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Thank you! Please keep Jamey Wright away from all flammable objects and the Giants rotation! There are "experienced" people at my workplace too, but I'd prefer to work with the best, no matter their age.

I totally disagree about Wright.  

You need to look at his road stats to get a better picture of him.  He's been totally screwed by Coors Field and Miller Park, his other home away from home, two of the worse parks to pitch in in the majors.  His road ERA is in the low 4's and that's not bad for a #5 starter (Tomko's career road ERA is in the stratosphere, his home parks have helped him out a lot).  Plus he'll be pitching half the time at AT&T Mays Field, where he has totally dominated, so he might be able to push his overall ERA into the high 3's, which would be excellent for a #5 starter.

Last year, he had only 30% dominating starts vs. 19% disaster starts, according to Ron Shandler's PQS methodology, which is not that good but passable for a bottom of the rotation guy.  But when I inputed all that against only his road starts, he came up with 47% dominating starts vs. 7% disaster starts, which is close to being among the elites of the majors (over 50% appears to be the crossover point to being elite, though 40's is pretty good too.  Others in 40-50 range:  Burhrle, Eaton, Maddux, Millwood, Morris, Mussina, Sabathia, David Wells, Kip Wells).

Plus, we will probably need a good #4/5 starter in 2007 assuming we lose Schmidt to free agency.  Right now we don't have anyone in the minors who look ready to make the leap to start in 2007, other than Hennessey who would probably take one of the two open spots in the rotation in 2007.  

We need to see if Wright can perform for us like he has on the road and in SF; if he can, we got a cheap pitcher to fill the bottom of the rotation for the next couple of years, we can probably sign him to a real cheap contract over the next two seasons (option for second, natch) and he might be grateful enough to maybe give us another year cheap if we take him on.  The worse that happens is Hennessey starts in AAA then comes up in May to take Wright's spot if he isn't up to the challenge; the best is if he can become a right-handed Woody for us on the cheap for a couple of seasons.

...if Hennessey struggles this spring. Or if Cain has command problems. Or if Lowry, Morris, or Schmidt are injured. Or if the young relievers don't appear ready to go. Or if there are injuries in the bullpen. More often than not there's a spot for Plan B.

At this stage in their careers Hennessey and Wright seem remarkably similar... neither of them have an impressive K/BB ratio, and while they both do a good job of getting ground balls, they give up their share of homers as well. Maybe Hennessey can outperform his lukewarm minor league numbers now that he's healthy, and maybe Wright can thrive in a fair ballpark (Miller Park in Milwaukee never did him any favors either). These things always seem possible in March. For the record, PECOTA thinks Wright is a borderline-useful fifth starter, while Hennessey and Correia are abominations that shouldn't be talked about when children are present.

"If Linden thinks he's beneath more development time and starts to struggle in AAA, it'd be a pretty clear indication of how much he should be trusted at the major league level."

This is a pretty interesting sentence... I have to agree. Meanwhile, Nunez was 4-for-4 today... is that seat next to you on the Abraham Nunez Bandwagon taken?

Linden vs Ellison?  How is there even a question?  Ellison is 2 years older and has never hit the ball out of the infield.  Here are their BP weighted mean projections this year:

Linden: 252/335/437 Def: -4 RF
Ellison:265/318/366 Def: +1 CF

And their 25%/50%/75% OPS projections:

Linden: 685/749/816
Ellison:606/660/734

OK-field, no-hit centerfielders like Ellison are a dime-a-dozen at the AAA Swap Meet.

Linden of course looked terrible in his major league trial, so there are some big error bars on those projections.  Still, it's hard to completely write off someone who so dominated AAA.  If Linden were 32 instead of 26, he'd get a shot somewhere like Kansas City, but the Giants own him for another couple of years at least.

But if he can put up his weighted mean (772 OPS) he'll be happy to know that the Giants just paid a guy with a career 771 OPS $23 million over three years.

My guess is they send Linden down so he can play every day and develop for next year.  ie, they see him as a starter in 07.  They keep Ellison because they see him as a platoon player, not a starter.  
  Martin, interesting comments re the 5th starter.  I agree Wright can be a helluva value.  I also think, besides the home parks, there is some value in playing for a contender vs the Brewers (when Wright played for them) or the Rockies.  ie, even with our aged outfield, I think our defense is superior to that of Milw or Colo.  Add to that the benefit of having a veteran major league catcher, I think Wright could very easily put up #4 starter numbers.
  But, if Hennessey continues to throw as well as he has so far, do you damage him if you send him down?  To me, the measure is how much Hennessey has matured and learned this year over last.  ie has he learned to avoid the occassional meltdown?  Several people posted Hennessey's numbers after taking out his few horrible starts and they were #3 like.