A look at MLB free agency and the San Francisco Giants

 Hello friends!!!! I realize it's been a while since I have written a blog. There have been a lot of things happening in my life between then and now and while I may write a blog detailing my health issues and my final semester at CSU, Chico at a later time, today I wish to talk about the San Francisco Giants and MLB free agency. For any of you who follow baseball, you have seen some insane contracts being reported. Noah Syndergaard switches coasts, leaving the New York Mets for the Los Angeles Angels for one year and $21 million. Speaking of the Mets, they have been on a shopping spree not only signing Max Scherzer to a three-year, $130 million deal which sets a record for highest average annual value at $43.3 million per year. They also added a trio of position players in Mark Canha (two years, $26.5 million), Eduardo Escobar (two years, $20 million), and Starling Marte (four years, $78 million). Not to be outdone, the Texas Rangers (who lost 102 games in 2021) seem to be trying to buy their way back into the win column, signing infielders Marcus Semien (seven years, $175 million) and Corey Seager (ten years, $325 million), and pitcher Jon Gray (four years, $56 million). Other major signings include Javier Baez with the Detroit Tigers (six years, $140 million), 2021 AL Cy Young award winner Robbie Ray with the Seattle Mariners (five years, $115 million), and our own Kevin Gausman leaving San Francisco to sign with the Toronto Blue Jays (five years, $110 million).

You may notice that the San Francisco Giants are not included in the above list of signings. Traditionally the Giants have not jumped early into the free agent pool. Even when they signed Barry Bonds back in 1992, which was one of the highest profile signings of the time, they didn't sign him until December 6. On top of this, President of Baseball Operations Farhan Zaidi and General Manager Scott Harris are not known for giving out long-term and big money deals, something that the previous hierarchy was keen to do. The Giants will likely continue to fly under the radar while they try and replace some key members in their pitching rotation and lineup.

After the 2021 season, it was largely assumed that the Giants would be in the market for up to four starting pitchers. Kevin Gausman, Alex Wood, and Anthony DeSclafani were all entering free agency and it was assumed (correctly) that Johnny Cueto's 2022 option would not be picked up. Out of the five starters in the rotation at the end of the 2021 season, only Logan Webb was under contract for 2022. While the Giants expressed interest in bringing back Gausman, he signed with Toronto. I would tend to believe that the years offered was the sticking point in any contract negotiations that may have happened. Again, Gausman got five years from Toronto and, looking at the next contracts we're going to talk about, none of the pitchers that the Giants have signed have received more than three years. So let's look at what the Giants DID do.

First they brought back DeSclafani (13-7, 3.17 ERA) for three years and $36 million. While DeSclafani only pitched 167.2 innings in 2021, he did start 31 games and his 13 wins were second on the Giants behind Gausman's 14. Next the team signed Alex Cobb (8-3, 3.76 ERA with the Los Angeles Angels) for two years and $20 million. Finally the Giants brought back Wood (10-4, 3.83 ERA) for two years and $25 million. Wood started 26 games and was fourth on the team in wins with 10. The Giants may be looking at either Sammy Long or Tyler Beede to win the fifth starter spot. Long split time between the rotation and the bullpen appearing in 12 games with 5 starts. He flashed good stuff including a wipeout curve, but was inconsistent, finishing with a 2-1 record and a 5.53 ERA in 40.2 innings. Beede spent most of 2021 in the minors after having Tommy John surgery in March 2020. He pitched 1 inning with the Giants in 2021 facing 6 batters, allowing 2 hits, 3 earned runs, hitting a batter and throwing a wild pitch. He also struck out 2. Beede has always had an above average fastball with a good curveball and changeup, but his command has been an issue and he may need some more time at the minor league level after missing the entire 2020 season. It is possible that the Giants may be looking at starters in the trade market as well. One name mentioned by Susan Slusser who covers the Giants for the San Francisco Chronicle was Sonny Gray of the Cincinnati Reds. Gray went 7-9 with a 4.19 ERA for the Reds in 2021. Zaidi is familiar with Gray who pitched with Oakland in 2013 and 2014 while Zaidi was with the A's organization.

