Completely agreed. Are there any other rule 5 draft eligible players other than those you have mentioned (and who might be something to keep)?

The giants could also be planning to go on a rule 5 draft spree, but even then, it still doesn’t add up.

Travis Denker=Barry Bonds?

Yeah, i totally agree. The most annoying thing about the whole decision, as you alluded to, is that there just doesn’t seem to be any advantage in doing it. I can understand disagreeing with a decision & thinking the disadvantages outweigh the advantages, but there just doesn’t seem any logic at all to this move.

With regards to the Rule V eligible players, there’s three questions to ask.
1) Do we want to keep them? Well, at this stage, you say, sure, you’d like to keep a number of them, because why not?
2) Do you want them more than Denker? At this stage you start to have trouble, other than one or two, the players needing protecting are less valuable than Denker.
3) Are they likely to be selected & kept on someone’s 25 man roster all year? Even if you want to keep them, and prefer them to Denker, are they really likely to be lost in the Rule V draft?

Take EME for example. Is there really going to be a team that choses to keep him on their roster all year. I’m not discounting him as a player, but does a team really have a need on their roster for a no power, no speed, no defense player who doesn’t play at a premium position? There’s loads of players available that’d be more use to a team, such as the generic Rajai Davis type.

This was the baseball equivalent of killing a bystander in “Grand Theft Auto” just because you can.

Nice.

I’m still pissed about this. I know that there’s a good chance that Denker will never amount to anything, but I also don’t think that it’s unreasonable to expect him turn into a poor man’s Dan Uggla – something like .265/.350/.420, with pretty bad defense at 2B. Not great, but still valuable, and for a rebuilding team like the Giants, throwing this kind of players away is just silly.

Thanks, Grant. I now have the title for my first book: The Barry Bonds Years: An Epoch of Jackassery

What? Denker? I don’t even know ’er. (our last opportunity).

And to quote Seth Meyers: Oh really? Letting Travis Denker get away bothers you? Oh really? So you were fine when the Giants started the year with still-dewy low-A Brian Bocock at shortstop over perfectly-average AAA Ivan Ochoa? Oh really? And when the Giants signed Michael Tucker one day too early to specifically ensure they would be penalized a draft pick, that wasn’t as surprising? Oh really? And when Brian Sabean had allowed the organization to devolve to the point where sloths were embarrassed to be compared to the Giants, but he was still given a contract extension, that seemed fine to you? Oh really? And when Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum are in the top five list of pitchers throwing the most pitches, that doesn’t bother you? Oh really? And when Jackson Williams was drafted with the 43rd overall pick in the entire 2007 amateur draft, over guys like Justin Jackson, Michael Burgess, Matt Mangini, Wes Roemer, Nick Hagadone, Mitch Canham, Jess Todd, Travis Mattair, and Nevin Griffith – you were okay with that? Oh really? Really?

I completely agree with what everyone has written so far. It’s not like the Giants have some hot shot 2B prospect waiting in the wings that could play at Fresno rather than Denker.

Bonds and Kent might have been jackasses, but even they weren’t jackasses before they became stars. Well, maybe Barry was, but he and everyone else knew what he was going to become. If it’s true Denker didn’t hustle and run out ground balls, he’s in no position to be doing something like that. I’m still very surprised and disappointed that the Giants’ exposed Denker to waivers, but TWO posts on this subject by Grant?? I doubt he’s worth it. Denker failed on two fronts. He wasn’t a gamer, (2008) and he didn’t practice The Giants’ Way. (2009)

Some sort of trade Sabean is looking for, a one for many type deal where we’d have to put another 3 or 4 people on the roster. Or we’re going to go Rule 5 draft crazy and draft people from other teams, but then I don’t know if they’d really fit on the 25 man, most of our players are going to be 25 man bound.

I feel like there’s a lot of point missing going on here.

It’s not like Travis Denker was necessarily a larval Jeff Kent. He was just a cheap, good young player. Championship teams made out of superstars and cheap, good young players. Disposing of Travis Denker is fine, but he has value and you should be able to get something in return. Disposing of him for NOTHING seems pretty stupid. Hopefully there is a plan here, but if there is, I can’t fathom it.

I think Denker has a better chance of turning into a starting second basemen than Velez does. Not that either is anything to write home about yet.

I still don’t get the Denker move at all. If you don’t like him, why not just let him hang around in Triple-A for awhile, you know, just in case?

Here’s Travis Denker’s translated major-league line from Fresno: .256/.341/.422. That’s according to Baseball Prospectus.

If you worship at the all mighty cult of batting average!

I can’t wait to go to Denker’s HoF acceptance ceremony!

(Seriously, I don’t get it either D:)

is Denker any more of a jackass (and is there a shred of proof of it?) than Velez is?

Meh
/shrug

It’s possible to think Denker might not amount to anything and also think you could have gotten back something for him in return. And again, what are the Giants options at second base in 2009 unless they’re going the FA route: Kevin Frandsen, returning to baseball after missing AN ENTIRE SEASON due to injury (yeah, no sense in having an insurance policy for him!). Eugenio Velez, who raised his defensive acumen from “cover your eyes” to “really bad” over the past six months. Emmanuel Burriss, who can certainly play the position well, but doesn’t have much power.

