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PITTSBURGH – Baseball players are often late risers, working second-shift hours. As such, Eric Thames typically began his days in Changwon, South Korea, around 11 a.m. local time. He went through a series of stretching exercises in his apartment and then departed for lunch.

His home was about a mile from the ballpark in Changwon, a southeastern port city positioned on an inlet that flows to the East China Sea. For lunch, there were five of six American-style style restaurants nearby. There was a burger joint, Italian and Mexican restaurants. Web sites created by American expats documented all the options. He would eat alone, reading his Kindle or iPhone, skimming through articles. He would then walk, or travel by Onewheel skateboard, to Massan Stadium, the home of the NC Dinos. He would arrive early, and hit early, alone, for 30 or 40 minutes. Afterward, he would read more in the clubhouse as he tried to fill in the hours before first pitch.

During most of his time with the Dinos — owned by NCSoft, a South Korean video-game developer — Thames had only two American teammates and both had brought their families along with them. After home games, or on the road, Thames would often retire to his apartment or hotel room. For three years of his life, and of his professional career, Thames was often alone.

“I was so bored over there,” Thames told FanGraphs. “The language barrier was really tough. For me, it was a lot of time by myself. I didn’t speak any [Korean]. All the other American [players] had families and stuff, so they are with their kids. So I’m just online reading stuff, and I’m bored, and I’m pissed because I’m 0-for-15. ‘Let’s figure out what’s going on here.’ So I started looking up video.”

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Things haven’t exactly gone according to plan for the Giants. A year after winning the Wild Card game, they’ve got the worst record in baseball and, as of right now, a 7% chance of making the playoffs. They’ve lost their ace to a foolish dirt-bike accident, and their starters at shortstop and center field, as well as their closer, are on the DL. They’ve scored the second-fewest runs of any team, and their run differential of -69 makes that even worse. It’s May 10th and the Giants may already be dead.

Teams this far out of the playoff picture typically make the most of it by offloading pieces to contenders in exchange for prospects. It’s much too early in the year for theoretical contenders to be pushing their chips to the center of the table just yet, but it’s not too early for them to be surveying the shape of the market. Unfortunately for both buyers and San Francisco, the Giants may not have many pieces to pick over.

Players who get moved at midseason usually don’t have much time remaining on their contracts before they hit free agency. They’re guys who may not be around when the selling team is making its next playoff run — or whom the club can otherwise afford to replace. The Giants have pretty much their entire core under contract for next year. Only Hunter Pence and possibly Denard Span (depending on how the Giants decide to handle his option) will leave for free agency following 2018’s conclusion. They’ll have Bumgarner back at full strength next year, and in the unlikely event that Johnny Cueto doesn’t opt out, he’ll be there, too. If Cueto does opt out, this upcoming free-agent class doesn’t lack for premium starting pitching, on which the Giants have repeatedly shown themselves willing to spend.

That’s all a somewhat roundabout way of saying that the Giants don’t exactly have a ton of expendable trade chips at the moment. This season doesn’t look like the start of an irreparable decline as much as it looks like a rather large bump in the road. There’s no reason the Giants can’t be competitive next year, even if they do lose Cueto. But barring a massive resurgence and excellent play from their currently injured players, the Giants aren’t going anywhere this year, and they’re not really in a position to better prepare themselves for the future.

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Part of this job is writing about players who’ve put together interesting performances in small sample sizes. Really, at this point of the season, that describes basically every player. With Andrew Toles, though, it’s even harder: his whole career is a small sample size. And now, depending on the severity of his current knee injury, we might be forced to continue trying to evaluate him as a player based on very little evidence.

In that brief career, however, Toles has been good. Among active players who both (a) have recorded 200-plus plate appearances (Toles has 214) and (b) have yet to turn 25 (which he does in two weeks), Toles ranks 40th out of 99 by Wins Above Replacement — and he’s top 30 in isolated power.

That latter distinction is interesting. Projections, perhaps seeing powerless seasons in the minor leagues and dealing with a missed year in some form or another, don’t see that kind of power. I had to ask the player why they might be missing the point.

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We’re a little early for Dave Cameron’s annual must-read Trade Value series, but I suspect Matt Harvey won’t be appearing in it this year. I feel quite certain about that prognostication — even if Harvey avoids exile to the minor leagues and returns instead to his vintage 2013 form over the next few weeks.

Harvey met with the media Tuesday afternoon at Citi Field and tried to begin taking some accountability for his recent actions.

The “Dark Knight” was celebrating a late Cinco de Mayo at 1Oak until 4 a.m. Saturday — just hours before he failed to show up for a game at Citi Field, reportedly because of a “migraine,” sources said.

If true, it’s remarkable that folks still believe they can escape truth in an era of smart phones and social media.

A day earlier, Jon Heyman reported that Harvey and his agent Scott Boras planned to file a grievance over the suspension. It was suggested that the Harvey camp was displeased with the Mets’ decision to send team officials over to Harvey’s apartment for a check-in. Whatever the case, there doesn’t appear to be a lot of trust here.

The Mets’ 2017 season has become quite the soap opera, and it stars Harvey.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan talk to 18-year-old Effectively Wild listener/pitcher Connor Watrous about his heroic accomplishment of keeping score at an 18-inning Cubs-Yankees game, banter about a besieged closer and a Matt Albers milestone, and discuss the implications of a new development in the high-home-run-rate mystery.

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Jed Bradley was honest when I talked to him in January 2013. A first-round pick by the Milwaukee Brewers 18 months earlier, the left-hander admitted his velocity was down, and that he’d been experienced “a big learning curve.”

He was also thoughtful and realistic. The Georgia Tech product spoke about how most fans don’t understand “the pathway you have to take to get to the big leagues,” and about how the high minors are populated by veteran players who are supporting families and “putting everything on the line just for a shot.”

Bradley got his shot last September, appearing in six games, and hurling seven innings, for the Atlanta Braves. Last week, at age 26, he bid baseball adieu.

When I asked him why he retired, the former ACC Honor Roll student was every bit as honest and thoughtful as he was four years ago. Read the rest of this entry »