I have no problem with trading strikeouts for groundballs with Wright, but yeah... I think those walks will drive my crazy before long.

Why must you continue to diss ma man, Wright?  :^)

You need to look at his road numbers for more valid metrics, everything gets too skewed in Colorado.  

OK, he still walks way too many guys per 9 but he keeps his H/9 down and so his stat line over the past three years on the road is not bad, and it would be pretty good for a #5 starter:  ERA 4.07, WHIP 1.51, BA .256, 6.0 K/9, 4.7 W/9, which leads to the low K/W of 1.3, and 0.9 HR/9.  His career road numbers are not much worse, if you think it was a fluke three years and not growth, his ERA was 4.25 and his WHIP was 1.51 for his career, with 5.1 K/9, 4.5 W/9, 0.8 HR/9, 1.2 K/W.  Either would be great for a #5 starter.

He gets away with his high WHIP and W/9 and low K/W because he is one of the extreme groundball pitchers in the majors, the ratio to FB was around 2 over the past 3 seasons and has been around 2 for his whole career.  I calculated his WHIP/9 (or BR/9 in other terminology) and subtracted 0.8 runner for a double play each game (0.8 DP/games started over his career), his WHIP drops to 1.42, which is good period; and with the good Giants defense, the DP would go up and the WHIP could go even lower.  

And we saw how a sinkerball pitcher does in SF with Munter.  Wright is also a sinkerballer too.  That lead to his career numbers in SF being great:  2.29 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, .184 BAA, but there's the old walk bugaboo, 5.3 W/9, but it is probably inflated a bit by Bonds, 3.1 K/9 (Giants have a lot of disciplined hitters in Bonds, Alou, Durham, Alfonzo, Snow, Vizquel, over the past few years who walk a lot and don't strike out a lot), and zero homers.

Combine both together, and Wright looks like a cinch to at least match what Jensen, Foppert, Moss, and Hennessey provided as the 5th starter over the past few years, looks like he can possibly match what Tomko has done for the Giants as our 3rd starter, and possibly could even throw in a high-3 ERA if things work out like they have in the past.

You need to put on Orange glasses and if you look closely and reverse the image, you'll see Kirk Rueter on the mound instead of Jamey Wright.

And the last kicker is this provides Hennessey a chance to spend a year in AAA, hopefully unbothered, to work on becoming consistently good instead of a roll of the dice.  With Correia as the first runner up, he gets first dibs on any starter opening and maybe Matt Kiney slides into the Miss Congenality spot and come up to start if they need another starter beyond Correia and maybe Fassero.  

You saw how good Hennessey could be on his best days, we need to maximize the odds that he does that on a regular basis, instead of irregularly.  People forget that he was just recovering from his tumor surgeries when he came up in 2004, it was his first healthy year, so he has been bouncing around between the majors and minors for the past two seasons.  Stabilize him by keeping him in AAA at almost all cost in 2006 so that he can maximize his potential for 2007 and beyond by working on becoming consistent, else we risk him becoming another Tomko wandering from team to team giving a new excuse why he is not reaching his potential.

i think it is a little crazy to think that the Giants infield defense is going to help Wright- Feliz is an above average defender, Vizquel is tremendously effecient when balls are at him, however his lack of range and arm strength limit him somewhat, Durham has the 2nd most errors at second base in the Maror Leagues since 2000, and finally Niekro is a clown.

The only good news I see with Wright being our #5 starter at the beginning of the season is that Hennessey now has longer to prepare for his first ML start of the season, the first week of May, after Wright puts up Coors-worthy stats in April. I'm with Grant; picking him up was a prudent move, but at this point I'd start Correia #5 and keep Wright busy in Fresno getting acclimated to sea level. Martin, I think this is where I quote Mark Twain: there are 3 levels of prevarication: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.

At the start of Spring Training my biggest concerns were:

1 - Bonds' health
2 - Schmidt's health
3 - Benitez's health
4 - Hennessey's competence as a fifth starter
5 - Niekro's competence as an everyday first baseman.

At the end of Spring Training my biggest concerns are:

1 - Bonds' health
2 - Benitez's health
3 - Wright's competence as a fifth starter
4 - Niekro's competence as an everyday first baseman
5 - Schmidt's health.

I feel sooo much better. Actually, about Schmidt's health I do feel much better. Is the glass 20% full?

Panic free time allotted to Barry Bonds: 1 long run to the gap.
Panic free time allotted to F. Alou: 1 hook of M. Cain in the 4th with the lead. Or 1 unintelligible pre-game interview.  Whichever comes first.
Panic-free time allotted to M. Alou: 1 trip to the men's room.  
Panic-free time allotted to P. Feliz: 1 swing-through at first-pitch high heat.
My panic-free time allotted to A. Benitez: 1 week of the clubhouse buffets.