Taking the Fifth

The more intriguing questions facing the Giants have to do with the number-five spot in the rotation: who gets it, why was he the choice, and what does that choice say about the team's direction?

Wow, a whole lead paragraph without bashing Brian Sabean. I need medication.

Going into the off-season there were as many question marks surrounding the rotation as there were holes in the offensive lineup. Even with Lincecum, Cain and Zito assured, we had to wonder about those last two spots. Randy Johnson's retirement eliminated some of the suspense, as did Brad Penny's departure for St. Louis. When the Giants failed to move Jonathan "Dirty" Sanchez, that sealed the deal on number four but still left the five spot wide open.

Conventional wisdom was that the job would be filled by a veteran acquisition (a.k.a. Old Fart - calling Jeff Fassero!). When the off-season pitchers' market failed to materialize, suddenly the job belonged to Madison Bumgarner by default. In true Giants' fashion, that meant the team immediately had to go sign a veteran (i.e. a guy whose breath had to be checked for booze, not Bosco). Enter Todd Wellemeyer. With MadBum now slated to start the campaign at Chuckchansi Park rather than AT&T, the game of musical chairs continues.

While the pundits questioned who had the edge and the fans took sides (mostly favoring the kid), something funny happened: Kevin Pucetas got really really good. Now the Giants have whittled the legitimate choices for the five spot down to a pair with each of the spring candidates having varying degrees of spring success. Bumgarner struggled, Wellemeyer has been unspectacular, and Pucetas is suddenly the hot property.

So the question begs: if you're Satan or Melonhead, who do you go with? The decision may not have as much to do with performance as one might think. It's quite possible that this decsion will tell us a great deal about what Giants management really thinks of its 2010 product.

If the Giants go with....

Wellemeyer: "This team is good enough to win right now and we don't want to take the risk of an unproven kid at the back end of the roation. We prefer experience over talent, and Trent Dilfer isn't available.Win or lose, we can still get $10 for a cha-cha bowl."

Pucetas: "Holy $#@! This kid figured it out and we gotta make room. We may contend, we may not, but let's pretend we know what we're doing and develop another arm. We can still keep our inept image by bringing back Crazy Crab."

And of course, if we see Bumgarner before September that means (a) Wellmeyer's arm finally fell off; (b) Pucetas remembered he's a Giants farmahand and imploded, (c) Sanchez went back to channelling Rick Vaughn, (d) Hell froze over and the Giants were able to deal the Zito-tross.

Let me, here and now, voice my preference. As if I hadn't leaft enough breadcrumbs already, it's gotta be Pucetas.

There's a tendency for Giants management (and fans) to fall in love with the flavor of the month. We've seen how well that works out.  Frandsen and Lewis -- both once prized prospects -- can't even get a nibble on the trade market; and I've beaten up the Ransom-Minor-Linden-etc litany ad nauseum. As it relates to pitching, Bumgarner got all the attention while Pucetas' visibility vanished faster than Sarah Palin's approval rating. But while the focus was elsewhere, the guy went from pitching prospect to a guy arguing that his time has come.

Pucetas has thrown 14 innings this spring and amassed a 0.64 ERA. Now it's true the spring stats can deceive. Your prize young arm may have fanned the side, but did he whiff a legitamate 3-4-5 or is he racking up his numbers against the night shift at the San Carlos Pep Boys? Can he take the heat and pressure of the big stage, or will he slink into the shadows like James Cameron dodging "The Hurt Locker" post-Oscar party?

I don't know the answer, but I think the place to start is with this simple, yet often ignored question: what's best long term?

I've said it a lot. The Giants appear to be making things up as they go. Everything is about the next game or next week, with little or no thought about the next year. Too many quick fixes have left the team in the worst possible position: not good enough to win and not bad enough to be loveable losers. They are the worse of all sins -- a mediocre franchise. So it's time to start thinking about the future. I'm fine with Bumgarner going to Fresno, but I'd have serious issues with Wellemeyer in the rotation.

No TW didn't do anything wrong. No one has stenciled "gasoline" across his uniform. His 1.13 WH/IP is certainly good enough to make the team -- this year. But what about the future? If everything else is relatively even, one factor emerges. Wellmeyer will turn 32 mid-season. Pucetas is 26. Given the Giants' difficulties with filling out the back end of the rotation, you'd prefer any solution that didn't require the process to be repeated on an annual basis.

Wellemeyer looks to be a good insurance policy, but keep in mind that this is the same guy who imploded last year and blamed the flame-out on a tired arm. Bochy's tends to ride his starters for the full eight seconds, and the training staff will have enough to handle keeping Renteria in spare parts to spend much time gluing Wellemeyer back together.

I know the Giants' medical staff has pronounced him fit. I have two words for you: Freddy Sanchez. Don't forget that this is the same organization that took a year and a half to discover Robb Nen's right arm had been abducted by aliens.

The Giants have a lot of weaknesses on the offensive side. Any success they have this year will be due to the guys on the mound. The top of the rotation has two legitimate aces. Zito, for all his faults, has actually pitched well at times (and he earns kudos for plunking Prince Fielder). Sanchez could be Sandy Kofax or Sandy Duncan by the end of the year, but the Giants have at lease given him his shot. Doesn't Pucetas deserve that same chance?

Two years from now it's quite possible that Pucetas and Bumgarner are both on the staff. I don't see Wellemeyer making it three for three.

Roll the dice. If it works, great. If not, they've got Crazy Crab on speed dial.

