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00:00The one question I wanted to ask and didn't get a chance to
00:06was how does he feel
00:10in terms of how the ballpark affects
00:13free agent pursuits on offense?
00:16Especially as somebody who used to hit the ball there.
00:19I wonder, you know, because Dave Fleming suggested to us,
00:22I don't know, maybe he's gonna move the fences in.
00:24Yeah.
00:24I don't know.
00:25Buster did not appear today to me
00:29to be someone who's ready to move the fences in.
00:33He didn't sound ready to kind of do anything
00:36other than hire a staff
00:38and then figure out what they want to do.
00:40He's gonna be somebody who wants more voices in the room.
00:44And I actually do think
00:46that while that might not satisfy our machismo,
00:50I think that that's a good thing.
00:52That's a good thing.
00:54You know, Buster surround himself with some good people,
00:57get multiple opinions in the room
00:59and then start functioning.
01:01And he said he wants to hire a GM very quickly
01:05and he should.
01:06Right.
01:07So as far as like the overarching questions
01:10about what are you gonna do and what's your philosophy
01:13and what's your plans and all the rest of it,
01:15those questions should have been asked and they were,
01:17but for me, I'm not looking for any real answers
01:20because the guy's been on the job for a day and a half
01:22and I don't even think that he knows.
01:25I don't think that he knows.
01:26Not that he doesn't know,
01:29like he wants to win and he wants to fix this
01:31and build an organization and all the rest of it,
01:33but there's all the little things you have to do first,
01:36like hire a staff, hire a GM,
01:39figure out who the GM wants as his assistant GM,
01:43figure out what you want to do with the scouting staff,
01:46the analytical staff, the coaching staff.
01:49And then when you get through all that,
01:50you can start to roll up your sleeves
01:51and think about free agents and the on-field product.
01:55I think everything has an order of operations.
01:57Here's what he does know.
02:00I agree with everything you just said,
02:02but here's what he does know.
02:03And this is what I think the most important thing was today
02:06about this press conference.
02:09What Buster Posey knows is that what he needs to create,
02:14and there are a number of ways to do it.
02:16Trades, free agency, farm system,
02:18you gotta be a full-service baseball team.
02:21No compromises.
02:22No compromises, that's true.
02:24The Giants need to stop compromising.
02:26Stop calling the Seattle Mariners on a Wednesday
02:28to see if you can get their eighth string catcher.
02:30Yeah, and they can, and they have.
02:36Do you want to know what I notice
02:37about today's press conference?
02:39What Buster needs to go create,
02:40and he knows this, is more of him.
02:44And I know that you're-
02:46Because they're just lying around everywhere.
02:47I know your initial reaction is, oh, great,
02:50yeah, go find more like Hall of Famers
02:52who are the face of a franchise.
02:55That's not what I mean.
02:56Here's what I mean.
02:58I saw Buster when he was all the way down the hall.
03:03And I don't know this to be true,
03:05but I'm gonna tell myself that there's a reason
03:08that my head just popped up and noticed him,
03:11even though he was still 60 yards away.
03:16Why did I notice him?
03:17He's him.
03:19Because he has it.
03:21He is him.
03:23He has a presence.
03:24He has a presence when he walks into a room.
03:27He is a larger-than-life figure.
03:30And when he sat down and said,
03:31we're in the business of making memories,
03:34and we're in the business of having families get together
03:37and see a player do something that is memorable,
03:41maybe forever, that means to me
03:44creating larger-than-life figures.
03:47And they don't all have to be Busters.
03:49We talked to one of them yesterday.
03:51We talked to one of them two hours ago, hour and a half.
03:56Matt Cain was on the show.
03:57Yesterday, Hunter Pence was on the show.
04:00These are not Buster Posey's and Barry Bonds.
04:03They're Matt Cain's and they're Hunter Pence's.
04:06And right away, you can think of something
04:08they did in a Giants uniform,
04:09and you're like, I'll never forget that moment.
04:11I'll never forget the perfect game.
04:13I'll never forget when Hunter Pence hit the ball twice,
04:15and it went over the shortstop's head,
04:16and the Giants won a playoff game.
04:19Larger-than-life figures.
04:22What giant, what current giant walks into the room
04:26and has that presence?
04:28Where you're like, ooh, look at that guy.
04:32He sits down and everybody,
04:34you don't have to tell everybody, hey, quiet, you know.
04:38Yeah, it's a bit of an unfair bar,
04:40but what I'm hearing you say is a guy
04:43who you can look at and rely on.
04:46Right now, I think about Matt Chapman and Logan Webb
04:50as number one and number two of guys
04:52that you can look at in that same way.
04:55And I just punched up the 2014 roster
04:58just so I can kind of make my point.
05:01And you had a catcher play 147 games,
05:04the aforementioned Buster Posey.
05:07Your shortstop played 153.
05:09That would be Brandon.
05:10Your third baseman played 157 games,
05:14the Roly-Poly Panda.
05:16Your left fielder played 131 games, Mike Morse.
05:19And your right fielder played every game.
05:24Hunter Pence.
05:24Came to the park on a scooter.
05:26So five of your eight, because pitchers still hit there,
05:30five of your eight were, yeah, every day.
05:33Brandon belted first.
05:34I would imagine he got hurt, because he always does.
05:38Joe Panik was your second baseman.
05:39Angel Pagan played 96 games.
05:43On the pitching staff, you had three guys start every start.
05:47Bum, Hudson, and Vogey.
05:50And Linsicum started 26.
05:52He appeared in 33.
05:54It's just because his career was starting
05:56to get a little bit leaky.
