No Aiyuk or Williams, no win for 49ers

 In a year when more than 25 players were placed on the Injured Reserve list, the 49ers will play their final game of the 2020 season without star rookie wideout Brandon Aiyuk and Pro Bowl tackle Trent Williams. 

Both players were injured in last week's win over the Arizona Cardinals. Neither will be available for the finale against arch rival Seattle. 

So for those keeping track at home, the 49ers will be without Jimmy Garoppolo, Raheem Mostert, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk and Trent Williams on offense in the season finale. Plenty of other players remain out on both sides of the ball. 

With Seattle still potentially needing the win to stay in the first-round bye conversation, I expect this game won't be that close. And the Niners will finish 6-10 and draft in the top 15.  

Hopefully, disrespectful Kyle comes out and at least gives it a run for his money. CJ Beathard needs to just hand the ball off to Jeff Wilson and throw short passes to George Kittle. Kyle Shanahan can at least dial up some plays to get Kittle open in space. 

It's also a chance to try out for next year's team. Although I am not sure Kendrick Bourne or Richie James will be back. 

The defensive backfield will also play for next year's contract as Seattle has some very good weapons at WR. 

This year's free agency needs to start and end with Williams, who is a must sign this offseason. And if they can extend Fred Warner then do that, too. 

Draft Positioning after Sunday's Games

 If you are a 49ers fan looking to the NFL Draft at this point in the season, you are not alone. 

After the team's win over the Cardinals on Saturday, San Francisco is sitting at No. 14 in the NFL Draft. But if New England loses to Buffalo on Monday, I think that pushes them down to 15th due to the strength of schedule tiebreaker. 

So best-case scenario for 49ers fans would be for New England to win against the Bills. 

And if you want the best draft pick possible, fans should be rooting for the Vikings and Chargers to win in Week 17. That would push them up a few spots.

I am not sure if they can get high enough to nab one of the top four QBs in this next class but that would be ideal for the franchise. I think if a guy like Trey Lance is there, Shanahan pulls the trigger and lets Jimmy G and his contract go. 

Brian Peacock of Locked on 49ers said on his podcast last week that he expects Jimmy G to be in a 49ers uniform last week because he doesn't think the franchise will put someone worse than him on the field next season. 

Whether or not a rookie QB is better than Jimmy G is debatable. But with Jimmy G, Shanahan does have someone who he knows he can win with. And if they get the interior OL figured out, the running game should be able to lead the team back to the playoffs anyway. 

The Niners will try to win next week against Seattle. And another victory would give them some momentum heading into 2021. But it would also push them to outside the top 15 in the draft. 

So winning is losing and losing is winning in the final week of the season. Even if it's against the Seahawks. 

5 Observations about 49ers-Cardinals

 The San Francisco 49ers won a football game on Saturday. They defeated the Arizona Cardinals 20-12. Here are 5 observations about the victory. 

1. No one cares about draft position

As a long-time 49ers fan, I have openly said that if the team is out of the playoffs, the thing to do is lose games to help with draft positioning. 

While I still think that is the most beneficial thing to do for long-term success of the franchise, I appreciate that the franchise themselves values winning football games. 

Kyle Shanahan could have not played George Kittle, who was coming off a pretty significant injury. But Kittle is 100 percent healthy so Shanahan played him. The team is still trying to win games and that's refreshing. 

No, I don't think it's the best plan for us fans. It's going to be better for them in future years to have a top 10 draft pick, but Shanahan said earlier in the week that when he and John Lynch took over the franchise, they wanted to change the culture and tanking is not in the cards. 

I respect that mindset. I appreciate his honesty. And I enjoyed the watching my team win a football game and play a bit of a spoiler for playoff positioning. 

2. Give me Beathard over Mullens

Both C.J. Beathard and Nick Mullens have started plenty of games under center for the 49ers in recent years. Before this season, and it's still the case after this year, is that the only QB to have winning success under Shanahan is Jimmy Garoppolo. 

