The only guy I like out of that bunch is Russell Branyan. The other three aren’t all that great. Izturis would be OK on the bench, but I’d rather give Burriss a chance.

I am on the edge with Izturis. He is basically most of what we hope Burriss can become but he is already there

I, for one, am hoping that Burriss will more than that. Like, maybe an OBP over .300.

Well if going short term you for a banged up Furcal of a healthy Izturis?

I guess when Furcall goes on the D.L. Burriss gets play time. But then that discourages the team from putting Burriss in Fresno were he would get steady play time so he could keep improving. To me IFF the front office wants perminate answer at SS then Burriss has to be placed were he can play 5+ days a week. And on a Bochy’s bench is not that place.

I expect Pablo to see a lot of time at third, see Bob Brenly in the mids 80’s, but i can’t count him playing there more then 400 inings. So that leave 1k to 1100 innings to fill.

Well this is the Giants in 2008 and there is not Timor Cain on the hill today. What else do you expect?

Have The Rangers officially declined Blalock’s option yet? I think they will though its not a given. Blalock’s shoulder sounds like its cooked. So that means he could only play first or Dh.

Lopez was a player I was very interested in coming into this season. Puts up reasonable numbers Vs LHP. Has played a little at third ( Baseball Reference say he has played 95 games there). I view him as erratic as all get out with a glove and stick. If signed to play a middle infield spot I am down on him. We have enough question marks for there already.

I could be interested in him part of a pain sponge for third base. That could fill in time if the young ones flame out or get hurt up the middle. Another Boras Client and he made 4.9MM last year. I doubt Boras will let him sing for less money and definitely would not want the team committed to him for more the 2 seasons. I hate to say this but I think I lean towards the older Branyan at this point. But not heavily so.

You’d like to think, though, that if Velez sucked rocks and Frandsen got hurt, the Giants would have to play Denker.

What it the limit of your interest in Ellis? Roughly how many years amount of money please.

I look at probably over 1k innings needing to be filled at third and Burriss ability to play a second ( if needed) and I am just not as fired up to find/import a second baseman. They get old too quickly once over 30 for my tastes. Though age 32 & 33 seasons should not be too bad of risk. I could get talked into it. I just am not convinced it’s a priority yet.

I would say Tex and Ellis are the only guys worthy of a long term deal ( say 3 years of longer). Blake and Iztruis being below those two but a bit a head of the pack. The rest of these guys are stop gaps. Well with this being a rebuilding team we need stop gaps ( say 1-2 year contracts). The question is are any of these guys stop gaps this franchisee can use now with out shooting ourselves in our feet later? Would you – for example – really complain that much at say 6MM next year for Aurilia & Branyan to absorb like 1K innings at third?

As for trade they had better be thinking longer term with those. Sabean starts moving young arms for stop gaps and things are going to get mighty bad around here real fast.

For simplicity of discussion. I think we agree Tex is a very nice player. It would probably take Zito money , or better to sign him. So then we end up having to do a major budgetary talk. And with a new Managing Partner I don’t know how we could responsible talk about massive budget shifts. There is no track record to work from.

I do agree with the principle a team more often gets their money’s worth in production from major free agent position players then it does from major free agent pitchers.

The other thing a Tex, or CC, signing does is it probably reduces the Giants abilities to fill holes next winter when there looks to be more free agents that could be more then just pain sponges in the places we will probably need.