San Francisco 49ers Forever

The Giants are hitting the IR in mid-season form as Mitch Haniger, Brandon Crawford, Luis Gonzalez, David Villar, Ronald Guzman, Marco Luciano, and Thomas Szapucki are all dealing with injuries. Haven’t seen much of spring training from the Giants, but they have 16 days to get healthy.

I think these are all fairly mundane, except for Mitch Haniger. Oblique injuries are hard to gauge, but we will see.

In other news, Jimmy Garoppolo is taking his football and rowing his boat across the Bay to Oakland, uh, Vegas, as the love, hate, love relationship is finally over. At least on this side of the Bay. The Raiders are essentially trading out of Carr’s $37 million and saving $15 mill as they pay Jimmy $22 mill. Even with Jimmy G instead of Carr, offense shouldn’t be their problem. They will win or (probably) lose because of their defense. Lack thereof.

Aaron Rodgers is apparently serious about the Jets so we will see how that works out. That would be something different anyway. And the Niners signed Sam Darnold.

Here’s to hoping he never sees the field.

Brock Purdy underwent successful intern brace UCL surgery earlier today according to Dr. Meister-brau of the Texas Rangers. According to Meister, Purdy can start throwing in 3 months, and be game-ready in 6 months.

Which would be June-September if all goes well.

Still want to see Lance get his reps in some meaningful games, but here we go.

https://www.49erswebzone.com/articles/167537-49ers-brock-purdy-undergoes-successful-surgery-6-month-recovery/

Not much to see so far in spring training given the fact that little is televised, and we aren’t the Yanks, Boston, or El Lay, but we are something like 3-7 and have lost 5 in a row or some shit. Normally I don’t pay attention to spring much, but hey, here we are.

My glancing at the Giants stories so far seem to be of the variety that the starters are doing fine but the relievers are crashing and burning late. So I decided to take a look. Our nominal starters are doing the following:

Logan Webb – 2 starts, 5 IP, 4 hits, 2 runs – 3.60 era – 3 k’s, 2 walks
Sean Manaea – 2 starts, 4.2 IP, 7 hits, 4 runs – 7.71 era – 6 k’s, 0 walks
Alex Cobb – 2 starts, 7 IP, 8 hits, 4 runs – 9.00 era – 8 k’s, 2 walks
DeScaffolding – 1 start, 2 IP, 1 hit, 0 runs – 0.00 era – 3 k’s, 0 walks
Alex Wood – 1 start, 2 IP, 0 hits, 0 runs – 0.00 era – 5 k’s, 0 walks
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Tristan Beck – 2 starts, 7 IP, 8 hits, 4 runs, 5.14 era – 7 k’s, 2 walks
K Harrison – 1 starts, 2.2 IP, 8 hits, 7 runs, 23.63 era – 3 k’s, 2 walks
Jakob Junis – 1 start, 4 IP, 3 hits, 1 run, 2.25 era – 4 k’s, 0 walks
Ross Stripling – 0 starts, 5 IP, 8 hits, 4 runs – 7.20 era – 3 k’s, 0 walks

Yeah, it’s early, but nothing super-alarming, other than Harrison’s flail in a couple games. But he’s young and a bit overwhelmed I’m sure. There are other random starters on the board but they won’t make the team and I’m tired of typing.

Encouraging is the number of k’s to walks. 42 k’s to 8 walks is nice for these guys.

Well, the first domino in the quarterback relocation program of 2023 got off to a rousing start with the New Orleans Saints giving Derek Carr a 4 year/$150 million deal with a reported $100 mill in total guarantees. Great for the Saints. Pretty fucking stupid for Prince Valiant and the Raydurs. Carr is pretty much the best guy available in these QB sweepstakes, and of course the Durs are the team jettisoning him. The Saints go back to being a legit threat in the NFC South while the Durs look to sink further into the sludge at the bottom of the AFC West with the hapless Denver Broncos.

Which means the Raiders will most likely throw a shit-ton of money at Jimmy Garoppolo. Jimmy is pretty much Derek Carr without the deep ball. So, a step down. But the rest are a step off the cliff. Wentz, Bridgewater, Mayfield, Darnold, Mariota, Keenum, D Jones, Brissett, etc. are all hot garbage.

It will be VERY interesting to see what Seattle has to say about their future re: their QB. Geno Smith had a solid season, but was quickly dispatched in the playoffs. By us. The players for Jimmy, who looks to get a deal equal to or better than Carr’s are the Texans, the Raiders, the Jets, the Seattles, and the Buccos.

Houston has DeMeco Ryans and some other familiar faces.

The Raiders have some strong offensive pieces (but a dogshit defense).

