's in your area. Then, after struggling with some good and bad over the years you essentially get cut from the roster on the eve of winning it all.
I never saw him anywhere and assume he has not been traveling with the club.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

I forgot Renteria won that with the Marlins! He was a Tigers castoff a year ago.

[Guest themetfairy]

Frayed Knot wrote: How weird has this got to be for Barry Zito? You sign a huge contract with a mid-level team - mostly because they offered the most money but maybe partly also because it's in your area. Then, after struggling with some good and bad over the years you essentially get cut from the roster on the eve of winning it all. I never saw him anywhere and assume he has not been traveling with the club.

He was in the dugout talking to Lincecum during the games. He was actually on camera a lot.

[Frayed Knot]

Even before tonight I was going to say that, during this post-season, Edgar Renteria has alternately looked like his once near-great younger self and the oldest 34 year old since Roberto Alomar -- sometimes in the same game.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

This team can mend Chris Isaak's broken heart.

[metirish]

Renteria crying with emotion while getting the MVP award.......Huff " can't believe this, ten years in the game and for nine of them in fourth or fifth place"....

[G-Fafif]

SteveJRogers wrote: And just like that, after the '08 Cubs, and '48 Indians, the third longest stretch without a World Championship is the Pirates at 31.

Let's not forget those who've never won:

Astros 1962
Padres 1969
Brewers 1970 (1969)
Rangers 1972 (1961)
Mariners 1977
Rockies 1993
Rays 1998
Nationals 2005 (1969)

[Guest Edgy DC]

Yeah, Houston now takes San Francisco's place as the city with the biggest oh-fer.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Wilson's just as likable when he's being awestruck*.

Good for all these guys.

*ALSO: Chris Rose is terrible.

Edited November 1, 2010 by Guest

[G-Fafif]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: This team can mend Chris Isaak's broken heart.

[Frayed Knot]

Geez, Bochy is a big bastard - and not just his head.
I expected him to dwarf Lincecum but there was a brief shot of him next to Nolan too.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Nice job by Ron Washington.

[MFS62]

The players voted Derek Jeter a full series share because he was such an inspiration to all of them.

OK, I'll say it now, before you read it written by the reporters who will think they're so clever:
"Good pitching stops good hitting".

Later

[Ceetar]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Wilson's just as likable when he's being awestruck*. Good for all these guys. *ALSO: Chris Rose is terrible.

It's like 3 minutes after the game and Rose was trying to get Renteria to say he was going to retire.

Makes you wonder if maybe Brett Favre isn't really a retireaholic and it was all media driven.

[ashie62]

These close to retirement guys just can't scrape the uniform off.

[Willets Point]

Fuck! I fell asleep on the couch and missed this.

[Willets Point]

Cool shot!

[G-Fafif]

[metirish]

Frayed Knot wrote: Geez, Bochy is a big bastard - and not just his head. I expected him to dwarf Lincecum but there was a brief shot of him next to Nolan too.

I was thinking the same thing when he was with the GM and owners getting the trophy.....he's freaking hulking......btw.....when did McGowan sell the Giants or where is he?....

[G-Fafif]

Former Met Willie Mays enjoyed last night's result

"Oh, man, I don't get overly excited about baseball, but looking at these kids and how excited they were, I had some tears in my eyes," Willie Mays said from his Peninsula home shortly after the Giants won the World Series on Monday night, "because you never know, this might be the last time something like this happens to some of these kids. It's a wonderful feeling for me, and I'm sure it's a wonderful feeling for these kids and their families." Mays, surrounded by a half-dozen friends, had to leave the room after watching the final out, Brian Wilson striking out Nelson Cruz. "I had to get out of here for a minute because I'm not used to getting emotional like this."

As the current players dumped booze on one another, Mays was asked how he celebrated in '54 as a 23-year-old who capped off an MVP season with a sweep of the favored Indians. "Leo (Durocher) wouldn't let me drink," Mays said of his first manager. "They took care of me. I had no Champagne. Just soda."

[G-Fafif]

Speaking of Willie, he could use a street to call his own.

After several highly publicized fights over who should be eligible for a street naming honor, New York�s City Council created a list of requirements to simplify the process in 2008, and Rule No. 1 is that streets are co-named only for people who have died. Yet once again, Mays�s name popped up on the list of proposed honorees submitted last Friday to the City Council for its review. Ydanis Rodriguez, the councilman whose district skirts the neighborhood where the Polo Grounds once stood, recognizes that the council is unlikely to approve a street name for Mays, but said that his accomplishments were worth noting. �I don�t think it�s worth fighting about at this moment because if we make an exception for Mays, it will open the window for everyone else who wants to recognize people who are alive,� Rodriguez said, adding that he would explore building a baseball museum in his district. �Youngsters need to see their elders who are role models.� Rodriguez took his cue from Community Board 10, whose borders overlap with the old Polo Grounds, and which in 2008 called for the creation of Willie Mays Drive on a service road off the Harlem River Drive between 155th and 163rd Streets. The drive for a Willie Mays Drive began with Jacob Morris, director of the Harlem Historical Society. Morris has pushed for other streets in Harlem to be co-named to honor civil rights leaders, musicians, athletes and others who lived and worked in the neighborhood.

Also, he recently said he'd like to give that Wilpon kid a break.

"I sent word that I would like to do a show (at Citi Field) because I heard that they weren't drawing too well," Mays told the Daily News Monday night at the "Great Sports Legends" dinner to support the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, held at the Waldorf Astoria. "I said to the kid (Jeff Wilpon), 'Mr. Wilpon, I'd like to come back and do a show there.' Like an autograph session, help myself, help the Mets." Mays, 79, socked all but 14 of his 660 home runs while wearing a Giants uniform, but he still remembers the reception he got when he returned to New York in 1972 to play for the Mets. "They really embraced me and made me feel welcome, like I never left," Mays said. "I want to do something for them."

