Musing on Kruk and Kuip...
Ah, Kruk and Kuip. Who knew that two trades I totally hated would end up so well in the end, after their careers had ended? I love them as our broadcasting team, I wish they would do more stuff together on radio (my main way of catching Giants games via the media).
Two Hated Trades, Two Beloved Broadcasters
I was so mad at Giants management when Joe Morgan was traded to get Krukow. And Al Holland was given up to boot! We had just started tasting some success and Morgan and Smith were jettisoned, just like that. What was up with that? (Plus Haller screwed up and let Barry Bonds go unsigned that year as our draft pick over $5K! $5K! Bonds makes probably that much just sitting on the on-deck circle today!)
But it worked out in the end, Krukow had a great career with the Giants and he bled the Orange and Black like nobody, even back then, even though he was a Cubbie originally. I wonder which team was his boyhood team, he was born in SoCal if I remember right and played college ball at St. Luis Obispo.
Kuip, oy, we traded Ed "NY Pyscho" Whitson for him. Why, I'll never know, we already had Morgan and Whitson was a good starter for us and continued to have a long and successful career, when he wasn't pitching at Yankee Stadium.
Then again, if we hadn't done the stupid trade, we wouldn't have Kuip and we might not have needed to trade Morgan for Krukow either because if we still had Whitson, perhaps they might have needed something else in trade. In any case, we Giants fans are very lucky to have two broadcasters as good as Kruk and Kuip, manning the games for us, but, like I said above, I wish they would do more games together on the radio.
What If?
Then again, again, if we had Whitson in 1982, we might have won the NL West title instead of just falling short starting pitchers like Renie Martin and Alan Fowlkes. And who knows what would have happened then? St. Louis swept Atlanta in the playoffs, whom they lost their season's series against, 5-7, whereas the Giants lost their season's series against the Cards, also 5-7, so you never know.
But the odds would have been strongly against us. They had an offense led by Keith Hernandez, Ken Oberkfell, Lonnie Smith, George Hendrick and a new guy brought up, a young Willie McGee. They had a pitching staff led by Joaquin Andujar, John Stuper, and Bob Forsch, with new super closer, Bruce Sutter, just obtained the season before. They were all young and in their prime, in their 20's.
The Giants were led by old vets (surprise) Joe Morgan, Reggie Smith, and Darrell Evans, with Jack Clark, Chili Davis and Jeffrey Leonard manning the outfield. Our pitching staff had young guys starting, Bill Laskey, Atlee Hammaker, Rich Gale, Renie Martin, and Alan Fowlkes, as well as Fred Breining, Jim Barr, and Al Holland taking a number of starts, plus Greg "Moonman" Minton closing and Gary Lavelle also contributing in relief, as well as the aforementioned Fred Breining, Jim Barr, and Al Holland relieving for the most part.
I wish I had a simulation game like Diamond Mind and play these two teams together just to see what would have happened (with Ed Whitson, of course).
Two Hated Trades, Two Beloved Broadcasters
I was so mad at Giants management when Joe Morgan was traded to get Krukow. And Al Holland was given up to boot! We had just started tasting some success and Morgan and Smith were jettisoned, just like that. What was up with that? (Plus Haller screwed up and let Barry Bonds go unsigned that year as our draft pick over $5K! $5K! Bonds makes probably that much just sitting on the on-deck circle today!)
But it worked out in the end, Krukow had a great career with the Giants and he bled the Orange and Black like nobody, even back then, even though he was a Cubbie originally. I wonder which team was his boyhood team, he was born in SoCal if I remember right and played college ball at St. Luis Obispo.
Kuip, oy, we traded Ed "NY Pyscho" Whitson for him. Why, I'll never know, we already had Morgan and Whitson was a good starter for us and continued to have a long and successful career, when he wasn't pitching at Yankee Stadium.
Then again, if we hadn't done the stupid trade, we wouldn't have Kuip and we might not have needed to trade Morgan for Krukow either because if we still had Whitson, perhaps they might have needed something else in trade. In any case, we Giants fans are very lucky to have two broadcasters as good as Kruk and Kuip, manning the games for us, but, like I said above, I wish they would do more games together on the radio.
What If?
Then again, again, if we had Whitson in 1982, we might have won the NL West title instead of just falling short starting pitchers like Renie Martin and Alan Fowlkes. And who knows what would have happened then? St. Louis swept Atlanta in the playoffs, whom they lost their season's series against, 5-7, whereas the Giants lost their season's series against the Cards, also 5-7, so you never know.
But the odds would have been strongly against us. They had an offense led by Keith Hernandez, Ken Oberkfell, Lonnie Smith, George Hendrick and a new guy brought up, a young Willie McGee. They had a pitching staff led by Joaquin Andujar, John Stuper, and Bob Forsch, with new super closer, Bruce Sutter, just obtained the season before. They were all young and in their prime, in their 20's.
The Giants were led by old vets (surprise) Joe Morgan, Reggie Smith, and Darrell Evans, with Jack Clark, Chili Davis and Jeffrey Leonard manning the outfield. Our pitching staff had young guys starting, Bill Laskey, Atlee Hammaker, Rich Gale, Renie Martin, and Alan Fowlkes, as well as Fred Breining, Jim Barr, and Al Holland taking a number of starts, plus Greg "Moonman" Minton closing and Gary Lavelle also contributing in relief, as well as the aforementioned Fred Breining, Jim Barr, and Al Holland relieving for the most part.
I wish I had a simulation game like Diamond Mind and play these two teams together just to see what would have happened (with Ed Whitson, of course).
posted by obsessivegiantscompulsive at 12/15/2005 09:58:00 AM
1 Comments:
That's right, there is actually a huge chain of trades starting from Bobby Bonds that stretched into the 90's I believe (yep, almost made it to the new millenium).
Here's the link to a great article on it: https://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=157&sessionstatus=notloggedin&mode=login
I had followed it down to the Deion trade but never realized that there were stragglers leading down to the late 1990's.
Looking in baseball-reference.com, Jalal Leach was released by the Giants in late 1999, but signed him back in 2000 but was finally released in late 2001. Scott Smith never made the majors and Chris Jones was relased at the end of the 1998 season.
Also, Scott Service, who we released in 1996, bounced around the majors for another 8 seasons, sometimes in majors, sometimes in minors, don't see any good reason why the Giants dropped him other than he couldn't make the team out of spring training, but there was a whole lot of suckage on the Giants pitching staff in 1996, we had players like Doug Creek (6.52 ERA, 63 games), Rich DeLucia (5.84, 56), Steve Bourgeois (6.30, 15), Tim Scott (8.24, 20), who got into a number of games that Service could have done - he had a 3.94 ERA in 34 games with the Reds that year. However, that was his second to last good year with ERA+ over 100, he really only had one good year (1998 with KC) over the rest of career, stretching to 2004 with Arizona.
I think we also picked up Burba again late 2004 season, for like 1 batter, before he injured himself, putting him out for the rest of the season. Same for Dave McCarty, though that was only in the minors, he left to join another club when we signed Hammonds I think.
And I hear Kevin Mitchell still gets in a game or two for an independent league team in Sonoma, a few years back; I think he was even manager (unbulleavable!)
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