- 2 days ago
Willard and Dibs discuss the first half of the Giants season and explain why they get an 'F.' Do you agree with their assessment?
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00:00We continue to talk things out. All-star break for the Giants, taking stock of what has been just an
00:06awful year.
00:07And then obviously the Warriors offseason, Summer League, and the chase for LeBron continues.
00:12It was kind of funny. I went on KGO this morning.
00:15Oh, look at you.
00:18I actually did it from right down there. I just went and sat on that couch right down there.
00:22Did a little Zoom with KGO.
00:25They had booked me for this two months ago.
00:28And they're like, we want to have you on on July 13th.
00:31So much so that I almost forgot because it was two months ago.
00:34But anyway, they're like, that's going to be the start of the all-star break.
00:40And we would love to kind of talk to you to take stock of what has happened with the first,
00:46air quotes, half, even though it's well over half, of the Giants season.
00:49I said, sure, let's talk about it.
00:51But at the time, when they booked it, things were not good, but, like, they weren't all as lost yet.
00:59And so I was not talking about this the way I thought I was going to be talking about this.
01:05And they had all of their questions prepared and everything.
01:08And Amanda, who was wonderful, with her second question goes, all right, what grade do you give them for the
01:15first half?
01:16Oh, the old grade.
01:17What do you think I said?
01:18Well, knowing you as a teacher, you probably gave them an A because everybody gets an A when you're in
01:24Professor Willard's class.
01:25If you just try, if you just, and I'm doing my Sally Struthers, if you could just give 43 cents
01:31and turn in all your assignments, you too can get an A in Professor Willard's class.
01:38Am I done?
01:39Yes, I'm done.
01:40You gave them a D, Mark.
01:42You gave them a flat D.
01:45F?
01:47D minus?
01:49F.
01:49You gave them an F?
01:50Easy.
01:51You put that.
01:52F.
01:53You put the F in SF Giants?
01:56Okay.
01:56I give them an F.
01:57I like my Sally Struthers, but of course.
01:59It's fantastic.
02:00For just 51 cents.
02:02It was also probing, but anyway, it's an F, and I'd love for you to explain why you would think
02:09I would give them a D.
02:11In other words, what evidence, what thing could I point to that, and again, we're talking about the Giants.
02:18We don't just get to go, well, Casey's good.
02:20No, no, no, the Giants, the VAR Pox, the Giants, what would have prevented me from giving them an F?
02:32Well, I mean, they brought up Bryce Eldridge, and I thought they handled that beautifully.
02:39Are we doing a serious segment?
02:41Because I can go back to serious mode.
02:43We can do whatever you want.
02:44It's an F minus, damn it.
02:46Which doesn't exist.
02:48I do think that Louisa Rize has become phenomenal.
02:52Casey Schmidt, bright spot.
02:54He's been great.
02:56Logan Webb, been up and down.
03:00He had a great gym.
03:01I mean, the sack.
03:04We loved the sack early.
03:06Been hurt a lot.
03:07Yeah.
03:07I just think that if I look at the totality of what they've done, it's been a disaster, and they're
03:14one of the worst teams in baseball.
03:15They're barely ahead of Colorado.
03:17They had to take three or four from the Rockies to stay ahead of the Rockies.
03:21So I'm not going to dispute your F.
03:23I just thought you would have looked at some of the bright spots.
03:26Jung-Hoo Lee, who had a monster, like, two-month run.
03:30Right.
03:30I thought that would have elevated it to a D.
03:33Listen, I get where you're coming from, but, like, what is the point of a bright spot if it doesn't
03:38lead to a larger thing?
03:40So, in other words, I don't let the Giants off the hook just because certain people wearing Giants uniforms are
03:48playing well.
03:49Casey Schmidt doesn't get an F.
03:51Right.
03:51Louisa Rize doesn't get an F.
03:53Or Jung-Hoo Lee.
03:54Jung-Hoo Lee doesn't get an F.
03:56And there are others who wouldn't get an F.
03:58Even Rafi Devers doesn't get an F.