That covers the pitching, but what about the lineup? Well, the biggest announcement regarding the Giants lineup so far was the retirement of Buster Posey on November 4. Posey hit .304 with 18 home runs and 56 RBI in his final season after sitting out the 2020 season. The Giants plan to replace him with top prospect Joey Bart (.294, 10 home runs, 46 RBI with AAA Sacramento) and backup Curt Casali (.210, 5 home runs, 26 RBI). Bart replaced Posey as the primary catcher during the shortened 2020, playing 33 of the 60 games, but appeared overmatched hitting only .233 with 0 home runs and striking out 41 times in 103 official at bats. There was speculation that the Giants would be interested in a free agent catcher like Yan Gomes (.252, 14 home runs, 52 RBI with the Washington Nationals and Oakland A's) but he signed with the Chicago Cubs for two years and $13 million. The Giants do have another top catching prospect in 2020 first round pick Patrick Bailey (.265, 9 home runs, 39 RBI in the minors), but he has yet to play above A+ ball and is not projected to reach the major league level until 2023.

The Giants agreed to a contract extension with MVP candidate Brandon Crawford for two years and $32 million that will keep Crawford with the Giants through the 2023 season. Crawford hit .298 with 24 home runs and 90 RBI in 2021. The Giants also extended a qualifying offer to Brandon Belt for $18.4 million which Belt accepted. Belt hit .274 with 29 home runs and 59 RBI in only 97 games in 2021. Both Belt and Crawford set career highs in home runs in 2021 with Belt missing 30 only because of the games he missed due to injury. Projected over a full 162 game season, Belt was on pace to hit 48 home runs. The Giants look to be seeking upgrades at second base and in the outfield. San Francisco has been rumored to be interested in nearly every free agent middle infielder on the market with specific mention of Semien coming back to the Bay Area after spending 2015-2020 with Oakland. I would like to see them make a run at Trevor Story (.251, 24 home runs, 75 RBI with the Colorado Rockies) but his strikeout numbers (139 in 526 at bats) don't tend to line up with the Giants hitting philosophy. In the outfield, the Giants had been linked to Canha who signed with the Mets. They are also linked to Nick Castellanos who opted out to become a free agent after signing a four year, $64 million deal with the Cincinnati Reds following the 2019 season. Castellanos had a great 2021 with Cincinnati hitting .309 with 34 home runs and 100 RBI. Defensively, he might not be a wizard in right field, but there is speculation that the universal designated hitter will be negotiated when the current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires on December 1. If the universal DH is accepted, then Castellanos' defensive concerns may not deter the Giants from pursuing him. Castellanos is said to be seeking a seven or eight year deal.

The name we haven't mentioned is Kris Bryant who the Giants acquired from the Chicago Cubs at the 2021 trade deadline. Bryant hit .262 with 7 home runs and 22 RBI for the Giants giving him a .265, 25, 73 line for the season. Bryant immediately fit in the lineup and in the clubhouse, and the Giants have expressed great interest in bringing him back. Bryant gives the Giants plenty of versatility in the field playing third base and all three outfield spots in 2021. Current Giants GM Scott Harris is very familiar with Bryant having been the director of player operations with the Chicago Cubs 2012 - 2017 and the assistant general manager in 2018 and 2019. Bryant played with the Cubs 2015 - 2021. Bryant looks to be a target for several teams including the Giants, the Seattle Mariners, the New York Mets (though after their signings it remains to be seen if the Mets can afford him and where he would play), and recently the Colorado Rockies. If Bryant signs with another team, it is unclear who else the Giants could target in the outfield. The Giants have been linked to Joc Pederson who hit .238 with 18 home runs and 61 RBI between the Chicago Cubs and World Series champion Atlanta Braves.

