DBacks Broadcast Made it Real
I’m listening to the DBacks Broadcast of the game tonight and two things are clear. They don’t have as good of an understanding of the Giants as Kruk and Kuip do of other teams. And secondly, they portrayed the Giants as just struggling in just about every way that isn’t named Arraez, and they are right. They described a Giants team last night as playing like they’re “8 games back with two weeks left to play”. I do not feel like I’ve ever been a doomer, but I was also not particularly optimistic going into this season. Nonetheless, this is a stretch of .500 or below teams. A’s, DBacks, Chisox, DBacks, Rockies before playing the Brewers, Cubs x2, and Braves x2 in June. If they don’t make a run right now there’s no way they make up ground in the summer. This is the last two weeks of the season. And they are 8 games back. Welp.
I will absolutely not pretend that I didn’t celebrate the Chapman extension and even considered getting his jersey. A team leader with a platinum glove? I’ve always had a soft spot for glove-first infielders. And the bat was a bonus. Willie was objectively the best shortstop on the market that year with Kim’s injury. And the energy is infectious. And even with Harrison’s success (which I root for) and Tibbs’s (which I do NOT root for), I don’t know how you don’t make the Rafi deal. Honestly I think that despite his personal revival, signing Arraez was the biggest mistake of these decisions. I don’t think anyone foresaw THIS version of Schmitt; but I thought he was fine and could hold down the job, and would rather have spent that money on the arms. But regardless, thinking about Bryce’s development (which has to be a primary goal the rest of this season, no matter how they plays that out), and considering the talent they have coming up, they should never had locked in 3/4 of the infield spots.
So the question becomes: if you could undo one of those big contracts, which do you take back?