05:58And then you had Matt Cain and Jake Peavy.
06:00But that's why I say it's not that high of a bar.
06:03I'm not talking about people that necessarily,
06:05oh, you can rely on every day.
06:06And I'm not even talking about stats or anything like that.
06:09I'm talking about that if you want
06:11to bring your seven-year-old kid to the ballpark,
06:15who's going to make their eyes get big?
06:18And I can speak to this.
06:20I have a 10-year-old at home who loves baseball.
06:24I don't even know who his favorite player is.
06:28I do know that he'll stop what he's doing when
06:31Shohei comes to the plate.
06:33Of course.
06:33Of course.
06:34And others.
06:35He actually is almost like he's got a brain that I don't even
06:40know how it works.
06:41He can tell me what every player on every team in every city
06:44has done last night.
06:46I might be giving him too much screen time.
06:47I'm not sure.
06:49But the bottom line is, that's who you're going to get.
06:54That's who Buster was talking about today.
06:56Who can walk into the room and make that kid go, oh my god.
07:00And how many names on that roster fit the bill?
07:04You don't have to be a future Hall of Famer.
07:06The ones I just mentioned?
07:07You could be Hunter.
07:08You could be Pablo.
07:09Two Brandons.
07:10You could be the Brandons.
07:12You could be Lincecum late in his career.
07:14You could be Mad Bum.
07:16Vogie.
07:18Anyway, you'll be on in 20 minutes.
07:20He became, he became the heirloom.
07:22Yes, he did.
07:24And in 2012.
07:25But you get what I'm saying, like a figure.
07:28Somebody who makes you just kind of stop, or have a presence,
07:33or think about them.
07:35These are the things that don't happen when you send them
07:39to AAA every five days.
07:40Exactly.
07:41And that's what we're talking about.
07:43Totally.
07:43And I think that part of that goes
07:45into what I've been saying all along, which
07:47is he and Bob Melvin want what the 2014 had from a position
07:52player standpoint, which was five, if not six of your nine,
07:56who are, yeah, you're playing.
07:59You're playing first.
08:00Hunter, you're playing right.
08:02You're playing right 162 times, by the way.
08:05And your catcher played more than Patrick Bailey played.
08:07Patrick Bailey, I know, got hurt this year.
08:09But give me five guys.
08:10Give me five of the nine who are going
08:13to play 140 times of the 162.
08:16And even if you don't necessarily have a monster year,
08:22I would take that.
08:22If you go 80 and 82 next year, but you give me
08:25five guys who play every day, I'm
08:28more connected to that team than I am this team, which is,
08:32wisely?
08:33Yeah.
08:34Wisely, and I mean.
08:36I'd argue the number might even need to be a little higher.
08:38I get what you're saying.
08:39Five of the nine?
08:40Yeah, look, people are going to get hurt and stuff like that.
08:42Like that was, for instance, the plan with Jung-Hoo Lee,
08:45and then he got hurt.
08:46Right.
08:46But if you, like, right now, if you offered me,
08:48like, Jung-Hoo Lee fits that bill.
08:51Ramos fits that bill.
08:52Bailey fits the bill.
08:53Chapman fits the bill.
08:55I'm hoping that Tyler Fitzgerald at second fits the bill.
08:58I'm hoping they find someone who fits that bill at shortstop,
09:01Bo Bichette, Ha-Sung Kim.
09:03I certainly, like, probably not Bryce Eldridge.
09:06My guess is he won't come up until a month or two
09:09into the season.
09:10But someone like that can be over there.
09:13And I don't know what they're going to do with right field.
09:15Maybe that is the spot where you kind of turn and burn
09:19a little bit and platoon and move guys in and out.
09:22I don't know.
09:23But five is a minimum.
09:27Maybe more.
09:28Probably more, I would say.
09:30Yeah, I mean, if you have more than five,
09:32then you're hoping that you're a really good team
09:35and you have really good players in those spots.
09:37I look at this year and you had Chapman play 154, Yaz 140.
09:42But that's games played.
09:43Feels like some of those are including
09:45pinch hitting performances.
09:46Well, he moved between center and right also at times.
09:49Right, seventh inning inserts.
09:51Conforto played 130.
09:53Bailey played 121, which is a good number as a catcher.
09:56You take that every year.
09:58And Ramos played 121.
09:59Once he got up here, he played every day.
10:02Every day.
10:03And then Lamont Wade Jr. played 117.
10:05Again, these are just games played, not starts,
10:08technically.
10:09But I'm looking at the Hunter Pence year
10:12and he had 700 played appearances, 708.
10:17And Buster had 605.
10:18And Pablo had 638.
10:20These are full, meaty years.
10:22And that's really, I think, what Buster and Bob
10:25are talking about, where it's not
10:27going to be the Kapler-Farhan, hey, jock, you hit a home run
10:32and it's the fourth inning and they brought in a lefty,
10:35so now you're getting pinch hit for.
10:37That stuff, analytically, might be correct.
10:40But like you're saying with your 10-year-old son,
10:43if you told him right now, hey, son, here's $100.
10:46Any jersey, you pick it.
10:48You pick your jersey.
10:50Oh, dad, I don't know.
10:53I'm not sure, papa.
10:55I don't know.
10:55I mean, can I get two?
10:57Can I put two in my jerseys?
10:58He doesn't sound like that.
10:59But yeah, he might ask for ice cream instead.
11:02I'm sure he has your voice already.
11:04Dad, I would like.
11:06He kind of does.
11:07We, as your offspring, would like a Doval.
11:10I'd like a jersey and an ice cream.
11:13Totally.