Jeff Fletcher | May 20, 2011

My loyal blog followers may have wondered what’s happened to me over the past week. Well, I’ve been absent for a good reason. I’ve been spending my time figuring out my new job: editor of the Giants and A’s magazines.

I’m pretty happy about the opportunity to continue working in the baseball media (I was afraid I might have to go work at Starbucks) and to keep doing so in the Bay Area, covering teams I know very well. I’m looking forward to doing something just different enough to be a challenge, but just similar enough to be comfortable.

If you haven’t checked out the magazines at the ballpark or in the team stores — you can even subscribe to the Giants here and the A’s here — you should do it. There’s stuff in them that you won’t find anywhere else. The cover story in the June Giants Magazine, on Madison Bumgarner, is especially good. Oh, and that Josh Willingham story on the cover of the May A’s Magazine is also excellent. (See what I did there? I wrote those.)

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “That’s great, Jeff, but what about this blog? And what about your Twitter account? We don’t want to have to wait a month to see what you have to say about the Giants and A’s!”

Well, no promises.

I will still be watching lots of Giants and A’s games and going to the ballpark regularly to work on stories for the magazines, but I can’t promise I’ll be blogging or tweeting as frequently. Also, I am now in a partnership with the Giants and A’s, so you’re all smart enough to know what that means.

Thanks to all of you who have supported me and followed me during my between-jobs limbo. Don’t stray too far. Never know when I’ll be there again.

Oh, you should also be sure to check me out tonight on Chronicle Live. They’ll be cutting away from their wall-to-wall Sharks coverage for a little baseball. My segment is supposed to be at 5:45. I’ll be checking in from AT&T Park, where the Giants and A’s will be beginning their interleague series.

Category: A's, Giants | 4 Comments »
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Jeff Fletcher | May 11, 2011

Expanding on a little on a point I tried to make in 140-character … chunks while most of you were sleeping…

It was a pretty easy storyline to draw last night. The Giants opted to keep Darren Ford on the roster instead of Manny Burriss or Ryan Rohlinger. Then, a few hours later, there was Ford coming out to pinch-run, easily stealing second and scoring the winning run from second on a “single.”

Brilliant!

To which I say, no so fast (pun intended).

Ford absolutely provides something to the Giants with his speed. He is the fastest guy on the roster, and he can definitely do things that no one else on the roster can do. However, I think it’s easy to get carried away with the value he provides in relation to the roster spot he occupies.

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Jeff Fletcher | May 9, 2011

Just watched MLB Network’s latest in the 20 Greatest Games series, Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, which was No. 2. (No. 1 will be Game 6 of the 1975 Series, on later this month.) I … freakin … love … these … shows. At the risk of sounding like a shill for the house organ, which MLB Network is, I have to admit that these programs are exceptionally well-done and quite entertaining.

Inspired by this program, I decided to come up with my list of the top 10 games that I’ve covered in my career, which dates back to 1997. Putting them all in one post doesn’t give me the ability to be suspenseful with a countdown, so I’ll start at the top.

1. 2003 NL Division Series, Game 4, Giants vs. Marlins

The Marlins won, 7-6, to win the series, with J.T. Snow getting thrown out at the plate to end the game. It’s easy to start here. In fact, this was No. 19 on the MLB Network list.I didn’t get a chance to see the MLB Network show on this game, so I’m hoping the series will eventually be available on iTunes or I can catch it when they show it again. You can see a brief synopsis here.

A lot of stuff was going on here before the game even began. The Giants lost a heart-breaker in Game 3, thanks to Jose Cruz Jr. (who won the Gold Glove that year) dropping a fly ball. That set up a debate as to whether the Giants should bring back Jason Schmidt on three days rest to start a do-or-die Game 4, or if rookie Jerome Williams should go, saving Schmidt for Game 5. In one of the defining moments of Felipe Alou as a manager, he flat-out told the media that “Schmitty said he couldn’t go.” Ouch. Jason, meet the bottom of the bus. Alou never cared much about babying his players or looking out for their feelings. He was old school, in that way.

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Jeff Fletcher | May 9, 2011

Taking a brief timeout from baseball here to talk some Sharks fans off the ledge. Yes, the Sharks really blew a golden opportunity by losing Game 5 at home, but I wouldn’t worry too much. They are still in firm control of this series. Although you all may be worried about momentum and history and baggage and all those other ghastly thoughts that plague fans, I can assure you that professional athetes don’t think that way.

A few hundred best-of-seven playoff series tell me that.

If you aren’t familiar with the site whowins.com, you should check it out. It slices and dices best-of-seven postseason series in MLB, NBA and NHL to show how various playoff scenarios have played out.

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Jeff Fletcher | May 8, 2011

I happened to be otherwise occupied throughout the entire time that Justin Verlander was working on his no-hitter Saturday, so I missed it all till after it was over. Fortunately, MLB.tv had compressed the game in a handy little package that showed all 27 of his outs, one after the other, in about five minutes. So I watched the whole thing, and as I did I couldn’t help but notice an awful lot of really weak contact. Verlander only had four strikeouts, but there were lots of easy popups and grounders.

And that made me think, once again, about one of my pet issues with a segment of the baseball community. I’ll just call ‘em the FIP People. It’s not just those who value Fielding Independent Pitching, but all of those who still believe in the underlying premise of FIP, which is that pitchers have no control over anything but walks, strikeouts and homers.

Giants and A’s fans, you’ll want to hang with me here, because this comes up with guys like Matt Cain and Trevor Cahill, who foolishly allow batters to put the ball in play rather than striking them all out.

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