The Idiot Report

Your AARP Giants

Dec 22, 2008 Sports

Come for the early bird dinners

The San Francisco Giants haven’t won a World Series since moving to the city in 1958 and they haven’t had a winning season in the past 4 years.  That doesn’t make them idiots though.  There are more worse teams out there…cough! Pirates! ack! Orioles!  It’s the fact that the Giants have made some idiotic decisions in the past few years that will keep them crappy for a while.  Let’s take their minor league system, which hasn’t produced anybody good, with the exception of pitcher phenom Tim Lincecum.

In 2007, the Giants got duped by superagent (and douche to many) Scott Boras and signed a 7-year contract with pitcher Barry Zito for $126 million.  It was the highest paid contract for a pitcher at that time.  Zito wasn’t even that great of a pitcher.  Durable and dependable, he had one Cy Young award season in 2002.  His stats were slightly inflated because he played in a pitchers’ park for most of his career.  Yet, the Giants thought he was worth $126 million.  Unfortunately, once Zito signed that humongous contract, he blew up.  His pitching mechanics changed; his velocity went down.  He was so bad this past season, he had to be moved off the starting rotation into a relief role.  This made the Zito the most expensive relief pitcher ever.  Who knows what will happen to him in 2009.

The Giants also have the stigma of being a team of old players.  I think this stigma started in 2002, when the Giants went to the World Series.  Baseball fans saw a team of old starters.  Benito Santiago and Barry Bonds were 37 years old.  Shawon Dunston was 39 years old!  Only one starting fielder, David Bell, was under the age of 30.  After losing the 2002 World Series, the Giants continued signing old players, like Omar Vizquel, who signed in 2003 at the age of 38.  They just signed Edgar Renteria to replace Vizquel, who is a little younger at the age of 33, but is only an average player.  The most upsurd news from the Giants recently is the rumor that the team will sign pitcher Randy Johnson, who is at the toasty age of 45!  Idiots.

Photo by cfarivar, (CC)-by-nc-sa

Tags: aarp, barry zito, baseball, giants, old, san francisco