1st and Five - The Weekly Tendown, Halfdown Edition July 25-31 2010

Dear Internet:

Pentagon Papers 2K were released this week; the response "well of course the war's unwinnable and the government's been lying about it" reflected less that the papers weren't significant and more our suicide cult like unwillingness to change direction even in the face of catastrophic inevitability.  Let's try this metaphor - the American public is the guy who has gained so much weight that his skin has become fused with his couch and Dick Gregory has to come in with the jaws of life to pry him out.  It isn't that we're unaware we're dying, it's not that we're unaware our living room is covered in buckets of original recipe and animal feces, it's not that we're unaware that every can of frosting we down is another day closer to the end.

It's that we've decided it's too late.  Once you've passed 5 bills, the next hundred pounds hardly matters - who among us, seriously, this means you - who among us looked at the plan to radically increase troops in Afghanistan and said "helluva plan - we're gonna win this thing"?  We know our almost decade long dump of dollars and bodies in the middle east is going to kill us as surely as that fourteenth deep dish meat lovers.  We just don't care. 

But if you want to read Nick Kristof from this week that would be good too:

 For the cost of just one soldier in Afghanistan for one year, we could start about 20 schools there.

What's the argument that's not a better idea?  Absent the authoritarian need some Americans have to pound submission into brown enemies and the degree to which policymakers are wed to the military industrial complex - what's the theoretical case that our lives are better off by spending our money on guns and not butter? 

In 2010 the Republicans held up extending unemployment benefits for two months, a grain of sand in the desert of our budget, with the stated claim of fiscal responsiblity.  But we continue to set fire to hundred dollar bills every single second of our lives without any sort of movement to stop it.

And Don Draper hired a hooker to slap him around on Thanksgiving, 1964. 

That was this week.  Here's Tendown 37.

First: 60-45

Get used to baseball talk.

SFG is 60-45, 1 1/2 up in the NL WC, with the 3rd best record and second best pythag in the NL (62-43)  BP has us with a 42% chance to make the playoffs, but significantly higher, 68% if you run the PECOTA simulation - that's my general preference, and it's what I usually think about first when forecasting.  I would have liked a bat at the deadline, but it was the premium arms (Haren, Oswalt) that got sold short (Cards weirdly overpaid for Westbrook though).  With fewer than 60 games left in the season - let's say it plays out like this:

AL East - NYY
Central - Minnesota
West - Texas
WC - Tampa

-Other than White Sox/Twins in the Central and which one of the two teams in the East wins the division, the AL looks to be over. 

NL East - Braves
Central - Cards
West - Padres
WC - Giants

-At the half way mark, this is exactly how my modified picks looked, except I had the Reds winning the WC - let's say we hold off them and the Phillies (Oswalt.  Grumble, grumble) and work our way into that spot.  We could also take out the Padres, which places me against my financial interests, given the odds they were still getting a month ago to win the West were too tempting to pass up. 

Pat Burrell gave us our Brian Johnson moment yesterday, taking Broxton out to put us at our high water mark.  I posted my look at the Nineties in my full recap of SFG history this week (perhaps I finish this week, but it's August and time for my next post over at the counterfactual).

Right now - here are the team leaders by WAR/WARP3

LF Huff 4.8/7
-Huff's on track to have a better year than Sandoval did in 2009; which would make it the best season for a Giants position player since Bonds in 2004.  I was heavily critical of Sabean for the Huff signing - I was wrong.

CF Torres 4/5.9
-Andres Torres is in track to have the best year for a SFG CF since Butler in 1990 - at the very least - it might go back to '88 by season's end.

C Posey 1.5/3
-Posey's late callup leaves him behind a handful of Molina/Estallela/Manwaring seasons - but my guess is he winds up with the best SFG catching season since Brenly in '87 - and the  best SFG catching season (as will be revealed when I finish my posts recapping our full history) is not a high bar - it's probably too late for Posey to make it this year - but in 2011, Buster Posey will turn in the best season for any SFG catcher ever.

SS Uribe 1.4/2.7
-This is probably not going to be the year Uribe had in '09, but an above replacement season for a Giants SS is always a welcome happening.