04:01Logan Webb and Robbie Ray don't get an F.
04:03But the Giants get an F.
04:05You are 41-55.
04:07You are miscast.
04:09You have had one, two, three, four sort of embarrassing moments.
04:15Right?
04:16You've got pitchers who didn't know their pitch count.
04:18You've got bullpen arms that didn't know they were supposed to be up.
04:20You've got the Pride Night situation that has unfolded.
04:24You've got your best pitcher getting into arguments on social media.
04:29All of these things.
04:30The shortstop not knowing how many outs there are.
04:32And then followed by other people not knowing how many outs there are.
04:36Followed by other people not knowing how many outs there are when they're on the base pads.
04:42These things, you never put a bullpen together.
04:45And then when it was obvious that you hadn't, you sat there and let those bad bullpen people continue to
04:51be your bullpen people.
04:52I don't know from a bigger picture standpoint what it is I can point to right now other than saying
04:59there are a few individuals I like.
05:01But all that means is the future?
05:05I mean, that's really like Casey Schmidt hitting the ball all over the place and having 19 homers at the
05:10break.
05:11That almost makes me even more upset as a Giants fan.
05:14It got wasted.
05:15Right.
05:16It got wasted.
05:17You have a – if you really look at the metrics, though they were so bad for the first month,
05:22the Giants actually have a pretty good lineup.
05:24They're a pretty good lineup.
05:25And they're wasting it because they've got no pitching.
05:28Yeah.
05:28None.
05:30So that's an F.
05:31I get it.
05:32And, I mean, if you look at the record, and I'm just a little bit surprised because you and I
05:36have had a longstanding debate about process versus results.
05:40And it feels like you are a results guy when you give them an F because the process is what
05:47actually has gone on.
05:48And it hasn't been all bad, but the result has been an F.
05:51I think the process has been more of a D.
05:54You do?
05:55Yeah.
05:55What about the process has been good?
05:57Well, you've had –
05:58I don't like the process at all.
05:59Well, the process has been you've had some players who have actually gone out there and started to, after 90
06:05or so games, play to their level.
06:08Casey Schmidt's been good.
06:10Arise has been an unmitigated success.
06:13And so I do think that the pieces individually have been better than the overall result of the team.
06:19Okay.
06:19I guess that's my point.
06:20Yeah.
06:21Okay.
06:21888-957-9570.
06:23More on that in a second.
06:24Jesse in Brisbane.
06:24Hi, Jesse.
06:25Thanks for calling.
06:26What's up?
06:27Oh, okay.
06:28Jesse just dropped off.
06:30888-957-9570, the number, if you want to get in on this.
06:34Listen, to me, when I talk about the process, again, I sort of stop myself from going, oh, the process
06:41has been good because Casey Schmidt hits the ball.
06:43The process has been good because Louisa Rice has been good.
06:46To me, the word the process means how did you construct your roster?
06:50And what I'm watching is poor Casey Schmidt hasn't just been a really good hitter.
06:55He's also been thrown all over the diamond.
06:57All over the diamond.
06:59Bryce Eldridge and Rafi Devers, nobody knows who the first baseman is.
07:04You've got your catcher, who's the best defensive catcher in baseball, and a handful of weeks into the season, you're
07:10like, we're dumping him and we're moving on.
07:12And you're like, to who?
07:13And it was kind of like, we're not sure.
07:15Okay, who's in the outfield?
07:17We don't know.
07:18Is Jung Huli moving back to center?
07:20Kind of, but not really.
07:21And then your bullpen.
07:23Your bullpen and your starting rotation were totally misconstructed.
07:28To me, that's your process.
07:31And then your process has to lead to the result.
07:33And both of them, to me, look incredibly flawed.
07:37Yeah, and the process has, to your point, has led to this result.
07:40And I do think that if I want to, like, give Buster Posey a grade, he would get an F.
07:46And the Giants themselves, I don't know if I would go that far because, you know, they've had moments.
07:52And Bryce Eldridge has come up, and he kind of forced his way into the lineup on the regular.
07:57I don't think they handled it right early on, but they kind of figured it out.
