So far the 2017 San Francisco Giant season has been Crap!

Brandon Belt, the often maligned ballplayer by his hometown Giant fans, (many of whom feel he is grossly overpaid for his production numbers) truly has fallen into a steady role of: all or nothing.

When he is hot he blasts the ball to all fields and off the walls of home and away ballparks. But when he is cold, a frosty chill effects his ability to hit the ball because he does a whole lot of swinging and missing. 

Listening to the Giants on the radio, when Belt is in one of his frost-bitten slumps you can hear the lilt of 'hear we go again' in the announcer's voice. Regardless of whose turn it is to call the play-by-play.

Are the Giants obligated to stick with Belt? Or is he often a name thrown into trade talks? Because in order to get something you have to give something up but you don't want to give more than you get. It's a fine line in the art of wheeling and dealing. 

Aside from the Adam Duvall trade, the Giants usually get their fair share in trades. But that was a big blunder because Duvall's ability to play left field may have eliminated the early 2017 circus in left field for the Giants. And that alone could have prevented the horrendous beginning to the 2017 season. 

I am inclined to add another player's name to the list of those to be offered in trade talks. Eduardo Nunez. His defensive play is questionable at best. Sure, a ball hit right at him he generally catches, but those he has to go to his left or right get by him at an alarming rate. He doesn't charge the ball or anticipate the bounce of the ball and is often flat-footed when a ball changes direction on its last hop. On fly balls, he would rather let them fall in front of him than hustle in and try to catch it before it lands safely. Jon Miller described him as being timid. The kind of play that has Giants' fans beside themselves. Wringing their hands, disgusted at having to tolerate such a lack of effort.  

So far the 2017 season has been crap. A chance for me to recall, in the book Instant Replay, a time when Vince Lombardi was in newly drafted center, Bob Hyland's face for bad technique. 'You can't go right and you can't go left. You can't pull straight ahead. You have nowhere to go. The only thing you can do in that stance is take a crap.' And that's the Giants as of May 9, 2017.


Kevin J. Marquez