P Cain 2.8/3.5
Lincecum 3.1/3.1
Zito 2.7/3
Sanchez 1.5/2.1
Bumgarner 1.1/1.5
Wilson 1.8/2.9
Romo 1.2/1.8

In 2009, we had 4 starters above replacement value (everyone but the Unit) - this year we are locked into 5; none of whom are having significant seasons historically, but if you tack on the two plus relievers, we're in good shape here as well. 

One more bat would have been good. 

Looking forward to seeing how it ends.  How will I get crushed this time?

After the jump - the rest of the Tendown

TBOR Athlete of the Month - July (plus 1996 recap)

You can get to the previous Athletes of the Month here.

Diego Forlan

Runners-up: Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams, Wesley Sneijder

Forlan joins the previous 6 athletes of the month in the race for TBOR Athlete of the Year; back in '96, that winner was Michael Johnson (he also won AP Award)

January - Tommie Frazier (Brett Favre, Emmitt Smith, Larry Brown)
February - Michael Jordan (Magic Johnson, Terry Norris, Donovan Bailey)
March - Tony Delk (Tim Duncan, Mike Tyson, Allen Iverson)
April - Chris Osgood (Ken Hill, Hideo Nomo, Brady Anderson)
May - Jaromir Jagr (Barry Bonds, Dwight Gooden, Michael Jordan)
June - Michael Johnson (Oscar de la Hoya, Patrick Roy, Michael Jordan)
July - Carl Lewis (Steffi Graf, Amy Van Dyken, Kerri Strug)
August - Tiger Woods (Darryl Strawberry, John Smoltz, Rodney Peete)
September - Steffi Graf (Pete Sampras, Jake Plummer, Danny Wuerffel)
October - John Wetteland (Bernie Williams, Dennis Eckersley, Javier Lopez)
November - Evander Holyfield (John Vanbiesbrouck, Troy Davis, Brad Otton)
December - Brett Favre (Patrick Roy, Wayne Gretzky, Ron Dayne)

Five Decades of San Francisco Giants - The Nineties

You get see '58-89 here.

All Time Bizarro SFG Team '58-89

C Barton '69
1B Cabell '81
2B Miller '75
SS Lemaster '82
3B Reitz '76
LF Gabrielson '66
CF Joshua '76
RF J. Alou '66
P Moffitt '79
Cl Johnson '72

1990 (Pythag 82-80)
C Kennedy WARP 1.2/WAR 1.4
1B Clark 3.5/3.3
2B Thompson 3.1/1.5
SS Uribe 1.4/-1.3
3B Williams 4.3/4.7
LF Mitchell 4.3/3.8
CF Butler 4.3/4.8
RF Bass -.2/-.5
P Burkett 2.5/1.4
Garrelts .8/-1
Robinson .8/.-1
Wilson 1.4/.5
Reuschel 1.1/.7
Cl Brantley 4.7/3.6

-After Maldonado's '87 we don't have another decent season out of RF for a dozen years; Uribe hit replacement level in '88 and never left - and we just scraped along with the starting rotation for a few years in this stretch.  Butler's season will hold up as our best CF year for the 90s. 

1991 (76-86)
C Decker -.2/-.5
1B Clark 6.9/4.9
2B Thompson 4.7/4.9
SS Uribe .4/.6
3B Williams 4.4/5.1
LF Mitchell 3/2.5
CF McGee 2.9/2.6
RF Bass .1/.2
P Black 1.8/1
Burkett 1.1/-.2
Wilson 3.4/2.2
McClellan -.3/-.4
Brantley 3/2.1
LaCoss -1.6/-1.5
Cl Righetti 1.4/.3

-Our first sub .500 pythag since '85; Will's season holds up as the best for any SFG 1B in the decade.

1992 (72-90)
C Manwaring 3.3/3
1B Clark 6/3.6
2B Thompson 4/3.8
SS Clayton .4/.9
3B Williams .5/1.6
LF James .4/-.2
Snyder 1.8/1
CF Lewis .3/-.7
Felder 1.2/1
RF McGee 1.9/1.7
Bass .6/.1
P Burkett -.4/-1
Black -.1/-.9
Swift 5.2/4.5
Wilson .8/-1.1
Cl Beck 3.7/2.9

-Righetti joined the 3 sub-replacement starters in having particularly bad seasons; when you take our 6 OF, their combined WAR/WARP3 was about ten - Bonds, by himself, will be over 2.5 times more valuable than all 6 combined in '93.  Hard not to just skip to '93 - but Manwaring's season and Swift's, will both hold up as tops for the decade.

