Carney Lansford: New Hitting Coach for Giants

Now that's exciting news to me. I've always admired Carney from afar when he was an A's player, and I secretly hoped that the Giants would draft his son who is a position player, but that was not to be. According to the article, he grew up cheering for the Giants from the south bay, so that's news to me, and make me regret more that the Giants didn't draft his son.

What's not to like? He was a former AL batting champ, lifetime .290 hitter with 2,071 hits, and batted over .300 five times in his 15 year career. I'm always for getting ex-players either with ties to the Giants or were Giants fans growing up, I think that's extra special for them and so they will give that undefinable extra zing to their work.

I always liked his hard-nosed attitude towards the game and hopefully that will rub off onto his young students. He didn't walk THAT (A's Moneyball) high, but 7.2% is not that bad, about 40-50 walks in a full season. But he had a very good career BB/K ratio of 0.77 - the best hitters are above 1.00 - and he improved that ratio during his career, and was on average above 1.00 in his last five full seasons (with BB% at 8%+ during that period too), after being significantly under for most of his career, except for a two year period early in his career.

I like this hire, it brings new blood into the organization, it brings "street cred" in that Lansford has done it before at a very high level, and most of all, I think it brings a new attitude into the coaching staff, he's the "never say die" type of competitive player that I've always liked and admired. Hopefully he can bring and teach what Matt Morris and Benjie Molina said was missing in our clubhouse last season. He has a two-year contract.