08:00He kind of forced them to figure it out.
08:03But in general, if you want to look at the overarching thing, which is what you said, the Giants.
08:08Like, this season for the Giants.
08:11Well, and putting aside the business part of it because they're drawn and they're making money.
08:16And, like, what they're trying to do as a business has probably been better than an F, for sure.
08:21Like, Grogu night and Hello Kitty night.
08:24But I'm just saying, Mark, like, from that standpoint.
08:27But they're doing it for us.
08:29As a fan.
08:30You got Grogu.
08:31I got two Grogu's.
08:32Yeah, you did.
08:33You're damn right you did.
08:34You know what I mean?
08:35Two Grogu's.
08:37Inside.
08:38One house.
08:38Yes, that's right.
08:40Yeah.
08:40They're both in there.
08:41Yeah.
08:41One of them's out of the box.
08:43One of them's still in the box.
08:44That's fine.
08:44You've got to keep it in the box.
08:45You've got to keep it in the box.
08:46Yeah, no doubt.
08:47I'm not putting a Grogu on my desk.
08:49No, but your son might.
08:50He's 12.
08:51Yeah, he did.
08:51He did.
08:51Yes.
08:52His Grogu is out.
08:53You're 12.
08:54Put a Grogu on the desk.
08:55Yeah, my Grogu's in.
08:55Of course.
08:56Yes, and I got the Steph Curry, like the throwback Oakland bobblehead, and that thing's in the box.
09:02Yeah.
09:02And, yeah, keep your hands off it, Myla.
09:05Three-year-old grubby little hands.
09:07Anyway.
09:08Anyhow.
09:09All that does is take money out of the fans' pockets.
09:12Yeah.
09:13I mean, honestly, that's all that does.
09:16Yes, you can still go to the ballpark and have a good time.
09:19Yes, you can still get a Grogu.
09:21Yes, you can watch SpongeBob throughout the first pitch.
09:24That stuff's all wonderful.
09:25I'm not grading on the business acumen of the Giants.
09:30I get that.
09:30They can make a lot of money.
09:31I don't worry about that.
09:33I already know that they will.
09:34We can spend a lot of money.
09:35I don't mind that.
09:37I feel sort of like if you've got the wherewithal to do that, then you're lucky.
09:42And that's great if you can take your family to a ballgame and you can afford that and that's fun
09:46for you.
09:47That's like that to me is all sort of secondary and on a different platform.
09:52I'm looking at the Giants basically from two perspectives.
09:55One, where are you in the standings?
09:57Do you win more games than you lose?
10:00And then two, let's talk about the overall product, the storytelling, if you will, that you're pitching out there to
10:09the fans.
10:09And from not knowing how many outs there are or Rafi Devers shooing teammates back to the dugout.
10:17Catch the bleeping ball.
10:18Or Pride Night or catch the bleeping ball or whatever.
10:22The Giants and just a bullpen that is built to piss people off because they lead the world in, well,
10:29we were ahead in the after eight innings.
10:31But we lost the baseball game anyway.
10:33When you do that, you become difficult to root for.
10:38And that's what I really kind of am so bummed about with the Giants this year.
10:45I think we can all, everybody in our history, if you're a sports fan for life, your teams stink sometimes.
10:51That's the way it goes.
10:52And sometimes they stink when they should be a lot better.
10:56And that's a bummer too.
10:57But in the end, I'm not built to be the kind of fan that literally is like, I don't even
11:04feel like rooting for this group.
11:07And that doesn't go to every individual that's not aimed at everyone.
11:11But collectively, this is a group that at times has felt hard to root for.
11:17And that to me, that's literally the worst thing.
11:20That's the worst thing that a group can be.
11:22I mean, it's apathy, but it's beyond apathy.
11:24It's apathy that is built on, like, an anger, a sports anger over what you're seeing.
11:30And part of it, too, is the defense.
11:32And, you know, the other night where you're facing the Rockies and the opening batter hits a drive to deep
11:39center field.
11:39And Chung-Hoo Lee is trying to figure out how to catch it.