1993 (98-64)
C Manwaring 3.3/2.5
1B Clark 2.1/1.4
2B Thompson 7.6/6.2
SS Clayton 4.5/2.2
3B Williams 5.9/5.6
LF Bonds 10.5/9.7
CF Lewis 2/2
RF McGee .7/1.9
P Swift 6/5.2
Burkett 3/2.3
Wilson 1.9/1.4
Black 1/.7
Jackson 1.8/1
Cl Beck 4/2.3

-Our second best team in history - I loved this team, probably my favorite SFG club ever - what can you say about a season where a borderline HOF'er like Clark is one of our worst position players.  Bonds/Williams/Thompson not only had years that positionally hold up as the best of the decade - but they sweep into the greatest SFG seasons of all time, '58-99.  This is Barry's best year in the 90s - and it passes Mays as the best season for any Giant from '58-99 - I'd argue his was the best first season for any free agent in sports history; given the distance between his year and Chris James, who he replaced in left.  To get career seasons from both Thompson and Williams in conjunction with that Bonds season - it's a club that by all rights could have won a title - you would have liked one of the other two OF to give us a little more, or a third starter to help us out a little bit, or Will to have a more representative season - but you really can't ask much more than a 98 win pythag.  The second best team in San Francisco history. 

1994 (58-57)
C Manwaring .9/.5
1B Benzinger -.9/-.8
2B Patterson .2/1.1
SS Clayton 2.4/2.6
3B Williams 6/4.5
LF Bonds 6.3/6
CF Lewis 1.1/1.1
RF McGee .1/.3
P Burkett 1.6/.8
Portugal 2.2/1.4
Swift 1.9/1.2
Vanlandingham 1/.6
Jackson 2/1.7
Cl Beck 1.8/.7

-I was less bothered by the work stoppage than one might think, even with Williams on pace to challenge Maris, I was burned out after '93 - and just couldn't muster up much energy for the chase - particularly with the Niners being on the wrong end of brutal NFC Championship game losses and about to load up for our fifth SB win.  That was a bad stretch - the disappointment of '93, the hard, hard ends to the football seasons - the breakup of my engagement, my inability to get a decent job after law school and passing the California Bar - I've said recently that this year is probably my least engaged SFG season of my life - that's untrue, it was '94.

1995 (61-83)
C Manwaring .1/.3
1B Carreon 2/2.8
2B Thompson -.6/1
SS Clayton 1.3/2.3
3B Williams 5.1/4.5
LF Bonds 9.3/7.3
CF Lewis 1.3/.6
Sanders 1.4/1.4
RF Hill .7/1.8
P Leiter 2.9/1.1
Mulholland -1.7/-2.9
Vanlandingham 1.6/.3
Portugal 1/-.4
Wilson 1/.3
Cl Beck 0/-.9

-Here's why I think I'm poison.  My first season back in San Francisco after 13 years away was '95 - in which I got to watch the 4th worst SFG club ever.  Bonds's season is the fifth best of the decade - but that's not what I want to talk about. 

The two worst seasons in San Francisco Giants history were in 1995.  Terry Mulholland and Jose Bautista are not only 1-2 in the worst SFG years of all time - they are easily 1-2; they are 1-2 with room to spare - when I get around to a separate post discussing the Bizarro Giants - it will be Mulholland and Bautista whose pictures get posted.  It was cataclysmic. 

1996 (71-91)
C Lampkin 1.5/1.2
Wilkins 1.5/1.3
1B Carreon -.4/-.2
2B Scarsone -.5/-.8
SS Aurilia -.4/.2
Dunston 1.6/1.2
3B Williams 3.3/2.7
Mueller 1.6/1.5
LF Bonds 10.9/9.4
CF Bernard 2.2/1.7
Javier 2/1.7
RF Hill 1.3/1.4
P Watson 1.9/.9
Vanlandingham -.4/-2
Gardner 1.2/-.2
Fernandez 1.2/-.2
Leiter -.3/-1.4
Cl Beck 2.8/1.1

-Barry's season was the 3rd best SFG year of the decade.  I attended more games in '96 than any year of my life, I probably saw two dozen, including my only ever home opener.  We won that one but lost most of the rest - this was tied for 5th for the worst team in SFG history - I was there 2 years, 2 of our worst ever seasons - and left again - shockingly, we started the turnaround in '97.  My eyes are poison.  Blame me. Vanlandingham's year was the tenth worst in SFG history.

