Buh-Bye Baron?

From Inside Bay Area:

A source close to Davis said it's now a 50-50 chance that the Warriors' captain, coming off a season in which he averaged 21.8 points, 7.6 assists and 4.7 rebounds, will not remain beyond next season after various contract offers that were so low as to be practically hurtful.

In short, it's no big deal. The whole issue is nothing but expected posturing by Todd Ramasar, Baron's agent, to maximize Baron's leverage.

A couple of notes:

• No team in the league can afford to take on $17.8 million next season, let alone any amount greater than that.
• Mullin's job is to make sure that the Warriors receive good value for signing a player. At some point, talent doesn't justify the amount of money spent.
• Baron played an 82-game season for the first time since 2001-2002. Just because he stayed healthy and played well for the majority of the time, doesn't mean that he will do so again. It's especially doubtful considering he'll turn 30 and the eternally dubious condition of his legs.
• If Baron indeed decides to opt out, the Warriors will have $28 million under the payroll to play with. That's plenty of room to resign both Biedrins and Monta and go after virtually anyone on the free-agent market. Which is 1000 times superior to last season's market. Just look at the list of potential free-agents:

  Josh Childress, Josh Smith, Emeka Okafor, Luol Deng, JR Smith, Elton Brand, Corey Maggette, Shawn Marion, Stromile Swift, Andre Iguodala, Jose Calderon, Jamario Moon, Antawn Jamison, Gilbert Arenas.

• Don't forget about that $10 million TPE from the Richardson trade. It expires on draft day, but the Warriors could still use it to bring in a player without paying.
  

LOL Giants

This is definitely not mine, but how I wish it was.

The Giants make headlines in the Onion for the second time this year.

Tracking the Slider

I'm thinking about making a weekly feature about Lincecum's slider. What say you?

The first installment:

4/29 vs Rockies (known thereafter as the Gary Darling game):


In this game, Lincecum did not throw as many sliders as compared to the number thrown in his first start against the Cardinals. Out the sliders he did throw, 10 of them were to right-handed batters (the lone pitch was to Todd Helton, a lefty). The slider is becoming quite effective because it breaks down and away from righties. It doesn’t break as much as his curveball, but the extra 4 MPH compensates for downward movement. Once Tim completely masters the slider, I expect that he can easily get lefties out with it, since it breaks down and into a left-handed batter.

More information about Tim’s pitches and movement, among other goodies, on his player card provided by Josh Kalk:

Tim Lincecum's Player Card

Also, to celebrate the anniversary of Tim's arrival at the bigs: sharksrog on McCovey Chronicles has started a discussion about the origin of Tim's middle name, LeRoy. For starters, it's not pronounced LEE-roy. It's Luh-ROY. And, his name originates from "Le Roi," French for "The King." Apt, no?

All hail King Timothy (photo from Yahoo! Sports)

Happy Lincecum Anniversary Day!

More to follow, but here's a gem of a quote from Charlie Manuel:

"I like him. To me, he looks like a little clubhouse guy or batboy with long hair. But he's got a fastball. I wouldn't say he's real pretty, either. They call Cole Hamels 'Hollywood.' I don't think they'll call Lincecum 'Hollywood.'"

Foxes Down an 0-2 Hole

Yup. This happened 5 times tonight.
There's no point mincing words at this stage of the playoffs. Tonight's game was downright embarrassing. Last month's Sharks would not have let a team score 4 straight times without a response, or at least a change in game-play.

Let's see how the Stars won tonight:

[1st 4:23] Mike Ribeiro scores, assisted by Brenden Morrow and Mattias Norstrom. Morrow dominated Christian Ehrhoff behind the net to set up the play.

[3rd 19:28] Brad Richards scores thanks to a horrendous giveaway by Joe Pavelski.

[3rd 16:21] Mike Modano PP goal, assisted by Sergei Zubov and Brad Richards. In context of overly lenient officiating in playoff games, the penalty against Ehrhoff was questionable at best. No excuse for shoddy powerplay defense, though.

[3rd 6:05] Nicklas Hagman scores, assisted by Brad Richards and Loui Eriksson. Yet another case of puck-fumbling.

[3rd 1:15] Niklas Hagman scores an empty-netter, assisted by Brad Richards. Just the cherry on top of a disappointing performance.

Lincecum's Arsenal: The Slider

During spring training, Lincecum announced that he would add the slider to his repertoire. So far, it doesn’t seem like he’s having any trouble throwing it whenever and wherever he wants too.

I thought it would be pretty interesting to track his slider’s progress throughout the season, so I started during Lincecum’s start against the Cardinals at home. It wouldn’t be surprising if he got smacked around a bit since the slider is a new pitch for him, but the early success he’s had with it speaks volumes about his skill level.

I only have his starts against the Cardinals, but I'll put up the numbers for his previous starts and the one against the Padres.

4/13 @ STL:



4/19 vs STL:

Ring-Around-the-Shortstop

Okay, let's take the SAT's.

Which of these two players would you like to have on your major-league baseball team?

A. .220/.293/.328
B. .258/.281/.306

The correct answer: C. Neither!

Player A is Bocock. Those are his stats from High-A San Jose. I don't think it's the best idea to put a guy who is clearly struggling in the minors on a major-league team to get wrecked by big-league pitchers. Bocock's shown patience at the plate, which I applaud him for, but his stint with the Giants his only going to stunt his development.

Player B is Burriss. If those were his stats from a full season in the majors, then what the hey, give him a starting spot. Unfortunately, those are his AAA stats from about 60 AB's. Keep in mind that this is the same guy who had to be sent back from High-A to Single-A Augusta because he batted .165/.237/.180. He has miles to go as a hitter and should be getting playing time everyday. Now that he is up here, the playing time he would have received in Fresno is essentially halved. That's not good for his nor Bocock's development.

* I realize I'm a tad late with these news.