Jeff Fletcher | June 30, 2010

Well, Giants fans, you got your wish. Bengie Molina is no more. He was traded to the Rangers tonight, in exchange for reliever Chris Ray and a player to be named.

Is this a good deal for the Giants? I think it probably is, because Molina was really losing it, at the plate and behind it. (Shh, don’t tell the Rangers.) This allows Buster Posey to catch every day, or most every day, so at worst he’ll be getting good preparation to be the everyday catcher in 2011.

It reminds me a little of when the A’s traded Jason Kendall to put Kurt Suzuki behind the plate. That wasn’t an easy transition, though, so beware.

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Jeff Fletcher | June 29, 2010

I just had a little sit-down with Brian Sabean in which he laid out, in fine detail, exactly what he plans to do to fix the Giants between now and the trading deadline. OK, maybe he didn’t quite do that. But he did give me a few hints.

Read the whole story over at FanHouse, but here are a few of the bullet points. (more…)

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Jeff Fletcher | June 25, 2010

Not to interrupt the celebration of a win against the Red Sox and Madison Bumgarner’s impending arrival, but here’s a little Barry Bonds news. My FanHouse colleague A.J. Perez is reporting that the Feds did not challenge a ruling that hurt their perjury case against Bonds. I’m no lawyer, but that seems like a big step toward Bonds staying out of jail.

OK, enough about him.

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Jeff Fletcher | June 25, 2010

There had been a few rumblings when Madison Bumgarner was scratched from Friday’s start at Fresno, and Mychael Urban of CSN Bay Area first went strongly with the fact that MadBum was going to start.

Since then I have been able to confirm it through, of all people, Bumgarner’s dad, Kevin. He actually found me last year through this blog, and we’ve since emailed each other from time to time.

He works as an umpire — not sure at what level — and he said he was in the middle of a game when he got the text from Madison that he was starting on Saturday. Kevin said he can’t make it out to San Francisco to see the game, and he even had to rearrange his schedule just so he could watch it on TV.

I had planned to go to the A’s-Pirates game on Saturday — figured I should make one appearance over there this weekend — but now that’s out. I did kind of want to see those ’70s uniforms, though.

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Jeff Fletcher | June 16, 2010

Wrote a story at FanHouse today about Pablo Sandoval, who is still not where the Giants want him to be, with his approach at the plate or with his conditioning. As for the latter, he looks at least as big this year as he ever has in a Giants uniform, despite all that Operation Panda stuff last year.

Trainer Dave Groeschner wouldn’t tell me how much Sandoval weighs, and Panda wouldn’t fess up either, but Groeschner conceeded that he’s too fat.

“I think he’d like to weigh a little less,” Groeschner said. “We’d like him to weigh a little less, but it’s an ongoing challenge. We’re going to keep staying positive. As long as he keeps working, we’ll stay on him.”

As for the plate discipline thing, I’ve got to admit I’m a little confused. As he went into ’09, I asked everyone “How can a guy be successful if he swings at everything?” I was told, by more than one person, that Sandoval is the rare guy who can do it. I was skeptical, but sure enough, he did it. He hit .330 last year.

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Jeff Fletcher | June 15, 2010

If you’ve paid close attention to the Giants this year, they have proven my point about why Tim Lincecum should not have won the Cy Young last year.

Yes, you read that correctly.

You’ll have to hang with me for a rather lengthy explanation, but the short version is this: One of the reasons that Lincecum edged Chris Carpenter, despite the fact that Carpenter was better at preventing runs and just as good at getting outs, is the fact that the modern stat people said Lincecum’s strikeouts were more indicative of good pitching than Carpenter’s groundouts. The thinking is that a pitcher does all of the work when he gets a strikeout, but when a batter puts a ball in play, the pitcher is at the mercy of luck and the quality of his defense.

I buy the former, but not the latter. Not at all. And if you look at what this year’s Giants have done defensively, you’ll see why.

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Jeff Fletcher | June 14, 2010

After flirting with a comeback for the past two seasons — remember when it seemed inevitable that he’d end up with the A’s in the spring of ’09? — Mark Mulder finally announced his retirement in a story I just published on FanHouse.

It’s not really that big of a deal, because I think everyone had pretty much assumed Mulder to be retired because he pitched only 12 2/3 innings since 2006.

The interesting thing is what Mulder has been doing since finally giving up in baseball in February. He’s playing amateur golf tournaments, and he’s won six times in nine starts.

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