1997 (80-82)
C Wilkins .6/.3
Johnson 1.6/1.1
1B Snow 1.8/2.7
2B Kent 4.5/3.9
SS Vizcaino 3.1/2.3
3B Mueller 2/2.4
LF Bonds 8.7/8
CF Hamilton .2/.3
Javier 2.5/3.4
RF Hill -.9/-.1
P Estes 5.3/4
Rueter 4/2.5
Gardner 2.3/.7
Vanlandingham .1/-.6
Alvarez .7/.2
Hernandez 2/1
Cl Beck 2.2/.4

-We outplayed our pythag, made the playoffs - and I watched us lose two crushing 1 run walk off playoff games in Miami.  I moved from San Francisco, which allowed us to begin winning just as my moving before the '82 season allowed us another exciting season in which we outplayed our pythag (I won't do this research at least not now - but it could be that the two seasons in which our record most exceeded our performance - meaning our two luckiest years - were in the two years right after I moved away.  I.  Am.  Poison.).  Barry's year was the 4th best of the decade for a Giant

1998 (91-72)
C Johnson 1.4/.8
1B Snow 1.1/.5
2B Kent 7.4/4.2
SS Aurilia 2.6/1.9
Sanchez 1.9/1.8
3B Mueller 4.3/2.8
LF Bonds 10.5/7.9
CF Hamilton .6/2.9
Bernard 1.1/1.8
RF Javier 1.1/1.7
Burks 1.1/.9
P Gardner 2.4/1.3
Hershiser 2.1/1.1
Rueter 1.7/.8
Estes -.3/-.3
Darwin -.9/-1.6
Cl Nen 6.7/3.3

-Bonds brings it in '98 - the second best SFG season of the decade; Nen's year is the best for any SFG closer in the 90s. 

1999 (85-77)
C Mayne 3.1/2
1B Snow 3.7/1.5
2B Kent 4.4/3.3
SS Aurilia 3.9/1.4
3B Mueller 2/1.6
Hayes -1.1/-.8
LF Bonds 4.8/3.6
CF Benard 2.2/1.2
RF Burks 4.1/2.6
P Ortiz 3.1/2.7
Estes 1.3/1
Rueter .5/.3
Gardner -.9/-1
Cl Nen 1.2/.4

-Burks and Aurilia's seasons take the positional titles for the decade - and Charlie Hayes slips into the worst ever SFG 3B position from '58-99. 

25 Man Roster - The 90s
C Manwaring '92
    Manwaring '93
1B Clark '91
      Clark '92
2B Thompson '93
      Kent '98
SS Clayton '93 
     Aurilia '99
3B Williams '93
      Williams '94
LF Bonds '96
     Bonds '93
CF Butler '90
      McGee '91
RF Burks '99
      McGee '92
P Swift '93
   Swift '92
   Estes '96
   Rueter '97
   Wilson '91
    Burkett '93
    Leiter '95
Cl Nen '98
     Brantley '90
   

Top 5 SFG seasons 1990s
1. Bonds '96
2. Bonds '93
3. Bonds '98
4. Bonds '97
5. Bonds '95


Worst Ever San Francisco Giants '58-99
C Barton '69
1B Cabell '81
2B Miller '75
SS Lemaster '82
3B Hayes '99
LF Gabrielson '66
CF Joshua '76
RF J Alou '66
P Mulholland '95
Cl Johnson '72

1st and Ten - The Weekly Tendown July 18-24 2010

Dear Internet:

Here's a tip.  When Chase Bank leaves you a message about suspicious activity on your account, make sure you're able to speak to them. 

