Giants Preview

A few days before the Giant's get going, I'd like to give my own preview on the Giant's starting lineup. In general here are my thoughts on the team. I like the people they have, but they are far from a world class team. The more I think about it, the more I agree with SI's decision to rank the Giant's last. They will also have to deal with a much stronger division that includes 2 of the best farm systems in baseball that (*surprise*) happen to be two of the favorites in division. This could be a long year.

C: Molina: It will be nice to have a solid starting catcher again after a long time. Watching the team last year, I can understand why the pitches would not be so hot on throwing to Alfonso who clearly has some things to work on defensively. I like this signing.

1B: The Giant's haven't had a legit offensive first baseman in a long time and this season probably isn't going to be any different. Aurilia and Klesko should be about as good as the guys they had there last year. Both players can play several positions, which will be very nice for flexibility. Having a 40 HR 1B is going to wait a few years.

2B: I like having Durham back, but it is probably too much to ask to make him hit 4th. He's out of position in the lineup because of the lack of power in RF, 1B and 3B. Frandsen, in spite of being from my high school needs to prove to me he can hit major league pitching.

SS: Visquel is a good fit on this team. Finally a guy that has a high OBP and makes the most of his physical ability.

3B: Feliz is who he is. I think fans are too hard on him, he doesn't walk, but he is one a few Giants that can hit with power. He isn't going to change. The real issue here is the fact that he's the best position player to come out of the Giants farm system in a long time and the Giants really don't have anyone better than him. Who, Frandsen?

LF: A lot has been written about the Giant's over paying for Bonds, but again, since Soriano didn't want to take their money, who is better than Bond's. Linden could get 300 ABs since he'll play about 3 innings a night and get 2 starts a week.j

CF: I'm not a big Roberts guy. He is a kind of one year wonder and I watched him for too long with the Dodgers when he could do little other than steal bases. Signing an old centerfielder who's best skill is stealing bases to a long contract has me concerned about its value at the end of his deal.

RF: I never liked the idea of giving Winn 8M per year after being a one month wonder. His career numbers are very average. He is going to be a below average right fielder with no power. The Giant's had similar issues with Alou, who like Winn is best suited as a LF, but is forced to play a tough AT&T park right field because our LF is a big liability.

Natural Bridges State Beach

Yesterday I went to Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz with Nazia. I'd been here several times as a kid, but almost exclusively in the summer or when the monarchs butterflies were present. I remember seeing eucalyptus trees just covered in butterflies and it is quite a site to behold. If you are ever in the area in the winter, you'll have to check them out.

We went to the tidal pools and they were quite spectacular. Because of no small miracle, the tide was almost completely out when we got there. The rocks were carpeted with mussels and we were able to walk up to some very deep tide pools. There were several starfish of different colors along with many large sea anemones. I didn't see any crabs, but I do remember seeing a lot of hermit crabs as a kid.

The most impressive part of the beach was the various flowers that were out in March. The cliffs were covered in a green hairy moss as well as a thick green ice-plant with purple and pink flowers. There were also large bunches of purple flower on the sides of the cliffs, making them spectacular. The sandstone cliffs also had some amazing rock shading.

In spite of being quite cold and windy, this trip reminded me that I need to get out of buildings more!

Giants and Bruins and Finance, oh my!

Ok, it is now time to figure out what to do with this blog. I think I want to have some kind of focus, not be too random like Gene's blog (www.posicorp.com/blog), yet not tie this down to one topic, such as Giant's baseball. I think I'll plan on discussing significant things that happen in my life as well as my thoughts on topics in the news.

As tax season has induced me into thinking about financial planning, I'm reading a very though provoking book, The Millionaire Next Door. It came out about ten years ago and talks about the revealing truth that there are two sides to the wealth equation, how much money you make and how much you spend. A lot of the people that society wants you to think are rich are really just people that spend too much. Its worth checking out, but you basically get the whole plot summary from the introduction and first chapter.

The Bruins made the Final 4 for the second year in a row. That is quite an achivement. The tournament is getting a lot harder and winning 4 games against top competition is not an easy task. They are playing really well right now. It will be interesting to see how they match up against either a very solid Oregon team or a rematch against a Florida team that handed them their lunch last year.

So I was a bit surprised to find that SI's preseason baseball rankings put the Giants at 21 out of the 30 teams in the game. It seemed a big low as I don't really see them as a team that is worse than the Rockies. They have the problem of being in a division with some very good teams, so it could be a struggle to compete. In my view, the Giants really don't have enough pitching or offense to be competative in the West and all the reports I've read indicated that some of the best farm systems in baseball are in the NL West with the Dodgers and Diamondbacks having two of the better ones.

I plan on devoting a post to talking about the Giant's pitching issues in the future. I'll also try to add my views on the 25 man roster as that is set.

New Blog Format

Its been a long time since I've written a blog, mostly because of the fact that the old way of blogging did not scale well at all. I'm not sure how interested people were on in my blogs about how much Tyler Walker stinks.

I also previously didn't have web hosting, but hopefully that issue is now solved by the fact that I bought a domain and that I have a dedicated webserver now.

I hope future posts are more informative and inspire you to become a better person, but this one is mostly for testing! See you all back here soon!