Your San Francisco Giants Preview

(Ed. note: I know I have at least one diehard San Francisco Giants fan in my readership. My apologies to the rest of you. Everyone else can either choose to read and fall asleep or skip it entirely and wait for my "2007 Celebrity Trainwreck In Review" article).

Each year I keep hearing people getting all excited about the big Giants' contracts that are going to come off the books each year and how much money that will free up.

"Just wait until the end of when the contracts for are no longer on the books. Then we'll have a boatload of money to spend on top tier free agents."

Last year, it was Bonds, Morris, Benitez, Feliz, and Klesko, who made approximately $42 million combined (obviously, not all of that was paid by the Giants last year). What did it get us? So far, we've netted Aaron Rowand and pay increases for the rest of the team.

The year before, it was Bonds (again), Schmidt, Alou, Finley, and Feliz (again) freeing up almost $49 million. And for that relief, we locked up Barry Zito after failing to land Soriano and added another year of Bonds (whose $15M salary doesn't looks so bad, baggage nothwithstanding).

In 2008, the following player contracts will expire:
Durham ($7M)
Vizquel ($5.3M, unless he plays in 140 games in which case his 2009 salary vests)
Feliz (let's not kid ourselves, it's inevitable that the Giants resign him for another $5M in 2008)
Kline ($3.5)
Aurilia ($3.5M)

So that's approximately $25 million, not to mention the salaries of Roberts ($6.5M) and Winn ($8.25M) the Giants somehow are hoping to rid themselves of in 2008.

(Note: salary data was gathered from ESPN, mlb4u.com and baseball-almanac.com, so it may not be 100% accurate.)

So let's assume that the Giants somehow convince another team to take Roberts and Winn off their hands (which I pray doesn't include something insane line packing either player with Cain and/or Lincecum). That's about $40 million to spend on shiny new free agents in 2009, right? All we have to do is hold tight in 2008 -- the Giants will sort out which youngsters can contribute, the graybeards will be gone and we'll sign the best available free agents. With a little bit of luck, we'll be back to 85-90 wins in 2009, right?

It's a nice plan until you realize that next year's FA class is just as thin as this one was. The below list (courtesy of mlbtraderumors.com) obviously will get shorter as teams and players exercise options and teams lock up players to multi-year extensions. For example, there's no chance that -- absent horrific injury -- Vlad will not have his $15M option (which is really a net $12M option when you factor in the $3M buyout) picked up by the Angels. So in either case, he won't be available for the Giants. Same with Thome, Crawford, and Renteria.

Please note that I have focused on the hitters mostly because (a) the Giants already have a very good SP staff with some decent arms in the minors, (b) they already made a big free agent SP splash last year and we see where that got them, and (c) their hitting sucks. But for anyone interested, the best FA pitchers that will likely be on the market include Santana, Sabathia, Joe Nathan, Francisco Rodriguez, Pedro Martinez, Ben Sheets and Rafael Soriano. It's not a bad FA pitching class.

The list of FA hitters, though, looks much weaker. In reviewing the list, it looks like Teixeira, Dunn and some decent shortstops. In looking at the list, there doesn't seem like a lot of hope on the horizon. Are there really a lot of names on that list that people are eager to sign? Hell, Bonds looks like the best FA hitter in 2009.

So absent the meteoric rise of some unknown hitting phenoms, I'm not sure if there's a way that the Giants can avoid trading one of their quality arms in exchange for some good, young, cheap hitting. And no, I don't mean Lincecum for Rios. Call me crazy, but I don't see anything worth spending $40 million on there folks.

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Catchers
Michael Barrett (32)
Johnny Estrada (33)
Kenji Johjima (33)
Jason Kendall (35) - club option for '09 (110 games)
Paul Lo Duca (37)
Ivan Rodriguez (37)
David Ross (32)
Jason Varitek (37)
Gregg Zaun (38) - $3.75M vesting option for '09 (160 games)

First basemen
Ben Broussard (32)
Carlos Delgado (37) - $16M mutual option for '09 with a $4M buyout
Nomar Garciaparra (35)
Jason Giambi (38) - $22M club option for '09 with a $5M buyout
Scott Hatteberg (39)
Kevin Millar (37)
Richie Sexson (34)
Mark Teixeira (29)
Jim Thome (38) - $13M club option for '09 with $3M buyout

Second basemen
Mark Ellis (32)
Mark Grudzielanek (39)
Orlando Hudson (31)
Tadahito Iguchi (34)
Jeff Kent (41)
Felipe Lopez (29)
Mark Loretta (37)
Jose Vidro (34) - vesting option for '09