My first rent check was in the middle of July; as you may know, I've been going through the process of losing my house, my south Florida condominium complex is Ground Zero in the great housing collapse of 2008 (the condo board of directors was just dissolved after a lawsuit, currently is the..third, maybe 4th election of the past calendar year; the complex is now below both water and fire codes and had its hurricane insurance canceled) and that's resulted in my combining households with my Lady Type Friend in the most expensive move since Al Davis took the Raiders to LA. 

Simultaneously, I had to close/open a checking account, as I was unable to stop one of my no longer authorized automatic withdrawals from taking place - and that meant a new slate of checks.

Brand new checks + unusually large check written to out of state party = Chase Bank doesn't allow my check to clear.

Which, you know, isn't ideal.  On the same day, they debited my account, permitting the unauthorized transaction from the previous account to go through.

So -

1. When I wanted to pay for something - Chase wouldn't let me.
2. When I didn't want to pay for something - Chase gave them my money anyway.

My job attempted to deposit my checks (as I've been teaching extra courses for about a year and a half now, I get two checks a pay period) in my old account, which meant I also hadn't gotten paid - oh, and now in Florida, you need a certified copy of your birth certificate to get a driver's license renewal.  And it's my turn to do that, as I turn 40 2 months from today. 

That's been my week.  Here's Tendown 36.

First: In Obama's America
In the way the money quote from the Bush era was the official who told Ron Suskind that you guys still live in the "reality based community" the defining right wing oppositional comments since the election of Obama both came from the smear machine - and both were race based. 

Limbaugh: in Obama's America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering
Beck: This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people

The right wing has attempted to build a simple narrative around Obama, that his election is a War on White People.  Van Jones, ACORN, The New Black Panther Party, and this week Shirley Sherrod have been part of a calculated strategy on the part of the right to feed the racial anxieties of their base - they exaggerate, manipulate, and this week, wholly fabricate this shadow world where Obama leads an effort to destroy white America.  That's why health care reform was framed in some quarters as "reparations."  The right is tapping into a deep vein of reverse racism/when are you going to stop talking about slavery/why is it okay to have an NAACP but not an organization of white people/why does Martin Luther King get his own holiday/why is there a black history month white resentment that I've been hearing from otherwise seemingly middle of the road people since the day I moved to Ohio when I was 11. 

This is a direct transcript from Limbaugh.  Yes, I went to his site to get it.  Yes, I feel slimy.  It's from early July:

We have plenty of external threats, enemies across oceans, but we have a threat inside as well. This is something that I've never felt. I never feel that we had a president actually governing against the country, against the will of the people. I know we've had liberals. Clinton and Hillary were, and are. They're pedal-to-the-metal liberals. But they didn't want to destroy things. This bunch does, and they make no bones about it -- and when destruction does happen, they don't lift a finger to fix it. So in this interview with J. Christian Adams yesterday talking about (he's a whistleblower who said the charges were demanded to be dropped, that he and his line attorneys were told to just drop the case against the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation in Philadelphia) he said that there were people in the office, DOJ, who said, "Well, you know, those people suffered the indignity of slavery, discrimination, segregation and so forth."



He said somebody else said, "This is payback," meaning, "All right, look. We don't care if it's the New Black Panthers or whoever it is. Black people in this country have never, ever had a fair shake. This is payback. O.J. Simpson was payback. How does it feel?" That word "payback" is not mine. It was J. Christian Adams quoting some people in the Department of Justice. It is exactly how I think Obama looks at the country: It's payback time. I think that he's been raised, educated, and believes on his own that this country has been (as you know) immoral and unjust. It has stolen. It's unfairly large; it's an unjustifiable superpower. We have become as large as we are not because of any uniqueness or exceptionalism or greatness but because we've simply discriminated against the real people that made the country work, all the minorities. People around the world, we've stolen their resources, and now it's payback time. That's what we're getting. J. Christian Adams had somebody in Obama's DOJ who said that regarding the dropping of charges against the New Black Panther Party in the voter intimidation case in Philadelphia. So don't doubt me. There's no question that payback is what this administration is all about, presiding over the decline of the United States of America, and doing so happily.

