All full season leagues were idle as usual on Mondays.
ACL: Giants defeated the Royals 5-1.
Adrian Sugastey C(rehab)- 1 for 3, HR(1), BB. BA= .375.
Yulian Barreto 2B(18 yo)- 2 for 4. BA= .242.
Oliver Tejada LF(19 yo)- 3 for 4, 2B, 3B, HR(1). BA= .309.
Gregory Santos RHP(rehab)- 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 3.00.
Marlon Franco RHP(23 yo)- 4.2 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 10 K's. ERA= 5.56.
Samir Chires RHP(22 yo)- 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 2.25.
Melvin Pineda RHP(22 yo)- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 2.87.
Oliver Tejada put up some nice numbers as a 17 yo in the DSL in 2024. His numbers were not as impressive, but not terrible in the ACL last season. He is trying to improve on them this year with success so far. He fell a single short of a cycle in this game.
DSL: Angels topped Giants Black 6-5.
DJean Macares CF(18 yo)- 2 for 4, 2B, 3B, BB. BA= .228.
Franco Willias LF(21 yo)- 3 for 5, 2B, 2 SB(7). BA= .298.
Alexander Camacaro 2B(18 yo)- 2 for 4, 2B, SB(6). BA= .267.
Boris Sarduy 1B(19 yo)- 2 for 4. BA= .368.
Lender Bracho RHP(21 yo)- 2 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 2.70.
DSL: Cubs Red shut out Giants Orange 4-0(7 innings).
Mario Gonzalez RHP(19 yo)- 3.2 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 5 K's. ERA= 4.85.
The Rafael Devers Incident, as it will now be forever known, exploded across baseball-oriented social media today and with a vengeance. Just my opinion, but the concern of commentators and the fury of fans is not so much on whether Devers or Tony Vitello are more to blame as that it looks and feels like a symptom of an organization is disarray on multiple levels. Yes, Devers has looked overweight and out of shape all season. While he has performed well at times, he has not been consistent and tends to disappear when the game is on the line. Tony Vitello makes head scratching decisions almost every game, looks like a deer in the headlights, a lot like I imagine I would look if I was cosplaying as manager in the dugout, and has baffling explanations in the postgame pressers. So yes, the fans have had it with both of them but that begs the question of why they are wearing Giants uniforms in the first place which leads directly to Gerald Dempsey "Buster" Posey and he seems to be in hiding somewhere. The first step in fixing this is for someone, and I think it needs to be Posey, to step up and at least try to take charge and take responsibility and articulate what he thinks went wrong and what needs to be done to right the ship. In other words, his equivalent of Brian Sabean's "I'm not an idiot" moment. If he isn't able to do that, he should resign and immediately.
Posey represents management, a face and voice of the Giants. He needs to step up, provide leadership, policy direction, and clarity to this issue. Not avoiding it, and allowing players, coaches, and everyone associated with team to suffer the storm and dissolve into factions.
ReplyDeleteHiding from the issue and hoping it goes away is weak and ineffective.
I don't think Posey can even do much in the way of damage control at this point. The fact that Posey has been radio silent about this is not a good sign. Now that you're a national embarrassment, Greg Johnson is likely going to be the one that is going to be forced to try to restore order and he may now be having to take phone calls from Manfred about this.
ReplyDeleteI think there may be a tad bit more overreaction about this in the media than it deserves. Yes, Devers does have an attitude of a well/overpaid free agent and that isn't good, but I'm not all that certain that it's Posey's fault, and I'm not sure that fixing it will be all that easy. It's also possible he simply misunderstood the reason that he was being replaced in the 9th inning. They probably will have an off camera discussion about that. I'm certain that Posey's style would not to "share with the media" what happens behind the scenes.
