Tuesday, September 08, 2009

My take

I am disappointed the Giants chose to promote Madison Bumgarner. All the talk of he's not ready or he's not mature enough was clearly garbage. They ahev to be thinking of him being in the rotation next year. They could have called up anyone from AAA if they weren't.

Neither Lou DiBella, Charlie Dowd nor anyone else in the front office/ownership knew about this. Why do I know this? Because they have zero say in baseball operations.

To blame people not involved makes no sense.

Bumgarner got the call Monday -- not a bad Labor Day surprise. He won't be back this series against New Britain, and he won't be back for the league championship.

Let's separate emotion from reason here: You here Steve Decker say this all the time, the minors are about player development first. Winning comes second. If you are able to kill two birds with one stone, great. But the needs, both short- and long-term of the San Francisco Giants matters most.

Does losing Bumgarner cost the Defenders the first round? No. It means the series goes four, maybe the full five games. They still win. The lineup is intact and if you hadn't noticed, the Rock Cats were decimated by players taken for the World Cup.

Does losing Bumgarner cost the Defenders the league title? It could. There is no room for error on the part of the starters against either Akron or Reading. If it makes you feel better, Kyle Drabek has been shut down for the rest of the year by the Phillies, so both teams are down an ace.

This is where I am disappointed most -- for the Defenders fans.

Since the Yankees left in 2002, the fans here have been craving a winner. Last year, the team had the makings of something special. Several of the guys from that team said this year that when the Giants promoted Pablo Sandoval and Ryan Rohlinger at the start of a four-game series at Portland (which was up 2 games on Connecticut), it took the wind out of the team's sails.

Everyone knew Pablo was ready. Rollie sat on the bench -- so why promote him? He would have made a difference.

This year, the fans got a taste -- making the playoffs, winning the division title by a wide margin. Now, the feeling si with Bumgarner gone, it's been taken away.

Folks, he's just one guy. And one guy who played every six days. There is a lot of talent on this team and they can win the league championship. If this is the end, don't abandon ship now.

Don't turn your backs on Brandon Crawford or Ben Snyder or Joe Paterson or Craig Whitaker or Tyler LaTorre or Mitch Lively or Bobby Felmy or Mike Mooney or Jackson Williams or Geivy Garcia or Brock Bond or Garrett Broshius or Daryl Maday or Shane Kaufman or Brad Boyer or Mike McBryde or Eddy Martinez-Esteve or Matt Yourkin or Josh Phelps (who is on the roster) or Ramon Castro or Steve Calicutt or Alex Hinshaw (who is back) or Bryan Millikan or Brett Pill or Wilmin Rodriguez or Craig Clark or Dan Griffin.

The point of my listing these names is that you cheered for them for five months and now, because one guy is gone, it's doom and gloom. As much as I appreciate what Bumgarner can do, he's not babe Ruth. Don't forget there are other guys on the field.

There are no less than two games left at Dodd Stadium. At the most, five. Make them the most memorable games ever.

5 comments:

greg8370 said...

Hinshaw back is news as is Phelps still being on the roster. It will be interesting to see how the team responds to losing MadBum. The hitting lineup is intact. Some teams can use it as a rally point.
As you point out it is just one guy but this stings at lot being on the eve of the playoffs and I'll probably be over this by Wednesday at 6:35PM but losing your ace in a short series is never a good thing.
Giants totally drive me up a wall, thank God I'm a Yankee fan.

thehondohurricane said...

OK. I know Lou wasn't involved in this in anyway, but there's not much time left to dump on him either. Yeah and I've heard all my life the minors are there to serve the bigs. That being said, I will never believe the Giants couldn't have alerted the team earlier. If they had, would GB and Garcia pitch the innings they did on Monday?

And how about sending someone from Fresno as a replacement, like Joey? Considereng Maday's recent outings, it's almost giving game 2 away.

In any short series in BB, it usually comes down to pitching. Yeah, the offense is intact, but the rotation is screwed up beyond belief with Monday's aforesaid pitcher's not available.

No one knows how many games are left at Dodd, but we do know it's between two and five. All I would ask for is they be competitive. I'm not confident that will happen after losing Bumgarner and GB for Games 1 and 2.

Joe said...

After speaking with Charlie Dowd, he said that to bring someone down, permission has to be granted. You can call guys up from lower levels all you wants. So, that means MiLB had to OK Hinshaw, but probably would have had a problem with say, Kevin Pucetas, for example.

The reasoning is MiLB doesn't want teams stacking one or two affiliates.

With Maday, I've been told he has been pretty ill and only began feeling better Sunday. We will see Thursday.

There are still a couple moves to be made as far as who is or isn't active.

You figure LaTorre, Williams, Pill, Bond, Boyer, Castro, EME, Felmy, Mooney and McBryde are secure. They will probably want one more middle infielder or third baseman. Then they carry 13 arms -- Nine guys in the pen.

Check out my feature on Brock Bond in today's Bulletin or on www.norwichbulletin.com

Kelly said...

It is what it is. I'm going to be positive about this and still have confidence in our Defenders, old and new.

Great article on Brock Bond, Joe. You are so right about him being key to the success of this team. Without him always getting on base, Brett wouldn't have been able to get all of those RBI's! Thanks, Brock!!

Batboymeister said...

And Greg, you should be happy that this will be the Defenders' final season at Dodd, so you can just forget about everything Giants and be more focused on possibly having a Single-A NY-Penn League team in Norwich by a different team affiliate.