And that's the right wing argument.  Right there.  Obama's trying to get even.  When right wing blogs and Fox News uncritically present an edited tape this week to portray a speech where Shirley Sherrod openly discussed transcending racially motivated impules a quarter century ago - instead as Sherrod saying she used her position to discriminate against whites - they are constructing this Limbaugh narrative:

There's no question that payback is what this administration is all about, presiding over the decline of the United States of America, and doing so happily.

Glenn Beck, about Sherrod, said this week that the US had:

                           transported into 1956 except it's the other way around


And sure, with their lie exposed, you would assume we'd leave this week better understanding how much sleaze covers right wing media - but that's not the result - as former Bush speechwriter David Frum wrote this week, the response of the right has been to say it's really Obama's fault.  A decade ago, Frum coined the phrase "axis of evil" - this week, he wrote:

                                   conservatives have a unique capacity to ignore unwelcome fact

Because some will leave this week not hearing the retraction - just the initial videotape, and take away that they now have video proof that Obama officials are looking for "payback".  And some will just tune out the controversy altogether, falling back on the lazy "both sides are dirty, you can't believe anyone" type of equivalence that permits our failure to make any type of critical distinguishing. 

The Obama Administration gets health care legislation passed that leaves entirely intact the private health insurance apparatus - but the right labels it socialist.

The Obama Administration got financial reform passed, but so tepidly that Russ Feingold refused to vote for it - and Glenn Beck called it

"an unprecedented assault on our economy, our ability to do business, and quite honestly the republic as we know it."

Some believe them.  They see terrorist, Nazi, communist, racist Obama - others just label "both sides" as equally wrong.  The result's the same.  I see the US in 2010, particularly in our failure to pass even the barest climate change bill, as a 300 million strong suicide cult.  Castrated, with our new Nike Windrunners, slurping our phenobarbital laced applesauce and waiting for the Hale-Bopp comet to come and wipe us all out. 

Fox News shouts socialist while Rome burns. 


After the jump, the rest of the Tendown

Five Decades of San Francisco Giants - The Eighties

You can get to '58-79 here.

The best SFG team through '79 was the NL pennant winner in '62, unsurprisingly - it had a pythag of 100-65 - the other 90 pythag win teams:

-'63 = 90
-'65 = 91
-'67 = 93
-'68 = 90

The top 5 individual SFG seasons through '79 all belonged to Mays.

1. '65
2. '64
3. '63
4. '58
5. '62

Bringing us to 1980. 

1980 (73-88)
C May (WARP 1.6/WAR 1.6)
1B Ivie -1.1/-.3
2B Stennett -1.1/-1
SS Lemaster -2/-1.5
3B Evans4.8/3.8
LF Whitfield 1.4/.5
CF North 2.9/2.1
RF Clark 3.6/4.5
P Blue 6/4.3
   Knepper 1.4/.7
   Whitson 4/2.6
   Montefusco .1/-.3
   Ripley .5/.5
   Holland 3.6/2.9
   Griffin 2.4/2.3
Cl Minton 3.8/2.6

-Although neither was particularly extraordinary, Evans and Vida's seasons will hold up for the rest of the decade - even the good seasons at decade's end still doesn't bring about a pitching season that matched Blue's 1980.  I haven't done as well as is ideal of tracking the worst seasons, as I'll put up a companion "All Time Bad SFG Team" with my greatest ever SFG seasons post - but this LeMaster season isn't quite going to cut it.  I think the worst SFG seasons through 1980 are the following (I'll go back and check when it's all done).

C Barton '69
1B Ivie '80
2B Miller '75
SS Pagan '74
3B Reitz '76
LF Gabrielson '66
CF Joshua '76
RF J Alou '66
P Moffitt '79
Cl Johnson '72

1981 (57-54)
C May 1.9/1.3
1B Cabell -1.1/-1.5
2B Morgan 2.6/1.9
SS Lemaster -.2/.3
3B Evans 2.6/2.8
LF Herndon 2.2/1.9
CF Martin -.4/-1
RF Clark 2.7/3
P Alexander 4.6/3.3
Griffin 1.4/.7
Blue 4/3
Whitson .7/.3
Ripley .4/.1
Cl Minton 2.6/1.4

-Cabell supplants Ivie, from just the previous year, as the worst 1B season in SFG history.  I'm gonna go back right now and run through the worst seasons to see if I've missed one.  I did.  It's accurate now as the worst San Francisco Giants through '80.  No, it's not an accident that I start thinking of the worst Giants ever as opposed to the best when we get to the late 70s and I become a Giants fan.  There were easier teams to root for.