Beathard started Saturday and won his second game with the franchise. He's now 2-9 as a starter in San Francisco. That's not good. But I firmly believe that you can and should get better as a player the more you play. 

Mullens simply has not gotten better. He's basically plateaued as a QB. We know what we are going to get. 

Beathard looked better Saturday than he ever did before as a starter. He wasn't spectacular as he threw for less than 200 yards. But he had three TD passes and turned the ball over just once. 

When the Niners don't turn the ball over and run the ball like they did against the Cardinals, they are tough to beat. And Beathard was simply solid. He made throws when he had to and didn't make huge mistakes. 

He made a few big throws to former college teammate George Kittle and all three TD passes were on target. And he checked down when it was the right time to do so. The 49ers have plenty of guys who can get yards after the catch and Beathard simply worked the ball to those players. 

Beathard had a few throws that stunk. But he was a lot more effective and a lot less turnover prone than Mullens. And he actually presents a threat to run, too.

3. Days are numbered for Coleman, James and others. 

The Niners have been hampered by injuries all season. They have had at least 28 guys on the IR at some point this season. That's the most in franchise history. 

Because guys like Raheem Mostert, Deebo Samuel and George Kittle have been hurt, others have had a chance to show what they can do. 

Tevin Coleman was signed two years ago. I think this should be his last season as a 49ers RB as he can't stay healthy and he's not that effective when he is. 

Jeff Wilson was an undrafted free agent but looks clearly better than Coleman right now. I would keep Wilson over Coleman as a backup RB to Mostert moving forward. 

Richie James has had way too many drops and fumbles. He's a big play waiting to happen but there's too many bad in between the good for me. If it were my team, I would move forward with Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk and Kendrick Bourne as my WRs and move on from James and Trent Taylor. Hopefully Jalen Hurd can actually play next year but drafting another WR would be ideal. 

The 49ers have plenty of FAs looming. We will probably see the last of Richard Sherman, too. And what will they do with Trent Williams?

4. Kyler Murray kills the 49ers with his feet. 

This is a no brainer as Murray hurts a lot of teams with his feet. But Murray got yardage in the run game any time he wanted them. And it mostly came on third or fourth down. Not having Nick Bosa hurts but Murray has been great against the 49ers the past two seasons. 

Robert Saleh deserves a head coaching job and it's mostly not his fault as Murray is just an explosive player, but the Niners defense needs to figure out a better way to slow down mobile QBs. 

5. Warner-Greenlaw duo has bright future

Fred Warner showed again why he is a Pro Bowler and one of the best LBs in the NFL. He was great in coverage again as he nearly had a pick six and knocked the ball away from a Cardinal receiver on another play. 

Dre Greenlaw was a late-round draft pick a few years ago but he's been way better than that in his short time in the league. He was all over the field again against the Cardinals and was one of the reasons the Cardinals only had 120 rushing yards. 

Arizona ran 80 plays and scored just 12 points. Warner finished with 14 tackles and three passes defensed and Greenlaw added eight tackles and a tackle for loss. They just might be the best set of young LBs in the NFL. 

Give Fred Warner whatever he wants in FA. He's worth every penny. 

Trying something new

Hey guys.

It's been a while since my last blog post. Things were turned upside down at my day job as our newspaper again made some cuts that forced me into a one-person sports crew. So I haven't been this busy in several years. 

I also was trying to figure out where this blog should go. I could keep just typing about anything I want to talk about. 

But I think the best thing to do to try to grow it is to pick a focus point and stick with it for awhile. Maybe it will lead to something bigger. 

So, I have decided to go to what I know best and what I am most passionate about. And that's San Francisco 49ers football. 

My hope is to blog about games, offseason decisions, draft stuff and anything 49ers related. It will hopefully be fun and be something enough folks will be interested in. 

I listen to enough 49ers podcasts and watch enough YouTube pages geared around the 49ers that I should be able to provide enough material to keep the thing rolling. And when I learn something from someone else, I will be sure to attribute that to that person. 