Fish or Cut Bait

So, does anyone understand the gibberish that is the “minor league option”?

We’ve all heard that Player X is “out of options” and we accept it like the sun coming up in the east. We know it happens, but according to my Scale of Understanding, the cosmic forces that have to align to make this wondrous occasion occur fall somewhere between E=MC2 and the formula for creating perfect Rice Krispies treats.

Giants fans, this is the time of year to start contemplating the facts because there are some Giants stiffs, uh, prospects, who are currently staring at the phone while hoping the governor is about to call.

A player assigned to the 40-man roster gets three strikes and he’s out. Once beknighted by the organizational powers that be, he can be sent to the minors for parts of three seasons. After that, he has to clear waivers before being sent down, meaning the parent club has to risk losing him.

For the 2010 Giants, the list of players facing that fate consists of Kevin Frandsen, Travis Ishikawa, Fred Lewis, Brandon Medders, Nate Schierholtz, Andres Torres and Eugenio Velez. There’s a real possibility that when the Giants go north, some of this crew won’t be making the trip.

For some, there’s little or no drama. Barring catastrophe, I see Medders, Schierholtz and Torres making the team. Medders is a serviceable yet unspectacular middle reliever. Torres is a serviceable yet unspectacular reserve outfielder. Schierholtz is a…you get the idea.

The rest of these heroes fall into yet another category common to Giants farm hands. Frandsen was touted but hasn’t really panned out. Ishikawa is still dining out on one big year in AAA. Lewis is, well, I can’t describe Lewis without using words only uttered in an NC-17 movie. A description of Velez’s so-called talent would make my comments on Lewis read like Dr. Seuss. In short, they’re disappointments.

The first wave of so-called "young talent" has officially hit the beach. Actually, they washed up on the sand like so much kelp and jellyfish. The Carlos Valderamas and Lance Niekros are gone, moving on to illustrious careers as either parking valets or minor league knuckleball pitchers (which are approximately the same thing on the social relevance chart). Now the latest group of prospects is poised to once again punctuate the dreariness that comes from following the Giants farm system in the vain hope that help is arriving soon.

Go back and look at that list. Medders and Torres are cast-offs from other organizations, and those are the guys who are gonna make the team. Nate is the best hope for a breakthrough, and it’s a sure bet that Melonhead Bochy is gonna stick him at the end of the bench the first time he struggles, likely to be given a revised role no more substantial that feeding the sea lions at Pier 39. I’m sure Bochy and Satan, uh, Sabean, have Jermaine Dye on speed dial for just such an eventuality.

Frandsen and Velez might as well pack their bags. Frandsen can’t stay healthy, and Velez’s blinding speed can’t disguise base running skills stolen from Ruben Rivera and swing that approximates someone doing the robot on Soul Train cira 1970. More telling, both predominantly play second base on a team that has more mediocre infielders than Sarah Palin has factual errors in her memoirs. The only decision to be made is whether the Giants pop for a plane ticket or make them Greyhound it home.

Speaking of buses, it’s time to throw Lewis under one. At best, he’s a fifth outfielder. F-Lew actually has a decent OBP but the Giants have proven they don't care about middling things like stats. Of course, he also has a JT Snow-like penchant for eyeballing strike three, then crying to mother that he got jobbed on the call. Plus, repeatedly watching him take routes to the ball that resemble a wounded bumblebee in flight is enough to make the Pope reach for a generous portion of jaegermeister.

Realistically, only Ishikawa should survive the purge, and then only because Aubrey Huff is purported to appropriate that “Hands of Stone” thing from Roberto Duran – and not in a good way.

So in a sense, options are good things. The Giants have to let these guys play or risk letting them walk. But every cloud does carry with it the potential to get struck by lightning. Why would anyone else want these guys? Given the stunning ineptitude exhibited by recent Giants’ prospects, who would take a chance?

Okay, Brian Bocock found a job. Perhaps P.T. Barnum was right. Maybe the Giants will actually be forced to do the right thing. Yeah, and Boog Powell was an Olympic sprinter.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. The Giants once again find themselves at a crossroads. Do they go with younger talent or fill the gaps with “proven Major Leaguers” in a Quixotic effort to win now or do they rebuild? Unfortunately, they’ve already shown their hand. This team, which claims to be looking to get younger, now has put itself right back where it started. Younger players are squeezed out of roster spots to make room for the latest arrivals from the Senior Tour.

The only argument the Giants have for their current state of affairs is the claim that the kids aren’t ready. But the Death Row inmates listed above aren’t exactly wet behind the ears. If they aren’t ready, you gotta believe they never will be. If that’s the case, then how can we be convinced that the next crop is any better?

We keep hearing about the up-and-coming talent, but they said that about these guys, too. Remember, this is The Organization that loved Todd Linden (a country lyric if ever I heard one).

Apparently the Giants feel they’ve drafted so ineptly that only by being equally inept in the free agent realm can they balance the books. Stunning.

So while the Giants are telling a small group of players that this is their collective Waterloo, perhaps the front office should also take note. You created this mess. You consistently say one thing and do another. And in case you hadn’t noticed, 1954 was a long time ago.

Sabean, it’s time to produce. Fish or cut bait, pal.

NOTE: In my last post, which not so coincidentally also lamented the lack of production from the farm, I mentioned Lincecum, Wilson and Sandoval as the only success stories. I got scolded like I stole something. Matt Cain absolutely, positively, definitely belongs on that much-too-short list. Forty lashes.