One final name the Giants have been linked with if they decide to pursue another starting pitcher is Marcus Stroman. Stroman went 10-13 with the New York Mets in 2021 with a 3.02 ERA. Stroman was an all star as recently as 2019 and finished eighth for the Cy Young award in 2017 while pitching for Toronto. So that's the report folks. With the Collective Bargaining Agreement expiring, it is unlikely that we will see much action on the free agent market until a new agreement is reached. But there is still much work to be done. And with that Giants fans, I thank you for reading and here's looking forward to Spring Training!!!!

Reflection on the Events in Atlanta

On a day when most people were celebrating their real or supposed Irish heritage (myself included), Tragedy befell the city of Atlanta, Georgia. A white man shot and murdered 8 people at 3 Atlanta-area spas. 6 of those victims were of Asian decent which has sparked an important conversation of anti-Asian discrimination that has permeated this country over the past year. Current and former United States elected officials have used racially offensive and race-specific terms to describe the COVID-19 pandemic over the past year and I have had multiple people close to me refer to this as the "China Virus" and the "Kung Flu." Now for those of you who may not be aware, and I'm guessing there's a lot of you, I am an Asian-American. I am Japanese on my mother's side, so yeah, this is a topic that I have a deeply vested interest in. "But Corey, you don't look Asian," you might be thinking. Why does that matter? Would I or anyone else need to deny their heritage simply because they don't look a certain stereotypical way? While I cannot compare events from my past to what happened in Atlanta yesterday, I do have a story of my own to describe my own experience with anti-Asian racism and discrimination that I would like to share with you.

When I was 18 years old, I was jumped outside of Central Valley High School after a football game. I was with a friend, who happens to be white, and we were followed by 8 individuals towards the parking lot. They separated us and surrounded me. One of the individuals in front of me distracted me by asking if I had a cigarette. I raised my open hands to indicate I did not want any trouble. From behind me, one of the individuals shouted, "white pride!" and they proceeded to throw me a beating. My friend tried to help me and he got his nose broken. I had one of my front teeth knocked out. The individuals then jumped into a waiting car and sped off. My friend and I made our way to the local hospital where one of the nurses called the police. The 2 officers spoke with my friend first and from his recount of the conversation, they were attentive, supportive, and optimistic that there would be some justice for what had happened. Then they talked to me. Now I can't say whether my friend heard the words "white pride" or if he recounted that to the officers, but I did. The minute that those words uttered forth from my mouth, the instant that this could be construed as a hate crime, the officer who had been taking my statement closed his notebook and placed it back in his pocket. The officers became cold, dismissive, and doubtful that any justice would be found. To them, this had become a case of "boys being boys" and to insinuate in any way that this was a hate crime was not worth their time or trouble. For the first time in my life, I became acutely aware of the fact that I was different and that I was treated differently. I flashed back to 4th grade when we first learned about World War II and the attack on Pearl Harbor and how the kids treated me upon learning that I was Japanese. In my mind we were all just children and they didn't mean the things they said. But did they actually? I am 41 now and I remember that night from 23 years ago as vividly as the night it happened. I remember the mental and emotional trauma being much more painful and lasting much longer than the physical pain. I was living at the dormitory at Shasta College at the time of the attack and I withdrew to my home. I stopped going to classes. I have recently been able to reconnect with one of my classmates and she remembered that I had disappeared and no one knew what had happened. My attitude and personality grew more militant and I became very paranoid and suspicious of white people, even my own friends. Even my girlfriend.