Let's have some fun. And Let's Go Niners. 

The NL Cy Young Award goes to ...

I went down a rabbit hole tonight, breaking down the 2020 NL Cy Young candidates. 

In my opinion, there are 5 very strong candidates for the award. And they have all been great in their own ways. 

For the sake of this blog, I left all relief pitchers out of this. I don't think a closer or relief pitcher will win the award so I didn't even bother to look anyone up. Although I know there are some good ones. 

Trevor Bauer

Record: 5-4

1.73 ERA ... 73 innings ... 41 hits allowed ... 14 earned runs allowed ... 17 walks ... 100 strikeouts. 

0.79 WHIP ... 12.3 K/9 ... 2.87 FIP ... 277 ERA+ ... .159 BA against ... 2.8 WAR.

Yu Darvish

Record: 7-3

2.22 ERA ... 69 innings ... 56 hits allowed ... 17 earned runs allowed ... 13 walks ... 88 strikeouts. 

1.00 WHIP ... 11.5 K/9 ... 2.23 FIP ... 201 ERA+ ... .219 BA against ... 2.2 WAR.

Jacob deGrom

Record: 4-2

2.14 ERA ... 63 innings ... 42 hits allowed ... 15 earned runs allowed ... 16 walks ... 94 strikeouts.

0.92 WHIP ... 13.4 K/9 ... 1.99 FIP ... 198 ERA+ ... .184 BA against ... 2.5 WAR.

Dinelson Lamet 

Record: 3-1

2.07 ERA ... 65 innings ... 38 hits allowed ... 15 earned runs allowed ... 19 walks ... 89 strikeouts. 

0.87 WHIP ... 12.3 K/9 ... 2.51 FIP ... 207 ERA+ ... .166 BA against ... 2.3 WAR.

Corbin Burnes

Record: 4-1

2.11 ERA ... 59 innings ... 37 hits allowed ... 14 earned runs allowed ... 24 walks ... 88 strikeouts. 

1.02 WHIP ... 13.3 K/9 ... 1.79 FIP ... 258 ERA+ ... .174 BA against ... 2.2 WAR.

Analysis

As you can see, the list is filled with a variety of guys. Bauer and deGrom have both had Cy Young type seasons before with deGrom winning the award in back-to-back seasons in 2018 and 2019. Darvish is a known commodity who had best his season in the bigs this year arguably. And Lamet and Burnes are just getting started in their careers. At least we hope so. 

I think Bauer has the edge with the 2020 award. His ERA is better than anyone's in the NL. He also leads the NL in strikeouts, WHIP and opponents' batting average. I have no idea how to compute the ERA+ but I know the higher the number the better and Bauer leads the league in that, too. 

I am told constantly by the analytics guys that WAR is the best stat to figure out who had the better season. And Bauer has the highest WAR of all these candidates. 

Bauer's FIP is not as great as the other guys. So maybe luck has been on his side a little bit. FIP is basically ERA without taking into account your team's defense and the luck that goes with hitting.

I really like what Burnes and Lamet did this year. If they were more known names, they might even finish higher in the voting. 

Burnes 13.3 K/9 is impressive and is second to only deGrom. His 258+ also is second to only Bauer. And his FIP is lower than anyone on this list. 

Lamet's opponents' batting average and ERA are second to only Bauer. His K/9 is equal to that of Bauer. And his WAR is equal to that of Darvish. 

Speaking of Darvish, as a Reds fan, I thought for sure that he would fade down the stretch of the season. And maybe in a 162 game season he would have. He actually did fade a bit in his final two starts, allowing more than 2 ER in both of them I believe. That's not bad. But it did move his numbers to below that of Bauer and deGrom. 

deGrom has the pedigree of winning the award so that will help him with some voters, especially those on the East Coast. His 13.4 K/9 leads the NL and his 2.5 WAR is second to only Bauer. He does have 10 fewer innings than Bauer so he might be the strikeouts leader if he had the same number of innings. 