[metirish]

Gotta love Willie.....

"because you never know, this might be the last time something like this happens to some of these kids

Chris Rose has them all retiring Willie , as noted above Rose was terrible, not sure what a good interview would be under the circumstances but the same question to every player and exec got old quickly....." did you........"pause" ever think this would happen".....wash and repeat.

[Frayed Knot]

metirish wrote: Gotta love Willie..... "because you never know, this might be the last time something like this happens to some of these kids

And Willie oughta know, seeing as how he won a title in 1954 as a 23 y/o in his first full* ML season but then never again.
So enjoy things while they last Madison Bumgarner -- yaneverknow.



* He was technically a rookie in 1951 but didn't get the call up until late May - three weeks after turning 20. He then missed most of '52 and all of '53 in military service so 1954 was the first season where he went April thru October in baseball.
In '51 his team lost the WS in 6 games. After 1954, he got back there in '62 but lost in 7 (after his 9th inning double nearly tied the game). Then lost an NLCS to Pittsburgh in '71, before, finally, at age 42, winning an LCS but ... alas ... falling one game short in his final WS in his final season.

[MFS62]

Probably one of the worst teams of this generation to win a world championship. Renteria, Burrell, Sanchez, Huff all had and OPS under .700 last year. The starting CF'er is a 32 y/o career .250 hitter, pound for pound probably the worst starting CFer in baseball, well excluding Aaron Rowand. And I guess Cody Ross could pass as mediocre.
As ESPN radio guy Colin Cowherd exaggerated, you probably couldn't find most of them in Wikepedia.
What is the impact of them winning?
They might have set back the cause of advanced baseball metrics by about 50 years.
Sometimes, you have to look outside the numbers, eh?

Later

[Frayed Knot]

MFS62 wrote: Probably one of the worst teams of this generation to win a world championship.

And one of the best pitching ones.

Renteria, Burrell, Sanchez, Huff all had and OPS under .700 last year.

Fortunately for the Giants last year's stats don't determine this year's outcome.

As ESPN radio guy Colin Cowherd exaggerated, you probably couldn't find most of them in Wikepedia.

Cowherd's an ass. Go back to discussing college football 24/7. Maybe I'd take your baseball "insights" more seriously if you didn't use up the little time you're not discussing football to tell us how little you think of baseball.

What is the impact of them winning?

Not much, except to reinforce the already pretty entrenched idea that getting really good, young, home-grown pitching is a really good idea.

They might have set back the cause of advanced baseball metrics by about 50 years.

Not at all in my mind.

Sometimes, you have to look outside the numbers, eh?

Like Sabean et al did have - or that other GMs should have had - some kind of advance knowledge that the likes Ross, Renteria were going to have an October above and beyond their usual production? That Aubrey Huff out-played Josh Hamilton in the WS is a fact but hardly establishes a pattern that can be counted on in the future to the point where I'd take him first.

[MFS62]

That was my point.
Sometimes, stuff just happens.

And you point about good home grown pitching is well taken.

Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'm agog at the notion that anybody listens to Cowherd.

Did you riot for realz or virtually?

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

I don't have to, like, kill someone with a broken Fernet Branca bottle to be "mayor," do I?

[metsmarathon]

MFS62 wrote: Probably one of the worst teams of this generation to win a world championship.

i did a little quick looking around. looked at hte past decade. one team jumped out at me as a condidate. the 05 white sox. they had a terrible offense. but their pitching was pretty good. then i did a little more looking. found a worse team. it might surprise you. sadden you, even.

i looked at the top 8 hitters and top 6 pitchers in terms of WAR, per bbref's stats.

it was pretty close, actually.

but the giants are not the worst team to have won a world series this generation. possibly this decade, but not this generation.

the '00 mfy were worse. actually, they were worse than our mets, per my metric. by one WAR. damned timo perez...

	10 SFG	WAR	05 CHW	WAR	00 NYY	WAR
B1	huff	5.9	konerko	3.5	posada	5.7
B2	torres	4.5	rowand	3.1	williams	5
B3	burrell	3	iguchi	2.6	jeter	4.4
B4	posey	3	uribe	2.4	justice	3.2
B5	uribe	2	crede	2	hill	1.4
B6	sanchez	1.5	dye	1.6	o'neill	1.2
B7	renteria	1	pierzynski	1.4	spencer	0.8
B8	sandoval	0.8	podsednik	1.2	ledee	0.3
P1	cain	3.9	buehrle	5.4	clemens	4.7
P2	lincecum	3.5	garland	5	pettitte	3.3
P3	sanchez	3.4	garcia	4	hernandez	3
P4	wilson	3.3	contreras	3.9	rivera	2.9
P5	bumgarner	2.2	politte	2.6	nelson	2
P6	casilla	1.6	hermanson	2.2	mendoza	1.4
	10 SFG	39.6	05 CHW	40.9	00 NYY	39.3

mind you, there could be a partial season in there bumping some numbers around. these are the WAR contributions for these players, for the world series champion, in that year.

bottom line. the yankees suck.

[batmagadanleadoff]

MFS62 wrote: Probably one of the worst teams of this generation to win a world championship.

With eight teams making the playoffs, and the MLB playoffs being a pot-luck tournament and consequently, a terrible gauge to determine the best team, there'll be other less than stellar WS champs to follow, and soon.