If you are still reading this, I need to remind you that this is not about me. This is about the 8 people who lost their lives in Atlanta yesterday. Even more, this is about how Asians and Asian-Americans have been regarded in this country for over 100 years. After slavery was abolished in 1865, Chinese laborers were imported to the southern United States replacing freed slaves on the plantations. Yellow Peril xenophobia was actually made legal in the United States in 1875 with the adoption of the Page Act prohibiting immigration of Chinese women. In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act extended the immigration ban to Chinese men. The Geary Act, passed in 1892, extended the Chinese Exclusion Act and required that all Chinese residents of the United States were to carry a resident permit. Failure to carry the permit could result in deportation or 1 year of hard labor. Further, Chinese residents could not bear witness in court and could not receive bail. The Geary Act was challenged and upheld by the United States Supreme Court in 1893 and these acts remained in force until the Magnuson Act was passed in 1943 which only slightly opened Chinese immigration. In 1880, the "Anti-Chinese League" was organized in Tombstone, Arizona with other chapters following in San Francisco and Santa Rosa, California. Chinese residents were also met with violence throughout the late 19th century. The following incidents all took place in 1885; a mob of white miners murdered 28 Chinese miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming. In Squak Valley, Washington a group of men fired guns into several tents where Chinese hop pickers were sleeping killing 3 Chinese men. The attackers were identified and brought to trial, but all were acquitted. The Chinese population of Tacoma, Washington was forcefully expelled when a local white mob marched Chinese residents to a railroad station and forced them to board a train to Portland. In 1886, the Knights of Labor expelled 200 Chinese people from Seattle. In 1887, 34 Chinese gold miners were murdered by 7 white gang members in the Hells Canyon Massacre in Hells Canyon, Oregon. These are only a few of the examples of anti-Chinese violence and sentiment in the United States.

Moving on to the 20th century, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, 120,000 Japanese-Americans, two-thirds of whom were American citizens, were removed from their homes and imprisoned without trial. The ACLU called this, "the worst single wholesale violation of civil rights of American citizens in our history." Following their release in 1945, many Japanese-Americans tried to integrate into American culture in an effort to soften prejudice. In doing so, they sacrificed their Japanese culture and even the Japanese language. It wasn't until the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s that Japanese-Americans sought to re-identify their Japanese heritage. Even in Japan, music education had centered on western classical music and largely discounted traditional Japanese music until 2002. In 1988, with the passage of the Civil Liberties Act, the United States government finally issued an official apology for the internment of Japanese-American citizens, 43 years after the interned were released.

I write this now as a reflection on what happened yesterday, what happened to me 23 years ago, and what has happened to Asians and Asian-Americans throughout the history of the United States. I returned to Redding, California in 2016 to return to Shasta College and complete my AA in Music. In the years I have been back, I cannot say whether my home is worse off or if I just wasn't paying enough attention in my teenage years. Today I see a rising in conservative and right-wing extremism. These views and these people are largely celebrated by the community for being "patriots" and yet, all I hear is hate and rhetoric directed at people with more liberal views. Those people will claim they are not making threats, but is a threat determined by the person being threatened or the person doing the threatening? The definition of a perceived threat is an individual's cognitive assessment of the likelihood a danger will affect them and how bad it will be if it does. So when people attend a Shasta County Commissioner's meeting and state, "the ballot box will be replaced by the cartridge box," how can that not be perceived as a threat? Also, FYI, the comment is paraphrased from Larry McDonald who was a United States Representative from Georgia from 1975 to 1983 and the 2nd president of the John Birch Society. The John Birch Society is a well-known radical right organization and notably opposed the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. People I have known since I was a teenager have shocked and appalled me with their narrow views to the point where I have removed many of them from my life for my own mental health. I cannot believe that people I used to know and respect can view the world in such ways and I have to wonder to myself, if they would have known then that I was Japanese, would they still have accepted me or would they have treated me with the same hatred and vitriol that they seem to have for other minorities and people of color? The hatred that they have embraced and celebrated from current and former elected officials? I am embarrassed and more than a little disgusted to say that a former friend and band-mate of mine is now producing a TV docuseries that will document and celebrate a right-wing militia's efforts to recall a majority of the Shasta County Supervisors.

