Sometime in January, when all of the free agents have been signed, I’ll sit down to write a post and start crying. I won’t want to write about Atlee Hammaker memories. I won’t want to write about how cool Donruss Diamond Kings were. I won’t want to write a 14,000-word Lord of the Rings parody with Sabean as Frodo, Bochy as Sam, Magowan as Golem, One Free Agent Cy Young Superstar to Rule Them All as the plot device, and a journey to Mt. Outright Release.

I’ll want to write about baseball. News about baseball, perhaps. But I won’t be able to because the world will be a wintery graveyard for baseball news. Then I’ll think, "Damn, I really should have posted more should-we-think-about-this-free-agent threads when I had the chance instead of opening some stupid pop-culture-based thread." I know this. I’ve lived it. And, dammit, I’m not going down without a fight. So for the next month or so, there will be a lot of rosterbation, speculation, and evaluation of the speculative rosterbation. If you don’t care for such posts, that’s understandable. We won’t delete your user account while you grumble in a corner by yourself until March. I just hope that you understand why I have to do it. Do you know that Bruce Bochy hasn’t made a questionable bullpen decision for over a month? Look it up. And yet you want me to continue writing daily posts about the San Francisco Giants? You jackals.

The chatter so far is that the Giants will either sign a corner infielder or a middle infielder or both. Maybe trade for one or both. Middle infielder or corner infielder. Corner infielder or middle infielder. Shore up the infield. Get an infielder. It makes sense, because if the outfield is Fred Lewis, Aaron Rowand, and Randy Winn with a Nate Schierholtz insurance plan, that’s a whole lot of acceptable to downright okay. Why would the Giants need to mess with that?

But if the Giants are looking for a combination of middle-of-the-order bat and a non-ludicrous long-term contract, they aren’t going to find it in the infield. Mark Teixiera? He’s sure to fetch a ludicrous long-term contract. And thus endeth the list of middle-of-the-order bats among free agent infielders. Then I read Ken Rosenthal speculate thusly:

The more I stare at the free agent list, the more it makes sense to trade Aaron Rowand and sign Pat Burrell or Adam Dunn. And by "makes sense", I mean "makes absolutely no sense, but if the Giants are committed to throwing $50M to $150M at a free agent, it makes more sense than some other options." Now, heck, I’d trade Aaron Rowand for a punch to the face just to get rid of his contract, but Sabean probably still thinks Rowand has a ton of value. Sabean might deal Rowand, though, if he were sure the end result would be a middle-of-the-order hitter. Trading Winn to make room for Burrell, Dunn, or, gulp, Manny Ramirez doesn’t make a lot of sense, as then the Giants would have huge commitments for 2/3rd of their outfield until the end of time. There’s no way that would end well.

I dunno. November spitballin’ is all this is. If I had to choose between $60M to Pat Burrell or $130M to Mark Teixeira, I’d choose Teixeira. For the extra two years and $6M or $8M annually, at least you’re getting a guy who is in the top third of his position and younger than 30. The corner-outfielder market is a big ol’ pile of expensive pyrite this year. But if the choice is between Aaron Rowand playing for the Giants in 2012 or Pat Burrell playing for the Giants in 2012, I’m somewhat intrigued.

Really, I like comedy more than baseball, so I’m actually pulling for the Giants to sign Pat Burrell (LF), Manny Ramirez (CF), and Adam Dunn (RF). But this is an Open Hey Could the Giants Actually Go for a Corner Outfielder?-Thread.