The Jets have a bunch of familiar faces in Robert Saleh, Nate Hackett, and Taylor Embree and a decent team that Saleh is building into something solid.

Seattle would just love to sign him and try to rub that shit on our faces.

TB just lost TB so they are looking for someone to fill his shoes. Like he did 7 years ago.

Miami is also a possibility as the health and well-being of Tua Tagovailoa is a major concern and their head coach is of course our old RB coach Mike McDaniel.

Where will Jimmy go? I’m not sure of anything at this point, but this is exactly what Jimmy wanted. He wanted unfettered free agency, and he got it.

16 TDs, 4 picks, 2435 yards, and a very solid 7.91 yards/attempt.

He also got a huge boost directing the 49ers to 7 wins in 10 starts before suffering his ankle injury. so he is in the driver’s seat regarding where he goes. He’ll get a big payday from someone. Given that he can call his deal, I think he goes to Houston. A team that appears to be on the rebound where things are looking up.

What do you think? I mean Jimmy’s the only QB worth a damn at this point in the QB sweepstakes. All the rest, including our future 3rd string QB is on the list of FA has-beens.

Hmmmmmm, sure seems like a lot of pitchers are struggling with the pitch clock. Webb, Cobb, John (how will you miss me if I don’t go away) Brebbia and others who I can’t remember have given up balls, stolen bases, and generally couldn’t get their shit together. I’m sure this is a problem across the league, but I’m not looking too hard, but a game did end on a bases-loaded time expiration.

Naturally the twitterverse and the interwebs exploded. Yeah, this is gonna be a learning curve for everyone involved, but it sure feels like they are going a little hard in the direction of saving time at the cost of pitchers just pitching. Guys that don’t even take too long to throw have issues.

We will see if this is an ongoing thing but one thing that did crack me up was seeing the Red Sox put a rover into short RF and use a 2-man outfield against Joey Gallo. Too fucking funny.

Next season, the cry will be, BAN THE OUTFIELD SHIFT ! ! !

And it is still raining like shit around here. Good to have, and I got to hit the mountains soon, but I digress. Football is on the back burner for a bit, and the Giants have broken camp. Gonna be a weird year for the Orange and Black as they try to cobble together yet another team that will platoon a little too much for my liking, and be micro-managed by Gabe the Replacer. Got a ittle tired last year of all the AAAA signings, spinning through all the random cast-oofs that were quickly replaced with other castoffs.

A virtual who’s who of who. Lost in all this was something posted today in the Seattle papers about Prelander Berroa, the hard-throwing right hander the Giants got from Minnesota in the Sam Dyson trade. Farhan traded him to the Mariners for Donnie Walton, an injured infielder who was part of the walking wounded when every player seemed to hit the IR.

As one AL scout put it:

“Prelander Berroa for Donnie Walton might have been the worst trade of 2022,” an American League scout told Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times. “And it might not be close.”

They knew what they were getting in Berroa, and they seemed to lose every IFer last year, but Walton likely isn’t here much longer, Sure, it’s early, but these myriad transactions that Farhan and Co seem to specialize in are baffling at best. Moves that serve no other purpose than bringing as many guys through the system as possible, The hoping for finding diamonds in the rough is all well and good, but not addressing things like 1st base with yet another platoon is annoying. Overpaying for Joc was weird as well.

The OF should be better with Joc out of there. At least offensively, but the defense is still a big issue. Davis is gonna play . . . where? 3rd? DH? Flores gets 1st and 2nd. Estrada gets 2nd. Craw gets SS. Luciano backs him up? Estrada? Joc at 1st ? Really? Yaz and his .214 in CF? Villar will hopefully keep rolling. He showed some decent power.

Lots of questions but I think the pitching should be better than last year, even without Rodon. The pen is better as well. I guess.

. . . Oh, the mess I’m in.

Well, so much for a smooth recovery for Brock Purdy. He can’t even get the operation done. Purdy’s elbow is still too swoll to operate on, so they will re-evaluate in early March. Thus throwing the timetable back some. Which means that we have to hope Trey Lance’s recovery doesn’t have any setbacks. Which also means that Lance os gonna get a longer look than originally thought. Which I guess is a good thing.

After all, we need to know what we have in Trey Lance before handing the keys to Purdy, right? I mean, Purdy appears to be the real deal. But so did Jimmy G when he came in and won 5 games in a row. Even Nick Mullens looked like the real deal for a red hot minute. The NFL is a fickle mistress and one who is unkind to most everyone.

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Other than that, I’m pretty interested to see what our local baseball team does this season. The national scribes and local fans have written off the team and front office as being inept buffoons who fucked up wildly. Throw in the National Anthem protest by Kapler, and you have the requisite overreaction and a whole lot of whining by anyone and everyone.