ReplyDeleteAnd before we say that Vitello needs to be gone, I'm not completely certain there is that deep of a bench of waiting Managers that could come in and fix the problems with a Harry Potter wand. If so, please name some? (The Phillies went with Don Mattingly because he was accessible)
I agree with your comments - I’m not sure what Posey is expected to say publicly. He could certainly address the issue privately if needed. Having said that, I don’t think he is the long term ( or near term) answer as the GM/President. We need someone trained as GM - not a star ex - ball player. The blueprints are out there- Brewers, Rays, Dodgers… The right GM give fresh eyes to the failures of talent acquisition and development. We all loved Buster as a player but it’s been he’s been a disaster as the leader of Baseball operations. I thought Farhan could be the right pick but it never seemed like he had a clear direction other to chase ( unsuccessfully ) big name free agents. He also missed deadline trade opportunities when there was only a slight chance of making the playoffs and moving forward. This led to a floundering franchise with seemingly no plan and with real problems acquiring and especially developing talent.
DeleteI suspect if Buster stepped down or was fired, what would happen would be that Zack MInasian would end up as POBO. Supposedly, Minasian has a highly regarded baseball mind. Also, we really don't know what is going on in the board room. Buster has a lot of advisors such as Bobby Evans, Jeremy Shelley, and Jeff Berry to run things by if he had any experience blind spots so I don't think he's operating on his own in a vacuum.
DeletePosey says that the Giants will be built on pitching and defense, but does nothing to fortify the pitching staff other than sign a couple of replacement level semi-starters. He then puts together a head scratching roster that requires multiple players to be playing out of position in order to get their bats in the line up. He then hires someone with ZERO professional baseball experience at any level, in any capacity to manage the team. What did you expect would happen? You have the blind leading the blind. Then throw in the Pride Night debacle and you see how truly rudderless this organization is. To be fair to Posey, ownership has mismanaged this organization for almost a decade, so he didn't have much to work with when he took over, but man, did he make a bad situation worse.......
ReplyDeleteIt's odd to me that Vitello gets dragged into Devers thinking he could refuse a pinch-runner.
ReplyDeleteEven if it was a terrible situation to pinch run, manager still has that prerogative...but in this case, it was an absolute no-brainer to pinch run with Cox.
I get the feeling the narrative is heading in the direction of vague, but effective, "he lost the clubhouse" narrative. Which, seems to be, a bunch of spoiled man-babies wanting to defy an authority figure they don't feel hasn't earned the right to be there...
And I'm not defending Vitello. His inaction on Pride night makes me a non-believer. But Devers' actions shouldn't be an indictment of Vitello...
I don't think most analysts are blaming Vitello for ordering a pinch-runner. The two criticisms I have seen are 1. Why didn't Cox steal 2B? 2. How Vitello handled the aftermath. I don't pretend to know how these situations are generally handled proactively but I saw one suggestion that since Devers was the leadoff batter, should have been informed up front that if he reached base Cox would be pinch-running. Another angle might be that at some point Tony V could have put out the word to the team that he sees Cox's legs as a serious late-inning weapon and the general plan is to use him liberally as a pitch-runner in close game/late-inning situations. It seems Devers thought the reason he was coming out was concern for a hammy issue and in his mind he was telling the bench his hammy is OK. It does seem at the very least it's a communication failure. Ultimately the responsibility for communication falls on the Manager.
DeleteAnd it's not a isolated communication failure. None other than the Commissioner blamed the Pride Night fiasco on a communication failure. Then, remember when there was a dust up between the coaching staff and Patrick Bailey over pitch selection? Something about 9 straight sliders? There also seemed to be issues between Bailey and the coaching staff wanting to call pitches from the dugout. Well, now we find out the pitchers have started calling their own games because.....get this....they trusted Bailey's pitch selection but not Susac and Haase. I mean, wow!
DeleteBuster's press conference was very disappointing. He hadn't even talked to Devers yet, although he said Tony V did after the game. The combo of an inexperienced POBO and rookie manager with no pro experience is turning out to be a very poor recipe for success. But I'm wondering if both are being ill-served by their bosses. After all, the one common element over these past 10-plus years has been a splintered and ineffectual ownership group.
ReplyDeleteIt does sound like Devers and Vitello talked and are on the same page now so we probably should close the book on that particular incident.
DeleteDoc,
ReplyDeleteWell if you gauge Buster by his interview tonight it looks like he totally flopped.
- Fan