Shortstops
Orlando Cabrera (34)
David Eckstein (34)
Adam Everett (32)
Rafael Furcal (31)
Cristian Guzman (31)
Cesar Izturis (29)
Felipe Lopez (29)
Edgar Renteria (33) - $11M club option for '09 with a $3M buyout
Juan Uribe (30)
Omar Vizquel (42) - $5.2M club option for '09 with a $0.3M buyout

Third basemen
Casey Blake (35)
Hank Blalock (28) - $6.2M club option for '09 with a $0.25M buyout
Joe Crede (31)
Nomar Garciaparra (35)
Troy Glaus (32) - $11.25M player option for '09
Wes Helms (33) - $3.75M club option for '09
Chipper Jones (37) - $8-11M vesting option for '09

Left fielders
Moises Alou (42)
Garret Anderson (37) - $14M club option for '09 with a $3M buyout
Milton Bradley (31)
Pat Burrell (32)
Carl Crawford (27) - $8.25M club option for '09 with $2.5M buyout
Adam Dunn (29)
Cliff Floyd (36) - $3M club option for '09 with a $0.25M buyout
Raul Ibanez (37)
Jacque Jones (34)
Jason Michaels (33) - $2.6M club option for '09
Craig Monroe (32)
Jay Payton (36)
Wily Mo Pena (27) - $5M club option or $2M player option for '09
Manny Ramirez (37) - $20M club option for '09
Juan Rivera (30)

Center fielders
Rocco Baldelli (27) - $6M club option for '09 with a $4M buyout
Jim Edmonds (39)
Jacque Jones (34)
Mark Kotsay (33)

Dude, Where's My Inheritance?

In the latest news of the fantastic, Hotel magnate Barron Hilton recently announced that he will be screwing over his whore grandchildren by leaving 97% of his wealth to charity. This will obviously cut the fortune his heirs would have otherwise received. Which means that granddaughter Paris Hilton, who once stood to inherit $100+ million by some accounts, could end up with a measly $5 million or so. Barron’s designated charity funds clean water in Africa, education for blind children and housing for the mentally ill.

There is no truth to the rumor that Paris Hilton was spotted on a plane to Africa donning blackface and sporting a seeing-eye Chihuahua in an effort to recoup some of her inheritance.

I know that I had vowed at one point never to post another story about that wonk-eyed, herpes-infested, waste of skin ... but it's really a fantastic story and gave me a nice excuse to post the infamous Paris Doll photo. So it's really a win-win from my perspective. The only thing that would have made this story better is if she were somehow mauled and eaten by an angry tiger. But this is still pretty good.

Feliz Navidad

For one day, no more work rants, celebrity ramblings, Youtube videos, or other inane commentary. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas (or Channukah, Kwanzaa, and whatever holiday the Scientologists celebrate). Best wishes to everyone this holiday season and I'll be back soon.

Right on,

David James

Twas the Night Before the Night Before Christmas ....

As you know by now, there three things in this world that are vitally important to me -- family, world peace and unicorns. And since I don't have any photos of world peace and my Native American religion tells me that taking pictures with a camera steal your soul, you all are stuck with the unicorn.

Is it just me or does it appear that the artist started to draw the unicorn as anatomically correct -- and then just gave up on the idea? S/he probably said "Jesus, that rainbow took me 12 hours to paint, not to mention twinkling light at the end of his horn. Fuck it, I'm done."

Kind of like what I said about my workweek last week. "Fuck it, I'm done." Unfortunately, it's now Sunday evening. Anyway, I hope everyone had a great weekend. I'll post something Christmas-y tomorrow or Tuesday.

Yet Another Work Post

Here's a quick synopsis of my day so far:

6:30 - Wake up
7:15 - Wake up again
7:40 - Gulp down a pot of coffee
7:50 - Frantically start reading a document for a conference call
8:00 - Conference call (a/k/a Internet surfing) begins
8:35 - Send innocuous note to my boss
9:00 - Conference call ends
9:15 - My boss calls me and totally lays into me for something he perceives that I screwed up
9:18 - I give up defending myself and wait for his lecture to end
9:25 - Berating mercifully ends
9:30 - Start searching monster.com

Jesus, I know it's only noon, but is it too early to drink? It's happy hour somewhere, isn't it?

Wednesday Night Musings

It's 10:30 p.m. as I write this and I have a call scheduled in seven hours. Fuck. Me. It's too early to go to sleep now because I'm too wired and nervous about potentially oversleeping. Conversely, it's too late to go to the rave or hang out with the supermodels. What's a boy to do? I guess I'll instead work on my memoirs, which are tentatively entitled either "It's Not Me, It's Still You" or "Harry Potter and The Fabblegrub Gang." I figure the last one would immediately sell a million books if I can crank our 900+ pages of text, but there's that pesky copyright issue to deal with. Oh well, I'll have plenty of time to think about it on my 5:30 a.m. call. Wheee!