I’m not saying Travis Denker was all that. The little I got to see of him was a fairly resounding “meh”. And I’d be glad to give the Giants brain trust the benefit of the doubt, but they’re going to have to make some pretty mind-blowing moves in the next couple months to show that dumping a 23-year old with flashes of upside makes sense.

for Denker

I believe these are the reasons why the Giants dropped Denker for nothing

1) Speed and defense. He don’t got none. I realize that Velez is terrible at defense, too. But goodness me, the speed!

2) Second baseman. Velez, Burriss, Frandsen at the major league level and Noonan and Gillaspie at the minor league level.

3) Backlash to Barry era

4) Denker, Davis and Messenger never really had a place on the team. They were just throw in’s to make dumping Benitez, Morris and Sweeney seem like they were more than mere dumps.

Wait, I’ve got it. Releasing Denker was part of a draft-day deal with Connor Gillaspie, whose sister had hated Denker ever since Denker asked her best friend out for the dance instead of her.

this move doesn’t anger me.

meh.

I’m not super angry about this… But giving Denker away like this just proves that Sabean basically gave the Dodgers Mark Sweeney for free. Didn’t even try to get value back for him. Just said, “Got any scrubs you’re not high on? We’ll take him for Sweeney, just so long as it helps you out, Ned.”

If he at least waited until a move proved necessary, then it wouldn’t look quite so obvious. By the way… I frickin’ hate the Dodgers.

Tampa is up 5-0 already. Longoria just went yard again.

Why all the tears over Denker? I like him but really, not that much to cry over.

Pre-season evaluation by prospect book: Poor defense, with stiff hands and mediocre range, forecasted potential of reserve 2B/3B. Baseball America didn’t even bother ranking him in 2007 when he was with the Dodgers, barely register with a 27th with the Giants in 2008.

And here’s the more important stat: as well as he hit this season, cumulative .257/.357/.418/.775, the MLE for that is .216/.318/.336/.654. Hitting .286/.375/.475/.850 as he did in AAA is nice, but nothing like it is hitting in the majors.

And people looking at his major league stats are looking at skewed stats. Besides the very small sampling, particularly relative to his long history of not much achievement, he was given more opportunity to face LHP, who he kills, than RHP, who he would face regularly if a starter (about twice as often). He was also put in a lot of low leverage situations, where we had nothing to lose if he did poorly (but yes, at least he did do well). In addition, he couldn’t buy a hit on the road, but was a hitting god in AT&T. Which do you think is more likely to continue?

I’m disappointed and wished the Giants would have kept him, but really, this anger is crying crocodile tears over the 25th/26th man on the roster. I would have understood noise like this maybe over the loss of Correia, I thought he was still valuable out of the bunch released, but not Denker.

And remember, just because the Padres picked him up don’t mean much, teams have picked up Todd Linden and Jerome Williams as well, does that make them more valuable, that much more likely to put things together?

And as much as I would like to get Buscher back today, when he was let go, the only way his name would be in any prospect book would be if he wrote it in himself. His last good season was 2004 and he was bad in three years out of his four with the Giants at that time. He is only valuable in hindsight.

In addition, as well as he did in 2008, and that is average for 3B (I know, we would take that), he played 67 games out of the 95 games remaining in the season, even though the Twins could have used him in all the games. Why would someone so valuable be played so little during crunch time?

Because he hurts RHP, kind of, .316/.362/.437/.799 in 2008, but is useless against LHP, .205/.250/.205/.455, which means that in 44 AB, he could not even deliver one extra base hit. To see the skewing, Morneau had roughly double the PA against RHP as LHP (64% overall), Buscher had roughly 4 times the PA against RHP (80% overall). Adjusting that to full time play would reduce his overall line to .279/.324/.324/.648, which is basically his batting line from 2007 when he was pretty bad overall. So he is OK as a platoon 3B, but horrible as a starter.

How valuable is that? Is that worth making a stink over? I don’t think so, as much as I wouldn’t mind having him back.

Giants fans keep on telling me how valuable a trading chip a nice prospect who might never make the majors is or a player like Buscher is, and yet most teams have such a player in their organization but there are not trades going on all over the place, each team isn’t trading these players to each other, each team is not deriving the “value” that these players supposedly have.

Perhaps that is because fans are overvaluing the worth of these semi-prospects, that teams know how poor the odds of each making the majors is.

…is that of all the (admittedly far from blockbuster) trades made in 2007, the Giants have zero left to show for any of them. Ellison for Blackley, who’s now in the Phils farm system. Benitez for Messenger, who’s with Seattle. Morris for Davis, and now Denker. Admittedly, the Giants didn’t give much up in any of those trades, but it’d be nice to think we got SOMETHING back for some of it, other than salary relief for Morris. The rest we might just as well have cut.

…to draw a sound conclusion.