Are you overreacting like me?

Yeah, I mean, I think that it could be a situation where, in hindsight, you look back and say, all right, that was kind of the time to pull the trigger.

But I feel like Buster probably figured that it's such a rudderless ship anyway, and you need someone who the team respects.

who wants to be a leader in that role or else you're completely rudderless entirely.

Now, I understand the other argument of, hey, you're on your way to a 95-loss season, so what's the difference? But I do get holding on to him, just not wanting there to be absolutely zero next year to have as a foundation in terms of leadership.

I think that the knee injury that he had a while back is something that probably is playing into this just a little bit.

You know, and he's had some bad luck in some games with base hits.

That's what I keep on coming back to.

Are you are you overreacting like me?

Yeah, I mean, I think that it could be a situation where, in hindsight, you look back and say, all right, that was kind of the time to pull the trigger.

But I feel like Buster probably figured that it's such a rudderless ship anyway, and you need someone who the team respects.

who wants to be a leader in that role or else you're completely rudderless entirely.

Now, I understand the other argument of, hey, you're on your way to 95 lost seasons, so what's the difference? But I do get holding on to him, just not wanting there to be absolutely zero next year to have as a foundation in terms of leadership.

I think that the knee injury that he had a while back, is something that probably is playing into this just a little bit.

He's had some bad luck in some games with base hits.

That's what I keep on coming back to.

So how long does this international expansion keep on going with the NFL?

Yeah, I think that it's going to be more on a team-by-team basis in terms of the complaints.

And we know that this 49ers team is not above complaining about their situation in terms of travel.

Remember the Super Bowl when they were in Las Vegas and they got the lesser practice facility because they were the road team.

And there were some mumblings that Dre Greenlaw's injury – You know, he's dealing with, I guess, some sort of either cap or Achilles tendonitis kind of leading into the game.

That weird playing service that they were at at UNLV contributed to him tearing it during the Super Bowl, which I think, you know, sort of like...

the Draymond Green suspension in 2016 in the finals, like one of those deals where fans will go, you know what, if that didn't happen, we actually probably win the championship that year.

Regardless of what happens with this next baseball season, whenever the next baseball season is played, do you think the Giants are going to take steps to try and make amends with the greater Bay Area culture that is their fan base?

Mm-hmm.

They say that sleep experts tell them that it's better just to sleep in that hotel and then fly back the next morning, whereas they didn't used to do that before.

Is that really helped the NBA in terms of injuries? I'm not so sure.

Definitely not with Achilles tears, but that could be based on a whole other set of circumstances.

And the Forty-Niners have changed a lot of their stuff in terms of travel in recent years too.

I mean, remember they go to the Greenbrier in West Virginia whenever they had a two-week road trip, uh, y-you know, Midwest, East Coast, and the players don't really like it at all because they're away from home so long.

And I think they're actually, the Niners sometimes are, are kinda rethinking some of that, maybe not staying at least at that hotel anymore.

Mm-hmm

the torso.

Yeah, it was one of the wilder situations, obviously.

And thank goodness he came out of it okay.

But, you know, this might sound awful.

I guess it's okay now because Ricky Pearsall ended up being all right.

But that is sort of a very 49ers kind of thing to happen, it seems like, over the years.

They somehow – I guess you can have the exception of a couple seasons.

But that's not the point.

Yeah.

W- what team ...

I mean, Chapman's probably gonna be out for the season.

Uh, Devers' contract is really, really long and, uh, obviously has all that money involved as well.

Adames not really having a very good season, dealing with a back problem.

His defense hasn't been that great.

So what team is gonna come over and say, "Hey, you know what? Th- this guy who's an albatross on your roster and making a ton of money and not playing well or not playing at all, w- let's give you some good prospects for this guy who's gonna cost us a ton of money." You know? Un- unless the Giants were gonna pay down well over 50% of any of those contracts, nothing was gonna happen.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And that's just the incongruity of it is very tough for fans to deal with, and it's probably tough for Buster to deal with as well, and he's probably so focused on what's going on with building up the farm system and making sure the roster, they could, they could fix something on the fly without throwing a ton of money at pitchers, and then these sort of things catch up to you really quickly, 'cause these things can turn super fast.

