How about Hennessey into the rotation as the #5?

Yes, Chase probably isn’t as good as he has shown thus far this season. I kind of doubt he’ll hit 60 homers. But as you say, rfloh, even when he cools down he almost certainly will remain arguably the best second baseman in the game.

A year ago Brad got off to a very hot start after, frankly, appearing lucky to put up the numbers he had over his career. After giving up a single run in each of his first two appearances last season, he yielded only three more runs through May 23rd and stayed hot through the end of August.

I said in May of last season that the Giants should traded everyone who was making over a million dollars per season (basically all the veterans) and specificially mentioned Hennessey, Matt Morris and Noah Lowry as pitchers who were pitching over their heads and whose trade value would likely never be higher.

Mark is well aware of this, since he is a regular on the Giants board on which I posted these things. And he makes a good point. Just because you want to trade a player doesn’t mean you can get what you want for him.

But the whole idea is to buy low and sell high. If a player has a chance to help you and is undervalued by his present club, try to acquire him. If you have a player who might be of interest to ANY other team and whose value you believe is as high as it is likely to become, try to deal him.

Now maybe the Giants DID try to trade these guys and just couldn’t get anything. But my problem is that the Giants seem to be sabermetrically challenged and often don’t have a clue as to whether a player is playing below, at or above his true level.

Fortunately the Giants WERE able to deal Matt Morris, who has now been released by the Pirates despite making something akin to $9 million this season. But they were lucky to do so, and it may have been the last deal the Pirates GM Littlefield made before being fired this past winter.

Might the Giants not have been able to get a little more than a player they themselves would release this April had they dealt Matt when his ERA was below 3.00 instead of waiting until it exceeded 4.00? Given Lowry’s problems later in 2007 and now this season, wouldn’t they have been well-served to deal him before the trade deadline? Hennessey had a pretty good season in 2007, particularly up until September. But not he no longer looks like a major leaguer (although I’m sure he will improve from his present 11.00+ ERA). Wouldn’t the Giants have been ahead of the game had they traded him a year ago?

So, really, is it more a problem that the Giants are sabermetrically or planning-challenged or that the other teams are becoming sabermetrically savvy? I’ve got to believe there are at least a FEW teams out there that remain as ignorant as the Giants. It isn’t likely that the Giants are the dumbest team in baseball.

If one made a realistic evaluation of the 2007 Giants prior to the season, as many of us did, he realized that most of the Giants’ hitters would have to have near-career seasons in order for them to hit well enough to be serious contenders for the NL West. When they got off to a slow start teamwise, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize 2007 wasn’t their year and that it was time to accelerate the transition from veteran to young team.

The Giants were able to trade Morris and Mark Sweeney, but what about the other half dozen or so players who should have been gone? Steve Kline wasn’t paid much. Couldn’t the Giants have gotten SOMETHING for him before the deadline, providing an opening for a guy like Pat Misch and saving salary? Dave Roberts bounced back well from injury last season. With Freddie Lewis, Nate Schierholtz, John Bowker, Dan Ortmeier and later Rajai Davis looking for playing time, couldn’t the Giants have eaten some of Dave’s salary and trade him to a team looking for a fourth outfielder who could step into the starting lineup if needed?

The Giants don’t seem to realize that the (sometimes ridiculous) salaries they commit to are sunk costs. Yes, if the player performs as well as the Giants expected when they signed him, that player could be traded at full salary. But if the player were performing as well as they expected, they likely wouldn’t be looking to trade him anyway—especially if their other signees were playing to the (perhaps unrealistic) expectations the Giants had upon making the signings.

If the player bombs out, his salary commitments become fixed costs. The way one gets rich is to ride his winners and cut his losses. The Giants seem to have little idea of this concept, which becomes truly important when they also have a hard time evaluating which players to sign and what amount they should be willing to pay.

Let’s put it this way: If the Giants were a publicly traded stock, would you have bought them anytime in the past three or four years? Perhaps if you were looking for a write off, something the Giants appear to be looking for when they sign some of these guys but which they seems to refuse to acknowledge later when their decisions turns out to be - dare I say it - Zitoish? :)

Bingo, Natto. I agree with you that if Brad were throwing BATTING PRACTICE, he wouldn’t be giving up this many hits. He WILL get better (perhaps quickly if the Giants give him that start the other poster suggested). But just as it is predictable that he will get better now, it was predictable in 2007 that he was going to get worse. Isn’t that PRECISELY when you want to trade a guy—right when you feel his value is at its highest?