11:42And he does it.
11:42And it bounces.
11:43And he finally retrieves it.
11:44It's an inside the park home run.
11:46And the opening batter, now you're down 1-0.
11:48And not that he has to make the play, but just the amount of defensive sloppiness that you've seen this
11:55year,
11:56whether it's, you know, Casey Schmidt in left field, like, doing a double-take route and falling down and making
12:01the catch
12:02or, you know, throwing the ball over the head of the first baseman.
12:05They've not been buttoned up.
12:07And so you look at the bullpen, sloppy.
12:09Starting pitching, not good enough.
12:12Situational hitting, early on, terrible.
12:16Speed, nonexistent.
12:17Defense, really not great.
12:19And so when you go through all the little micro things that we're so used to seeing, like Giants, pitching
12:25and defense,
12:25you've got three, if not four, if not five good starters, you've got the core four in the pen,
12:31and you're going to go ahead and catch the ball.
12:33You'll catch it and throw it.
12:34You might lose two to one, okay, but you're not going to lose five to two with three unearned runs,
12:40and that's what we've seen this year.
12:42And I want to add one more piece to this, and it's this.
12:46And to me, professional sports teams need to hear this, even though it's very, very difficult.
12:53I may be more so than most in our business.
12:57I try to be pretty patient and understanding with regard to the idea that, look,
13:02these are human beings, and they're trying like hell out there.
13:06It's pro sports, so no, that's not good enough.
13:09But I don't think that anything nefarious is going on.
13:11But there's one other characteristic with the San Francisco Giants that I think has been really hard to stomach,
13:17which is that they've done a poor job.
13:20They have made a mess.
13:21And then when people point to the fact that there is a mess, they get mad.
13:27They get mad.
13:29You get mad at us, Giants.
13:31You're getting mad at us.
13:34You don't want to be called out.
13:35You don't want to be mentioned on social media.
13:40And, like, right now, the two people in your mind are probably Buster Posey and Logan Webb.
13:45Yep.
13:45And they're literally two of my favorite Giants ever.
13:48They do things the right way.
13:50They play the game the right way.
13:52Their focus is in the right spot.
13:53They've been leaders for this franchise for the better part of at least a decade and a half.
13:59And so I will never not have love for these two guys.
14:02But they are at the front of the line in terms of letting their frustrations with what's going on,
14:08which is understandable, bubble over and then start firing back at people who are equally as frustrated with the way
14:15this has gone.
14:16And I just, it's like, dude, I get it.
14:18I get that this is hard.
14:20It probably really sucks to get called out on social media.
14:23But to my thinking, this is what the millions of dollars are for.
14:27This is a multibillion-dollar industry.
14:30Your job is to do well.
14:32And when you don't, part of the gig is to sit there and take the bullets.
14:39And I don't think they've done a good job of that this year.
14:42And you can even add in Rafi Devers, who didn't want to face the media after the finger wag.
14:47And, you know, you mentioned Buster Posey, and he comes out, and he has a press conference after the Pride
14:52Night fiasco,
14:53and he won't take questions about the Pride Night fiasco.
14:56And, you know, Logan Webb on Twitter, it's excusable, but it's not a good look.
15:00And, you know, you excuse it because it's Logan Webb.
15:03And he came out and said, yeah, that's on me.
15:06You know, I reacted, and I shouldn't have, and this and that.
15:09But it's beyond just, like, a couple of these small incidents.
15:12And, you know, this is where I think that Tony Vitello has had a tough time because he speaks his
15:19mind.
15:19And a lot of times he says things that probably should stay in-house.
15:23And he's new at it, and, you know, he's unapologetically him.
15:27And you love that about Tony Vitello.
15:29But at the same time, when you're struggling, sometimes it's better to just, you know, keep things in-house.
15:35Yeah, let's go back out to the phones and go to Kay Bueno in Hayward.
15:40Hey, Kay Bueno, thank you for calling in.
15:42What's up?
15:43For sure.
15:44Hey, thanks for taking my call, guys.