E- I mean, even something as silly as the outfield celebrations, I don't think that they were prepared for that either to become a thing that was viral for a, for a few days.

And all of a sudden they're like, "Okay, well, I guess we have to put the kibosh on this." Obviously the, the, the Pride Night thing was a, a complete mess and the- something that you could tell they did not want to deal with and hoped that they could sweep it under the rug.

But th- the whole deal just seems like they're unprepared, and I think that experience, lack of experience brings preparedness.

So it just seems like there's a lack of experience, and it seems like they're really just dead set focused on getting this farm system going, and their farm system is full of teams that have winning records and, you know, a bunch of prospects that are looking good, that generally over the past decade it seems like they're always in the bottom five in terms of-

[laughs]

[laughs] What, what, what team is, uh, you know, sending scouts over to Giants games to, to see what Sam Hankins is doing or, you know, Caleb Killian? I don't really think that that's something that they have really in the coffer.

Like before, you maybe felt like they would have a chance, but it's like, no, the later you get into the year and the more you have these protracted losing streaks, this is just going to get worse and worse.

Yeah, and I ask, is Vitello having any fun? It seems like he's not.

And that was sort of a mark of him as a college coach.

And I think a lot of what Posey saw and wanted to bring to his team was some energy and fire and guys who looked like they were having a great time out there.

And Vitello doesn't really seem like he is.

And of course you'd never do when you're losing.

So that's obvious, but you kind of wonder, is this going to be sort of a Tom Sula situation where they, you know, they looked at the established coach and, or manager and said, okay, well, this isn't working for whatever reason.

And it was like, why did the Giants not make that jump after winning three and five in a packed house to being like the Yankees or spending like the Blue Jays or being that perceptive top dog in the league? Why did that transition never occur?

And I know it's never just a magic fix, but boy, it looks like it would have at least plugged a few holes.

Yeah, I think you can point at a lot of things if you're Buster Posey and Zach Manassian and you feel like making excuses because they've been snaked in on a few things.

granted they didn't put together the best set of pictures of all time.

I think everyone who knew anything about baseball looked at that bullpen at the beginning of the season and thought, okay, you didn't do anything more than that.

And obviously the backend of the rotation, they, they went for more of a buy low candidates instead of a guy that you can actually count on every fifth day to be, you know, pretty darn good.

But you know, Logan Webb getting hurt obviously was a killer.

Matt Chapman right now is making you forget that he couldn't do anything at the plate for months.

What about the prince who was promised in Jung-Hoo Lee finally looking like the guy that we always hoped he would be?

[laughs]

Uh, they, they should've been after that eighth inning.

Uh, it, it seemed to me that it, it seemed pretty transparent that they went into that game, that specific game, knowing that everyone has been making fun of them about never stealing bases and being the most, you know, just sedentary team in the league in terms of just never moving on the base paths whatsoever.

We're gonna be aggressive today.

And, uh, it, it made some sense that, you know, Arias stole a base earlier in the game.

Uh, Casey Schmitt stole a base earlier in the game, and they were just gonna push it.

They're gonna push it on the base paths, which in theory makes sense.

Yeah

But I think fans would be more understanding than they give them credit for.

I do agree.

I think the modern fan is more attuned to a rebuild being a good thing But I think that what they feel like is they've already done some sort of that stuff behind the scenes.

Their farm system actually has been climbing in terms of the rankings a little bit more than you would expect just based on the international signings, and they're going to get a pretty nice little bevy of draft picks here.

So I think they feel like they could do that behind the scenes without saying they're doing a rebuild because when you're saying you're doing a rebuild and you're charging premium prices, it's a little tough.

Yeah.

They also, I think, are a little bit gun-shy because of the whole COVID thing.

But it actually feels like from a certain point of view, you could be saying that they're already giving fans a reason to not come back after the lockout.