You cannot go wrong with any of these guys. I am tired of hearing about the negatives that go with Bauer. 

His "baggage" is just something that his detractors and haters can't get past. 

In the span of a few days, I had arguments with other team's fanbases about how he shouldn't win the award because he's only 5-4 or because he's only done this because he's in a contract year or because he walks off the mound between innings like Connor McGregor sometimes. 

None of that matters with the Cy Young. Or at least it shouldn't. Lots of guys pitch or play well in contract years. That's not uncommon. But it's also not a lock. He is an arrogant and different guy. But he also gives props to his opponents when he gets "got."

The record comment is just dumb. The most ridiculous stat is baseball is the wins statistic that goes with pitchers. It's an arbitrary stat that has little to do with how you perform and more to do with how you pitch and how your team hits and plays defense. 

At one point recently, Bauer ranked second in the NL in lack of run support in the majors behind his teammate Luis Castillo. The Reds have been much better lately so that may not be the case right now. But the fact is, he goes out and pitches well almost every night but doesn't always get the win because the Reds lose 2-1 or 3-2 or 1-0. I think Bauer only gave up more than 3 runs in a start once this year. 

How is it his fault that he is 5-4? Felix Hernandez won the Cy Young in 2010 with a 13-12 record and deGrom was 11-8 last year and 10-9 in 2018. There is precedent for record not mattering when it comes to the Cy Young winner so I doubt a 5-4 record will hurt him that much. 

I am not sure who gets a Cy Young vote or even how many voters there are. Hopefully they look beyond players off the field and focus on what they've done on it. 

If I had a vote, this would be my order of finish in the 2020 NL Cy Young race. ...

1. Trevor Bauer

2. Jacob deGrom

3. Corbin Burnes

4. Yu Darvish

5. Dinelson Lamet

This very well could be the closest vote in the history of the award. And maybe it should be. I just think Bauer leads too many of the most important stats to be overlooked. It's his time. And he should be the first Cincinnati Reds Cy Young winner. 

 

 

Left for dead, the Reds are very much alive

 I definitely gave up on the Cincinnati Reds. I had seen this movie too many times. The offense was a combination of bad and unlucky. 

The offense is still not very good but they hit a lot of home runs. The starting pitching, which was already great, got even down the stretch with a few key starts from relief pitcher Michael Lorenzen and Luis Castillo is in another world right now. 

Another thing that changed that has the Reds back in contention for a playoff spot is the bullpen. 

The arms in the bullpen got much better. And they got rid of guys who just couldn't get it done. I have full confidence in Rasiel Iglesias, Amir Garrett, Lucas Sims and Tejay Antone at this point. Those four guys will be vital to any playoff appearances or even playoff wins. 

The Reds starters can go 6-8 innings every time out. Trevor Bauer is closing in on the Reds' first-ever Cy Young award. 

The Milwaukee Brewers' loss to the St. Louis Cardinals dropped the idle Reds' magic number to clinch a playoff berth to 2. 

The Reds open a series with the Twins on Friday. They will need at least one win to make the postseason. But if they win and any two of the Brewers, Phillies or Giants lose then the Reds are in. The Giants actually have to lose both games of their doubleheader but the other two can lose once and the Reds are in as long as they take down the Twins in the opener. 

I would much rather be playing for positioning in the postseason after Friday then playing to get in the postseason after tomorrow.

The Reds will have Tyler Mahle, Castillo and possibly Bauer on short rest this weekend to lock up a playoff spot. 

Hopefully the offense shows up for three more games and they can take care of business. 

It's been a long time since the Reds were playing baseball in October. And now that they are this close, it would really suck if they fell short. 

The 49ers are still elite

It's been a while since I have blogged. Between my real writing job picking up steam and my daughter being taught remotely at home, I have been super busy lately. 

But since the NFL season is right around the corner, I feel like it's time to throw out some predictions and bold statements. 

The Reds have been super disappointing in MLB so it's time to move my attention to the NFL as my favorite team in all of pro sports played in the Super Bowl last year. 