15:45And, Willard, you're 1,000% spot on just overall for the grading the F from the organization.
15:52I think, yeah, there's definitely highlights with the Giants.
15:54But overall, as an organization, top to bottom, F minus, okay?
16:01And, yeah, F minus, really.
16:03But I think, but one thing I wanted to add, and you actually need this perfect segue because you guys
16:07were just talking about it.
16:08Aside from the whole debacle, the organization, just how they've handled just all these different scenarios throughout the season,
16:13for me, what really sucks just as badly is the status of Posey amongst the fan base, it seems like.
16:22I can't speak for everybody, obviously, but, you know, before he became the head of operations, you know,
16:28he was a first ballot Hall of Famer, beloved all-timer as a player, as a catcher.
16:33Everybody loved Buster.
16:35No doubt, first ballot Hall of Famer.
16:37Like, we remember him just, you know, the great runs we had in the 2010s.
16:40Everybody loved Buster.
16:41And then since this season has just kind of, like, fallen apart, it just feels like the fan base is
16:48now kind of split.
16:50You know, we have people who are still, who still love him.
16:53But then, as you just referred to before, just recently here, just the way he's handling himself as a director
17:00of baseball operations
17:01has just caused a, just hit people the wrong way.
17:04It's like, now you got people that are like, man, screw this guy.
17:07Right.
17:07It sucks because I got love for Buster Posey.
17:09He's always going to be an all-time great for us.
17:12But now we're seeing this whole other side.
17:14And it's like, man, I don't know.
17:16I mean, it just seems like there's such a huge extreme of emotions when we're looking at it,
17:22not just the Giants, but also looking at the guy who was the face of our franchise for so long
17:26and who's now representing the front office.
17:29Forget the ownership, but look at that Buster specifically.
17:31He seems like kind of a tragic downfall of his status as a member of the Giants.
17:36Yeah, it's an interesting thought.
17:38Kay Bueno, thanks.
17:39I mean, to me, it's an immovable object.
17:42Buster Posey's legacy here is firmly intact.
17:45I don't think anything is ever going to change that.
17:48But to me, what I want to see, and again, this is a piece of why I'd love to see
17:52Vitello back
17:52and Buster Posey back.
17:54I just, I'm interested to see if these guys can have a part two.
17:58I want to see how they can react in a better way to what has been a really awful season.
18:05But in general, and maybe this is a bad analogy, we've all had arguments with family members
18:11where after a little downtime, we realized we were wrong.
18:15How does it go with your family when you realize you're wrong and then you go to their room
18:20to talk to them and then they express to you, like, I'm really mad at you.
18:24I'm really pissed at the way you just did this.
18:27And then you look at them and you're like, you can't be mad at me.
18:30You're not allowed to be mad at me.
18:32Don't you dare get mad at me.
18:33And it's like, wait a minute, like, you made a mistake.
18:37The Giants have made a mess of this season.
18:40You don't get to tell people to not be mad.
18:44And that's been the vibe.
18:46Even if it's, as Kay Bueno said, even if it's just Buster going, I don't want to talk about this.
18:51It's like you got to come from a place that's almost a little bit more, damn, like for lack
18:57of a better word, apologetic.
18:59For sure.
18:59And they don't need to say they're sorry, but you can't, I just don't like aggression
19:05when, like, your guys are the ones that made this mess.
19:08Well, especially when you're dealing with the paradigm of customers and a business.
19:12So you're a customer and you're not happy with what's going on with this business.
19:16And then, you know, the owner of the restaurant comes out and says, yeah, why are you so mad?
19:21Like, you know, we served you food.
19:23It's like, it's not what I ordered.
19:25There's a bug in the soup.
19:25Exactly.
19:26It's not, it's not the way I wanted it.
19:27And so, you know, if you come out with that level of aggression, then people aren't going
19:31to want to go out there and continue to support you.
19:34And, you know, fortunately for the Giants, that hasn't been the case yet this year.
19:37But if you wind up this year going 65 and 97, and then you bring everyone back again next
19:45year, I don't know if that's going to be good enough for the customers.
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