If you're still here, I want to say thank you. Thank you for sticking through and reading this. The events in Atlanta have shone a light on this issue for me, but understand that this is not a new issue for me or for this country. Again, my first experience with anti-Asian racism and discrimination occurred 23 years ago. It would be easy for me to look back on that night and resign myself that I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it would taste a lie and diminish everything I have done and overcome to reconcile that night. I am a survivor of anti-Asian racism and discrimination and for that I consider myself lucky.

One Man's Take on Women in the Audio Industry

 I am a member of several audio related groups on Facebook and one topic recently caught my eye: the topic of women in the audio industry. I wrote a semi-related blog for a class over the summer discussing inclusion in video gaming and I have my own thoughts on the topic. As a man in the music industry, I have seen some abhorrent behavior from my male counterparts, but at the same time I have been relatively sheltered from a lot of this type of behavior because I personally have chosen not to surround myself with those type of toxic males. I wanted to relay some of my experiences so please keep reading if this topic is something that interests you.

First I want to talk about my experience with Ashfield. We were a semi-professional band in Denver, Colorado from 2004 to 2014. I can say that I had some of the best experiences of my life on stage with the other 4 members and we easily played several hundred shows to small and large crowds alike. Our fans were evenly mixed of male and female and I was never aware of any discriminatory treatment from our fan base to anyone else within our fan base. That said, we did play a show where we opened for a fairly well-known national touring act and one of the other opening bands had a female lead singer. She was a fairly close acquaintance of ours which is to say we were friendly but we didn't hang out regularly and this was the first and only time we ever shared a stage with her band. The lead singer of the touring act, who was male, spent a good portion of their set making lewd comments about our friend's chest. Needless to say, this act grew tired real quick and I'm happy to say that the crowd, made up of a lot of our fans, quickly turned on the touring act. Still, our friend was quite shaken and, despite our efforts to console her, ended up leaving the venue. A small number of us confronted the offensive singer after the show and he attempted to play off the situation as a joke. The situation did not escalate further, we said what we felt needed to be said, and the touring act left without incident. This was the only time I witnessed such disgusting sexism on stage though I'm sure it happens much more frequently than I am privy to.

I also want to relay my experience in the recording studio as a performer. Ashfield spent significant time in the recording studio and again, we were fortunate to work with some very good engineers. My personal feeling about our recording sessions were that they were private affairs so that the band could focus on the work and the creative process. However, other members of the band would bring their girlfriends on occasion and this was never an issue for me or for the recording engineer. In many cases, their feedback was welcomed as the perspective of someone who would be buying and listening to our songs. Obviously they were not there in a professional capacity, but no one ever looked at them as "groupies" or people just hanging out with the band. I believe there was only one time in the history of the band where all 5 of us were in relationships at the same time and there is a picture featuring all 5 of our girlfriends tricked out in Ashfield merchandise. This is one of my favorite promo shots that we ever got to use.

Finally, let me talk about my experience as an audio student and hopeful audio professional. When I started my coursework at California State University, Chico, my group of Recording Arts students included 35 people. Of this 35, only 4 were female. Of those 4, 2 dropped the program by the second semester. In a study published in 2019, 3 creative roles were highlighted regarding diversity: artists, songwriters, and producers. The study revealed that 21.7% of artists, 12.3% of songwriters, and only 2.1% of producers were female. So clearly there is an issue with diversity and inclusion here. I cannot say why there were so few females in our program to begin and I cannot say why 2 of them dropped, but clearly there is an opportunity to do better. The stories of women being harassed in the studio are sickening. I can tell you from my perspective that I do not care if a male or a female is recording me. Whatever is being done to give us the best possible sound is all I care about.

If you've read this far, I hope that you do not interpret this as a tone-deaf response to a real issue. I want to be a part of the solution as this is an industry in which I am trying to create my opportunity. Really this is just my response to a post that I felt was very thought provoking and I wanted to share my relevant experience. Thank you for reading.