New York Giants
Overview
There are those who say that last year's team was even better than the 1932 model. In some cases, we can see that - Fred Fleming was there for the whole season, the bullpen in particular was just plain amazing, everyone who filled in for players who were injured seemed to really excel - but we just can't agree with the obvious evidence. Where the 1932 club won 110 games and the Series, this one won 103 and lost. Also, they were engaged in a tight race with the Cincinnati Reds up until the final day.
So they weren't the greatest of all time, and so they did completely muck up the postseason. We have to laud these boys for doing something the 1932 edition didn't have to do - hold off a worthy opponent. Entering September, the Giants actually trailed those Reds. We won't recount the pennant race because we know the true fans can read the archives but remember this: this ballclub had to be just about perfect the last month and they just about were. Few teams in the history of the game can say they wrapped up their season with a 19-8 record and an even smaller number can say they did it with everything on the line.
No manager has ever had two seasons like Brian Gerlach had between 1932 and 1933, but he was actually a fairly accomplished skipper prior to joining the Giants. He guided an undermanned Senators team to 4 straight 80 win seasons between 1925 and 1928, then made an ill-fated decision to join the Phillies club, where he lasted just one year. He proved to be just too defensively-minded to stick with the Phightins. A return to Washington also lasted only a season before he took on this job.
Pitching
With
Fred Fleming declared out for the season on the first of September, it fell to young
John Burns to anchor the rotation. It was a lot to ask of the lefty out of Parker, South Carolina, but perhaps not too much: after all, he'd just gone 29-8 the year before in the shadow of Mr. Fleming. His won-lost record didn't really show it but in the end he was much improved over the season before. His strikeouts improved by half, he only walked 4 more batters in 14 more innings, and despite playing half his games at the Polo Grounds he still only managed to allow 22 home runs.
Ryan Rush pitched to contact as well as he could but it was clear that this former superstar had little left in the tank. Still, his loss hits the Giants hard. Outside of their big four, only three other pitchers started a total of 6 games. One of them (
Jim Nardi) is long gone. Another (
Lester Willday) turns 40 this season. The third (
Dave Mathew) stunk in 2 outings.
Whomever they do choose, that person really only needs to last six innings because the awesome Giants bullpen can go the rest of the way.
Tom Kelley lost his mojo in the World Series but don't let that turn you off of him; we think his record of allowing less than one earned run per nine innings during the regular season speaks a lot more loudly than a couple of bad games against the White Sox.
Takehide Saito was 10-0 with a 1.23 ERA. 'Nuff said. This team even gets
Kelvin Inman back; Inman was following up a grand rookie year (10-6, 3.22) with the Senators with just plain great performance with Washington and then New York before going down in July.
Code:
Player Age W L Pct G GS SV IP H ER HR BB SO ERA
*John Burns 26 24 13 0.649 42 42 0 339.2 348 113 22 93 164 2.99
Ryan Rush 39 22 11 0.667 40 40 0 308.1 315 106 16 102 20 3.09
Fred Fleming 29 17 14 0.548 33 33 0 276.2 221 75 17 93 201 2.44
Li Alport 30 18 9 0.667 33 33 0 251 263 86 17 45 57 3.08
Takehide Saito 34 10 0 1.000 30 0 3 51.1 39 7 1 11 12 1.23
*Tom Kelley 29 4 1 0.800 33 0 12 45.2 31 5 3 14 18 0.99
Bob Billington 36 1 1 0.500 18 0 3 27.2 18 9 0 10 11 2.93
*Ernie Southwick 22 1 0 1.000 16 0 2 23.2 23 4 1 5 14 1.52
Lester Willday 39 1 2 0.333 3 3 0 20 19 8 4 4 7 3.60
Jim Nardi 29 1 0 1.000 6 1 0 18.1 24 7 3 7 5 3.44
Kelvin Inman 24 3 0 1.000 7 0 1 11.2 8 0 0 6 5 0.00
Willis Morin 36 0 0 0.000 9 0 2 9.2 11 4 0 1 1 3.72
*Dave Mathew 23 1 0 1.000 2 2 0 8.1 12 6 1 2 2 6.48
Team Totals 30.5 103 51 0.669 272 154 23 1392 1332 430 85 393 517 2.78
Catchers
Although
John Sundberg was not able to add any more trophies to his cabinet last year, the 1932 Rookie of the Year celebrated a fine campaign. He collected 83 ribbies despite batting down in the order the entire year. The one thing that eludes him is post-season success; in 9 World Series games, he's hitting just .217.
Fabian Weiland is the backup and that's all we're going to say about him.
Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
C John Sundberg 25 131 131 501 73 142 27 4 5 82 1 1 45 42 0.283 0.341 0.383
C #Fabian Wieland 29 36 23 85 10 17 2 0 1 11 2 1 7 6 0.200 0.266 0.259
Infield
The
Tom Hardy/
Gary Shaw platoon continues to provide some of the best performance in the major leagues at first, although at some time one or the other is going to want to play full-time. Last year the two combined for 198 hits, 10 homeruns (all hit by Hardy), 106 RBIs, and 96 walks. Shaw, the right-handed half of the platoon and therefore the forgotten man, saw his raw totals lowered by a .179 pinch-hitting performance 39 at-bats. He isn't the sort to complain about it, but the time has come for the man to prove he can play every day.
Brian Gerlach, however, is a man who likes his platoons. He also used one at second base after bringing over
Al Woodhouse from the Washington Nationals, who apparently provided the Giants with "Most Favored Nation" trading status in 1933. Woodhouse partnered with
Britt Grim, who hit .325 against left-handed pitching but was only given 40 at-bats against them.
Emory Jefferson manned the only position in the infield that avoided splitting time for some reason or other, and that was due in large part to the fact that Jefferson is, simply put, a stud. The 1931 Gold Glove winner at third, Jefferson is not likely to win another one as long as Cincinnati's Jay Calvin stays at the position, but he's still plenty good enough. Offensively he was down from his 1932 but nobody in the history of the game could match what he did (.348, 37, 133).
The Giants find themselves in a real pickle at shortstop.
Benton Wheeler is the incumbent and is plenty talented both with the glove and the stick. He won his 3rd straight Gold Glove and could win 10 more before he's done. But
Dave Jackson is no slouch either. Something's got to give here.
Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
1B #Tom Hardy 27 123 112 446 65 139 20 1 10 78 0 0 74 39 0.312 0.408 0.428
1B Gary Shaw 27 83 42 204 25 59 5 3 0 28 0 2 22 18 0.289 0.354 0.343
2B *Britt Grim 25 119 115 386 74 124 15 13 2 58 7 5 78 15 0.321 0.432 0.443
2B Al Woodhouse 27 54 35 150 18 41 4 0 1 24 0 1 20 13 0.273 0.358 0.320
2B Stewart Lewis 28 6 4 15 1 4 0 1 0 3 0 0 1 0 0.267 0.313 0.400
2B *Mark Piper 33 7 0 3 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 0.333 0.600 0.667
3B Emory Jefferson 28 135 134 507 80 157 27 7 13 97 0 1 101 29 0.310 0.422 0.467
SS Benton Wheeler 27 101 101 456 76 138 28 5 5 50 2 5 37 39 0.303 0.352 0.419
SS Dale Sloat 30 51 39 163 21 47 15 1 2 26 0 1 4 8 0.288 0.302 0.429
SS Dave Jackson 24 40 34 150 18 44 11 2 1 20 5 3 10 12 0.293 0.342 0.413
Outfield
There is no doubt that
Mason Taylor deserved his MVP award last year. The biggest knock on him was that he was too slow to play center field, especially in the weird dimensions of the Polo Grounds, where a 280 foot pop-up down one of the lines can go for a home run but a 500-foot blast to center can be caught for an out. That argument has some merit but he forced opposing fielders to run after long balls as much as he had to do the running himself. If his numbers look low for an MVP, remember what the rest of the league was doing. Answer: not much.
The move into center was necessitated by
Erik Conn's broken kneecap. Conn has won three Gold Gloves of his own in center but no longer has the foot speed to patrol it effectively and, what's more, is at a point where such running is going to make him lose even more time with injury. As much as it pains us to say so, his days out there could be and probably should be over.
The most obvious place to put Conn is in right field, where
Eddy McCrary slumped terribly the season after hitting .376. The Giants are not a nostalgic team, and it's likely that
John Montague will replace him in the field. Montague would probably also be the best center fielder of the bunch. However, even in that he'd be mediocre at best and, given Gerlach's love of defense, that might not be enough.
Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
LF *Mason Taylor 30 146 146 603 117 214 17 5 24 93 0 0 93 37 0.355 0.440 0.519
LF *John Montague 23 105 73 308 63 87 8 0 10 35 0 1 69 38 0.282 0.416 0.406
LF *Mark Wagner 31 34 6 45 5 7 4 0 0 7 0 0 5 2 0.156 0.235 0.244
CF Erik Conn 38 84 84 344 53 97 16 7 10 53 5 2 44 31 0.282 0.362 0.456
CF Ken Seibel 28 44 18 87 19 26 9 3 0 14 1 0 16 6 0.299 0.408 0.471
RF *Eddy McCrary 34 138 135 516 64 133 18 2 10 77 1 2 65 20 0.258 0.338 0.359
- Dale Becker 25 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.000 1.000 1.000
Team Totals 29.2 1710 1386 5433 814 1540 237 54 96 793 24 26 707 420 0.283 0.365 0.400