1982 (79-83)
C May 1.6/2.6
1B Smith 2.9/2.6
2B Morgan 5.8/4.8
SS Lemaster -1.1/-2.5
3B O'Malley .7/.7
3B Evans 3.2/2.1
LF Leonard -.1/-.8
CF Davis 2.3/1.7
RF Clark 4.1/3.7
P Laskey 4.8/3.6
Hammaker 1.5/.6
Gale 1.1/.4
Martin -.5/-.9
Lavelle 4/2.4
Breining 3/2
Barr 2.2/2.1
Cl Minton 7.4/5.5

-'82 was fun, the Niners had won the Super Bowl in January, and for much of the season it sort of seemed as if the Giants had a similar shot - we outplayed our pythag and were in it until the final weekend - this was the Joe Morgan year knocking off the Dodgers, my favorite baseball moment to that point.  Morgan's season holds up as the best for a Giants 2B in the 80s - and knocks off Madlock's to be the best from '58-'89 - and right next to him is LeMaster - and his '82 not only moves him past Pagan as the worst SFG SS season to that date - but this is the worst season for any SFG through the '82 season.  Morgan's giving us our best 2B season and right next to him Lemaster has the worst season for any Giant in their history to that date.  Our best player in '82 was Minton - his is the best season for a Giants closer in the 80s, the best season for a Giants closer from '58-89, and the fifth best SFG season overall for any Giant in the decade. 

1983 (80-82)
C Brenly 2.6/1
1B Evans 6.1/3.8
2B Wellman -1.1/-.7
SS Lemaster .5/.7
3B O'Malley 1/0
LF Leonard 2.2/3.2
CF Davis 1.4/1.3
RF Clark 4.4/3.6
Youngblood 2.4/1.9
P Breining 2.5/1.5
Krukow 2/1.3
Hammaker 5/4.2
Laskey 1.3/.7
Davis 1.4/1.2
Cl Minton 1.7/.7

-Did Bill Laskey die this year?  Am I making that up?  I think so, yeah.  Who am I confusing for Bill Laskey?

1984 (69-93)
C Brenly 5.3/3.5
1B Oliver -.2/-1.2
2B Trillo .5/.5
SS Lemaster .4/-1.5
3B Youngblood -.9/-.4
LF Leonard 3.7/3.1
CFGladden 3.8/3.1
Davis 4.8/4.9
RF Clark 2.5/2.4
P Laskey 1.3/.7
Krukow .1/0
Davis -1.1/-1.1
Robinson .2/.1
Lavelle 3.3/2.5
Cl Minton 1.7/.6

-It falls through the floor here - the worst SFG team to date is when I'm 13, 1984 (and then the next year is even worse) at the time the Niners are building the definitive NFL dynasty of a generation, the Giants are playing their worst ever baseball in front of league worst attendance.  Brenly is the note here - his '84 is our best catcher season of the 80s.

1985 (67-95)
C Brenly 2.1/.6
1B Green -.4/-.5
2B Trillo 0/.9
SS Uribe .3/1
3B Brown 2.7/2.7
LF Leonard -.9/-1.2
CF Gladden -.2/.9
RF Davis 3.9/2.6
P LaPoint 2.6/1.4
Krukow 4.3/3.3
Hammaker 1.7/.8
Gott 2/1.5
Cl Garrelts 3.5/2.1

-My house burned down in '85.  Included in that destruction was my 1970 team autographed ball.  Wasn't as bad as watching this team lose every day. 

1986 (90-72)
C Brenly 3.6/3
1B Clark 3.5/2
2B Thompson 3.6/3.1
SS Uribe 2.9/2.1
3B Brown 2.2/3
LF Leonard 1/1.3
CF Gladden 3.2/3.2
RF Davis 4.4/3.9
P Krukow 4.7/3.2
LaCoss 1.3/.5
Blue 2.1/1.1
Downs 1.8/1.4
Mason -.7/-.8
Cl Garrelts 3.4/1.9

-And then it got better - Clark and Thompson came up, we didn't play to our pythag - but that 90 win mark makes this the best SFG club of my lifetime to that date (and then a year later - it got better).  '85 was bottom, '86 was the year it turned around.  A couple more arms would have been useful - really in the entire decade, there wasn't a SFG club that didn't cry out for a legit ace.

