Random Crap Thursday!
Everyone loves Random Crap Thursday! It's where you can read about a bunch of random crap!
Hello, and welcome to my first Random Crap Thursday, in which I take a bunch of stories that weren’t interesting enough to merit entire newsletters on their own and put them into one.
It’s called creating content, people. It’s the new paradigm.
The last day of the GM meetings was canceled because there was a norovirus going around in Scottsdale. The GM meetings are like the Winter Meetings, but less interesting, and no one seemed particularly disturbed to have lost a full day of them.
Nobody seems entirely sure why this event still exists, to be honest. Sure, we all love Scott Boras’ annual punstravaganza — this year, discussing Pete Alonso, he said “When it comes to the polar bear, we’re not in contract hibernation,” which makes sense, since polar bears don’t hibernate — and occasionally you’ll get a report about some player (Matt Chapman, this year) who attends in order to have meetings, but those things could be done at the Winter Meetings, or just independently. Boras could have his State Of The Boras talk in New York, and a bunch of writers would show up, and the rest could watch on Zoom or whatever, and then report Agent Hypes Up Own Clients as if that’s news.
I mean, it’s obviously, clearly not news. Scott Boras saying Cody Bellinger is good means nothing. Like, he was good last year. He might well be good next year. But if there is a guy whose job it is to say “He will be good next year,” no matter what, then when he says that it loses all meaning and there is no reason for you to pay attention.
Okay, okay, one more pun. While he was talking about Jordan Montgomery:
Owners are clamoring for us to, 'Let's make a deal on Jordan.' I think all owners are all very, very aware that he's worthy of a Monty Hall."
The man is 71 years old and apparently plans on working until he drops dead. At least he’s still got the heater where it counts: bad jokes.
Brandon Crawford will explore coming back to play next year. I like Brandon Crawford and wish him well with that and oh boy, was he not a good hitter last year.
But I like him! And I wish him well.
A tweet went out yesterday — I will not link to it — saying “People forgot how filthy Tim Lincecum was” with a 38 second highlight video.
It’s just engagement farming. People at those kinds of accounts make money through you being mad and quote tweeting whatever they said. You don’t have to interact with it. No matter what anyone says, that’s not actually in the Constitution.
Trevor Bauer’s agents have been meeting with teams, trying to get him back in the league. As I have recently discussed here, Trevor Bauer is gross and garbage and so is anyone who wants him back in the majors.
Now, am I worried about the Giants signing him? No. The Giants seem to have a very firm No Domestic Violence policy, and that includes all players or potential players. Sure, it doesn’t include the managing partner or CEO, but the important thing is that it does include Trevor Bauer, who sucks shit on a personal level and should stop appearing near the edges of my hobbies.
The Giants are apparently going to extend arbitration to all six of their eligible players. Those six: JD Davis, Thairo Estrada, Tyler Rogers, Austin Slater, LaMonte Wade Jr, and Mike Yastrzemski. It seems like a team that’s looking to cut payroll a little bit so that they can afford one or two of the free agent prizes out there would cut corners here, especially with Slater and Yaz, but no, they’re apparently just going to keep on trucking.
Is this going to doom the team to mediocrity for another year? Is it worth it to play it safe, only to watch the team continue to not make noise in September? Or are they just gearing up to trade Slater or Yaz (or both!) and don’t want to let on? Jung Hoo-Lee and Yoshinobu Yamamato would be a pretty exciting offseason, but if the team wants to avoid even sniffing the luxury tax, they’ll need to cut some payroll before that. It’s pretty simple math, but they have to do it.
God, Trevor Bauer still sucks. Awful, Just awful.