Separated at Birth - Nicole Kidman

Here we have Academy Award winner, Nicole Kidman:


.... and the Tin Man from the "Wizard of Oz":



What the fuck is up with her outfit? Where are Dorothy and Toto? Is this some sort of Scientology-inspired, brainwave-deflector suit? Granted, you have to credit Nicole with some brains for having the forethought to bring an umbrella and avoid rusting up. That being said, you have to seriously wonder what possessed her to channel Jack Haley in the first place. Are we sure this wasn't taken in October on her way to a Halloween party? Ugh, this is going to be a long week.

(Disclaimer - original picture and reference from thesuperficial.com)

More Work Crap, Blah, Blah, Blah

Suddenly realizing that it was less than two weeks until Christmas, I decided to duck out of work early to do a bit of shopping. Because I work from home these days, I am always leery about leaving early for fear of getting a call from my boss, thereby confirming his opinion that I am a total slacker. So of course it was around 5:30 that he called me as I was strolling aimlessly through the aisles at Best Buy. Panicked and not wanting him to hear the shopping crowd and audio-visual background noise, I sent his call to voicemail. He left the following message:

Bipolar Bear (BPB): "David, (boss' name). Give me a call at home, 555-555-1212."

Fuck. Me. What the hell is so urgent that he wants me to call him at home? Did he want to talk about his last email that I never responded to? Am I going to get yelled at for something I did wrong in his bizarro-world opinion? Have I been fired?

There's no way that I can avoid calling him back. I finished my shopping and headed to the car to figure out how to answer his question "I tried you in your office, where are you?"

I waded through the parking lot, hopped in the car and rang him back. After a few minutes of chit chat, we got to the actual meat of the conversation which went a little something like this:

BPB: "Next Thursday, the VP of Marketing will be traveling to St. Louis to discuss (insert inane project). She's only going to be here for that one day and I am out of the office starting that afternoon, so we need to hold an early morning meeting that I'd like you to join."
Me (gleefully over his upcoming vacation): "Okay, sounds good."
BPB: "So we've scheduled the call for 7:30 a.m. next Thursday."
Me: "Uhh, is that Pacific time or Central time?"
BPB: "Central."

Hello 5:30 a.m. conference call next week. I'm estimating that he over-under on the actual hours of sleep I get on Wednesday night is about 3.5 hours, as I invariably have trouble sleeping when I have to get up inordinately early the next morning. I also put the over-under on the number of cups of coffee I drink that morning at 17. If I die from some crazy caffeine-infused overdose, it was good knowing you all. (Of course, no one would immediately know since I only seem to post here once every 12 days).

Oh well, at least the BPB will be on vacation and I'll be able to enjoy a nice holiday respite from the work nightmare. Which leaves me plenty of time for my daily nap and job searching.

Alberto Gonzalez - Lawyer of the Year

The votes are in boys and girls .... and the winner of the American Bar Association's 2007 "Attorney of the Year" is (wait for it, wait for it) .... Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. I shit you not, I'm not making this up.

Gonzales, who resigned in September after 2 1/2 years at the department amid investigations into whether he broke the law and lied to Congress, was given the reward which is given to the lawyers who made the most news.

Gonzalez's shitty tenure as Attorney General started to unravel following a public furor surfaced last January over the firings of nine U.S. attorneys, and whether they were politically motivated. His conflicting public statements about the ousters led Democrats and Republicans alike to question his honesty. In addition, a former top aide to Gonzales testified that he potentially illegally tampered with a witness in ongoing Congressional and DOJ investigations by stating that he tried to coach her answers about the firings.

And for this he received Lawyer of the Year.

Originally I figured he won because he was the only one running. But on closer inspection, there were other stellar nominees. They other high-profile lawyers that were nominated for the distinction included (1) Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's liaison to the White House who quit in April amid the political firestorm, and (2) Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in the investigation into the leaked identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson. Given the low level of competition, I'm surprised that my bipolar, workaholic boss with an army of personal demons wasn't nominated as well. I guess there's always next year, though.

Separated at Birth - Knot's of the Living Dead

This week's edition of "Celebrity Separated At Birth" brings us Joan Van Ark, from "Knot's Landing" fame.


... and a Stage 4 undead zombie.


Good lord woman, what the hell has happened to you?! I know she's in her mid-sixties, but she looks like absolute hell. Not that I'm any great shakes to look at, but at least I don't look like a shrunken applehead figure with a grey/brown-ish ring around my mouth. Ack.

As an aside, I originally Googled the terms "skeleton woman," "decaying corpse" and "oh my god, I'm blind!!" in order to get a closer match, but those images were a wee bit horrific. Plus "The Young and the Rotting" just doesn't have the same ring to it.