When Farhan Zaidi was hired, he was sold as an innovative baseball mind who would stagger us all with the might of his genius. The very force of his genius would reshape the franchise in innumerable ways, ushering the team into a new golden age whose like had never been seen before. Finally the Giants would be the model franchise; the Giants would be the envy of the league; the Giants would be on the tip of everyone’s tongues.
So far, under Zaidi, the Giants have claimed lots of players on waivers.
No! That’s a joke! I’m being pithy, and please don’t take that as accuracy. The team has absolutely made huge investments in behind-the-scenes technology that’s allowed them to look at players with the eyes of a stoic, unfeeling computer, which has meant they have greatly improved those players. Their development program has taken great strides, and they’ve done it by embracing the cutting edge of technological progress. Well, it’s time to do it once again. It’s time to take the next step, to finally get a permanent edge over the Dodgers.
It’s time for murder robots.
Now that San Francisco has okayed the use of murder robots by its more important unionized employees, the SFPD, their second most important unionized employees, the Giants, can’t be far behind. This is the exact kind of competitive edge that the team needs. The Dodgers have an endless supply of premium prospects. Now the Giants have a robot that will move up next to your face and explode.
Imagine the game-changing possibilities here. Mookie Betts takes off from first with the pitcher, but wait! There’s a robot in his way! Now what? While he’s considering this, Joey Bart easily throws him out.
Or maybe Freddie Freeman is tracking a pop-up down the line towards where the visiting bullpens used to be. He looks up…he’s got a bead on it…and then he hears the telltale sound of a murder robot! It distracts him enough that he misses the ball. Nice job by the home team!
Or! One last one here. Julio Urias has gotten through 6 innings on just 83 pitches. He takes a deep breath…starts his windup…and then here comes a murder robot! It explodes in his face and he dies. Now the Dodgers have to bring in a new pitcher earlier than they hoped. Competitive edge: attained!
And all that doesn’t even get into the home field advantage the Giants could earn by implicitly threatening every Dodgers fan who attends a game in San Francisco with immediate death. That sea of blue you see during every Giants-Dodgers game? Now it’ll be a thing of the past! Only true Giants fans are showing up to this one.
Does this all seem like an apocalyptic dystopia which any rational person would eschew in horror? A nightmare world that our beloved city is diving into headfirst with aplomb for ill-defined reasons? Or will it help the local baseball team win a couple of games? Who’s to say? This is why free speech is so important: we can authorize these kinds of technologies, then discuss why they’re bad, then never change anything no matter what the outcomes are of those discussions because they’re already authorized. It’s the American way!
So what have we learned today? We’ve learned that the Giants have a clear next step if they want to be the paragon of the next age of baseball. We’ve learned that there are all sorts of ways that new technologies can be used on a baseball field. And most importantly, we’ve learned that there’s nothing more San Franciscan than a robot which explodes in order to kill people. In the end, isn’t that what really counts?
I like this idea better than trading Alex Cobb.
This is well written, thought provoking, and entirely conceivable...aside from one small detail:
If Julio Urias gets through 6 innings, he'd likely be seeing the top of the Giants order for the third time in the 7th. We all know Dave Roberts isn't going to let that happen so...if I were in charge, I'd deploy the murder robot in the 4th inning, 5th at the latest.