Some folks are down on the Niners this year. I don't get it. And maybe it's not as bad as I have seen on social media. I have learned that comments on twitter are not always the consensus but more the loud minority. 

There will be a handful of teams that start the season with realistic Super Bowl expectations. 

The Chiefs. The Ravens. The Titans. The Steelers. The 49ers. The Saints. The Packers. The Vikings. The Cowboys. The Seahawks. The Buccaneers. Maybe the Eagles. 

Some of those teams are better than others but I would think all of them think they can win it all. 

But last year, no one predicted the 49ers would be the top seed in the NFC and even make the playoffs. So you just never know. The NFL has long stood for Not For Long for me. 

Windows aren't open for very long. It's all about the head coach, quarterback and defense IMO. If you don't have a top 10ish QB and a top 10ish defense, it's extremely hard to win a title. 

Kansas City has the No. 1 QB in the league. a Hall of Fame head coach and the defense was much better down the stretch and played well in the playoffs when it mattered. 

As a 49ers fan, I love Kyle Shanahan. But if he would have ran the ball just a few more times in the final 7 minutes of the Super Bowl, the Niners would be celebrating a sixth title. 

A 10-point lead with 7 minutes to play for one of the league's best running offenses and Shanahan called three straight running plays when the Chiefs were rallying. It's not like KC's defense was stopping the run. The Niners averaged five yards per carry in the game. 

I'm still bitter. I took me weeks to get over the loss. Nothing hurts me more as a sports fan than when the Niners lose a big game or the Super Bowl. Especially when they had a lead late in the game. 

But I don't think this team is just done either like some have suggested. Not sure why they aren't picked to win the NFC West. They bring back most of the roster that got them to the Super Bowl. And they add some really key pieces, too. 

Trent Williams at left tackle. Jerick McKinnon as a third-down back. Trent Taylor as a slot receiver. None of these guys played in the Super Bowl last year. All three are upgrades from what they had on the field last year. 

Joe Staley is a Hall of Fame left tackle. But Trent Williams is a better player at this point of his career. And the word is that Williams is now up to 315 pounds. He's one of the best tackles in the game when he's right mentally and I think he'll be amped up to play for his former coach and for one of the best teams in the league. 

Jimmy G is going to love having Williams protect his blindside. 

McKinnon is a guy who Shanahan signed early in his tenure. He hand picked the Jet to be a big part of his offense. And injuries has forced him to the sidelines the past two years. McKinnon is reportedly healthy now and if it stays that way, he will be a nightmare for teams to cover. 

Trent Taylor was Jimmy G's favorite target when he was a rookie. Not having his security blanket last year was a big deal. I think Taylor is severely underrated and will be one of the top receivers on this team this season. 

Throw in Brandon Aiyuk at receiver, a full season with Raheem Mostert as the main running back and a full second year in Shanahan's system for Jimmy G and the Niners' offense should be much better in 2020. 

Jimmy G will be just the third QB in Niners history to eclipse 4,000 yards and he could give Jeff Garcia's franchise record a run for the money.  

The defense should be fine, too. Especially if Dee Ford's knees hold out a little longer than they did last year. The pass rush will be awesome, I think collectively Fred Warner, Dre Greenlaw and Kwon Alexander are one of the best linebacking duos in the game and the secondary was a big key to the defense last year and everyone is back. 

The Niners should finish no worse than 10-6. I think that's a low bar for this team but if there are injuries, 10-6 is a fair prediction. It's hard to go 13-3 every year so my final prediction is 11-5. But if they get back to the Super Bowl, I think they finish the deal this time. 

Predictions

AFC East - Bills

AFC West - Chiefs

AFC North - Ravens

AFC South - Titans

Wild Card - Steelers

Wild Card - Colts

Wild Card - Patriots

NFC East - Cowboys

NFC West - 49ers

NFC North - Packers

NFC South - Saints

Wild Card - Vikings

Wild Card - Seahawks

Wild Card - Buccaneers