1987 (93-69)
C Brenly 4.6/3
1B Clark 5.4/4
Aldrete 3.8/4.3.2
2B Thompson 2.1/1.2
SS Uribe 3.6/2.9
Speier 1.8/2.1
3B Mitchell 2.7/2.8
LF Leonard .3/.7
CF Davis .9/1.4
RF Maldonado 1.6/2.7
P Downs 2.9/1.7
LaCoss 2.3/1.3
Hammaker 2.7/1.8
Krukow .3/-.6
Dravecky 2.6/1.7
J. Robinson 2.8/1.5
D. Robinson 2/1
Cl Garrelts 3/1.6

-Our best team of the decade, our best team since the '67 Giants had a 93 win pythag, but only Uribe's '87 holds up as the best positional season of the decade - note that Speier, whose '72 campaign was the best season for any SFG SS from '58-89, solidly backed up in '87.  I would think a 93 win pythag without a single player having a 5.0 WARP3 is rare - and without a single pitcher hitting 3.0 is less common than that.

1988 (86-76)
C Melvin .9/.8
1B Clark 8.4/6.3
2B Thompson 3.5/3.4
SS Uribe 1.7/1
3B Mitchell 3.8/2.3
Riles 1.8/2.1
LF Aldrete 1.9/1.1
CF Butler 5.9/6.6
RF Maldonado .5/-.6
P Reuschel 4.9/3.3
Downs 2.5/1.8
Krukow 1.4/1.1
Lacoss .6/.2
Robinson 3.2/2.5
Cl Garrelts .5/-.3

-We were carried by Clark and Butler in '88, Butler's season is the best for any CF in the 80s - the 4th best overall season for any SFG in the decade - and Clark's season is the 3rd best for any SFG in the decade, although it won't hold up as the best 1B year, 'cause the pennant is right around the corner. 

1989 (92-70)
C Kennedy 2.1/1.2
1B Clark 9.8/8.5
2B Thompson 4.6/5.9
SS Uribe 2.8/.2
Williams 1.2/2.7
3B Riles 1.7/1.8
LF Mitchell 8.1/6.8
CF Butler 4.7/1.8
RF Maldonado 1.1/.7
P Reuschel 3.9/2.7
Robinson 2.3/1.8
Garrelts 4.5/3.9
Downs -1.2/-1.2
Cl Lefferts 1.6/.5

-The two best SFG seasons of the decade led us to our first pennant since '62; Clark/Mitch went 1-2 in best SFG performances of the 80s.  That makes 3 of 4 seasons with 90+ pythag wins, the best stretch of SFG baseball since the early 60s. 

1980s 25 Man Roster
C Brenly '84
    Brenly '87
1B Clark '89
      Clark '88
2B Morgan '82
     Thompson '89
SS Uribe '87
      Uribe '86
3B Evans '80
      Mitchell '88
LF Mitchell '89
      Leonard '84
CF Butler '88
      Davis '84
RF Davis '86
      Clark '80
P Blue '80
   Hammaker '83
   Reuschel '88
   Laskey '82
   Krukow '86
   Alexander '81
   Krukow '85
Cl Minton '82
     Minton '80
   

All Time Bizarro SFG Team '58-89
C Barton '69
1B Cabell '81
2B Miller '75
SS Lemaster '82
3B Reitz '76
LF Gabrielson '66
CF Joshua '76
RF J. Alou '66
P Moffitt '79
Cl Johnson '72

Top 5 1980s SFG seasons
1. Clark '89
2. Mitchell '89
3. Clark '88
4. Butler '88
5. Minton '82

Top 5 SFG Seasons '58-89
1. Mays '65
2. Mays '64
3. Mays '63
4. Mays '58
5. Mays '62

Bottom 5 SFG Seasons '58-89
1. LeMaster '82
2. Moffitt '79
3. D'AcQuisto '75
4. J Fisher '63
5. Bryant '74