Me? I think the team improved enough to reach the NBA-style playoffs. They gained a couple solid-enough OFers in Haniger and Conforto, the pen got decent by the end of the season, and they added Taylor (don’t call me Tyler) Rogers, a couple starters in Manaea and Stripling, Junis and Hjelle from the farm, Webb and Cobb, and DeScaffolding. From the bunch they should be able to build a good rotation.

The hitting is the main issue I have. Well, that and the defense, Both were sub-par last season. Sure, that has a lot to do with the rotating in and out of a bunch of AAAA guys, and the Misadventures of Luis Gonzalez. He hit well, but was pretty clueless in every other area of the game.

Should be a fun season if only to silence the nay-sayers.

Sure, baseball season is coming. And yeah, the draft is coming in April. But even that is muted as we won’t have any day one picks as our #1 went to Miami for the Trey Lance pick, and the #2 went to Carolina for Run CMC. The upside being of course is that this draft crew seems to hit on a ton of 3rd round and later talent. Unless it is a running back, but that is a different issue. Davis-Price prolly gets released in training camp to follow the path of Trey Sermon out the door.

As it sits now we have 10 picks. 3 in the 3rd, 3 in the 5th, 3 in the 7th, and 1 in the 6th. We got a bunch of comp picks for our black coaches being hired away, including DC DeMeco Ryans, and other things, but I’ll tell ya one thing about Shanahan, he sure knows how to pick a coaching staff.

In his first year picking a staff as a head coach in 2017, 3 of his assistants are now head coaches in Running Back coach Mike McDaniel, DC Robert Saleh, and Defensive Quality Control coach and DC DeMeco Ryans. Rick Scangarello became OC of the Broncos and Eagles, Mike LeFleur is the OC of the Rams, and Bobby Slowik is now OC of the Texans with Ryans. And this was his first staff. Countless other coaches have been hired away, and Anthony Lynn, our Assistant Head Coach and Running backs coach will likely be hired away soon.

So, day 2 and 3 of the draft is our wheelhouse. April 27th and April 28th.

• Round 3, Pick 99
• Round 3, Pick 100
• Round 3, Pick 101
• Round 5, Pick 157
• Round 5, Pick 166
• Round 5, Pick 173
• Round 6, Pick 216
• Round 7, Pick 224
• Round 7, Pick 249
• Round 7, Pick 255

Not really thrilled about this one as the season ended so badly, but hey, it’s the Super Bowl. Miss the 5 hours of pregame and the 45 minute halftime and it seems like another Sunday.

Seeing as I was a big Chiefs fan growing up, and the fucking Eagles had a pretty easy road through the playoffs, I hope the Chiefs steamroll the Iggles and their doouchey fans. They can cry with their Phillie brethren in being close but not quite.

Flying to Montana today to see the kids and get some skiing in, so we will hit some bar tomorrow to watch the game. Big Sky or bust!!!

Just heard that Brock Purdy is going ahead with the UCL repair surgery, a 6 month recovery; as opposed to the UCL replacement (TJ) surgery, an 18 month recovery. His doctor is the Texas Rangers team doctor, Keith Meister. I guess it makes sense that a baseball doctor takes care of this as these kinds of surgeries are usually in the realm of pitchers, not quarterbacks. The surgery will take place in Dallas on February 22nd as they are still allowing for the swelling in Purdy’s arm to subside.

Purdy can start throwing 3 months after the surgery, say early june, and build his arm strength back up for another 3 months, and be ready early September. The season starts on September 10th.
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Good hire. Solid guy. Took a shitty Panthers team cutting players (hello CMC) and dumping salary and got them to play hard and go 6-6 to finish the season. His reward? Getting passed over for the head coaching spot. Like the Raiders after the Jon Gruden fiasco last season, Rich Bisaccia came in, directed the team to the playoffs, and was unceremoniously kicked to the curb for Prince Valiant’s drinking buddy Josh (I-suck-everywhere-I-head-coach) McDaniels.

Cue the Raiders sucking hard and missing the playoffs in 2022 despite having the best WR in the game and an offense putting up a ton of points. Couldn’t happen to a more stupid owner.

Anywho, Steve Wilks is a 4-3 guy, which of course is our base defense. He has been coaching for 28 years and had the unfortunate luck of being Josh Rosen’s head coach in AZ for one gloriously terrible season in 2018 when they went 3-13. He was the assistant Head Coach for the Panthers when their defense became all-world, and eventually lost Super Bowl 50 to the Broncos. He’s known for getting the most out of every guy he coaches, so this should be perfect fit for him and the team.

Kudos.

Here’s a good article about Wilks. This was written before he was hired by the 49ers.

https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2023/1/27/23574272/steve-wilks-rumors-job-nfl-defensive-coordinator