Stupid? I don’t know…

They must know something we don’t, which is surprising…

what? this is not happening.

…

is it?

Uh…………………..

Does this mean a Posey sighting also?

I dunno how to react, scream, or SCREAM?

WTH that is one wierd move. Maybe they want to put the major league debut record out of reach.

/throws shit at a wall
/sees what sticks
/is Brian Sabean

I just said “what?!” like 20 different times in a high pitched voice. I’m THAT shocked.

I just turned on the television and saw Gillaspie running around the outfield. It’s the first Giants contact I’ve had since I left last Friday! WTF happened while I was gone?

PS I yelled at Papa for calling him the second round pick.

is this a big deal? If Gillaspie’s psyche is so delicate that he cannot handle initial failure in the ML than he has no future in baseball anyways. Now if the Giants plan to base roster decisions of this impending cup of coffee than its fundamentally stupid.

How does the arbitration clock or whatever it’s called work? Is it started once the player is called up, or is no longer a rookie, or what?

wait

what?

Oh, Giants.

surpassing even the Sarah Palin pick

Now that I’ve bothered to look up Gillaspie’s numbers, this move is even weirder than I thought. I’d just assumed that he was tearing it up, but he’s actually hit pretty poorly. .269/.352/.344 in 93 ABs across two levels.

just wow.
I can’t even say it’s desperate as there’s nothing really to be desperate about.

Fuck this team.

While I’m excited to see what he can do I just don’t know about this.

I bet it was a handshake deal to call him up when he signed for slot money. At the time, Gillaspie made some reference to how he’d been holding out and got some incentives that would become clear later. Something like that. I can’t find a link — that’s off memory.

I don’t know the ins and outs of options, but I’m pretty sure the early call-up means he’ll run out of ’em sooner.

Is he ready? Probably not, but if he is, only the scouts would know. He certainly hasn’t accumulated enough of a statistical record to say.

Sabean is stupid, but he’s not that stupid.

I hope…

More foolishness from a Giants team with no concern about maximizing its chances of putting its best team on the field when it could possibly have a chance of contending. Gillaspie was a great pick with the 37th overall selection in this year’s draft, and he has a chance to be a nice long-term third baseman. However, adding him to the 40-man roster now is the height of foolishness. The team is up to 13 infielders on the 40-man roster (including Kevin Frandsen on the 60-day DL), 10 of whom are 26 or younger. That’s a whole bunch of spots already spoken for next year, and the Giants are going to have a tough time improving their current roster without jettisoning young players to do it.

I think they consider the move to be foolishness.

I wanted to take some time and reflect on this decision, as opposed to reacting kneejerk. Like Hobbes2d, I often find myself backing Sabean against his usual detractors (most of whom I think to be a medley of half-wit sycophants, and overeager ignoramuses with a keyboard), however I don’t think I can so here. My initial reaction of WTF has cooled a bit, but I still think the move is unwise.

I don’t care about the option year (if he wasn’t MLB for good after 3 years, it is unlikely he ever would be good). The issue seems to be a) whether he is ready, and b) the giants dire need at 3b.

a)
whether he is ready. I haven’t seen him play at SKA or AZ, but his stats there aren’t overpowering. The stats, as they are, do not mean he isn’t ready, but they aren’t exactly screaming it either. But maybe he is—at least ready enough than he could benefit from playing at the level a bit, and seeing MLB pitching. And by the way, this latter point could be important, as some things might be shown that he needs work on that wouldn’t appear in the minors. So maybe he is, maybe he isn’t; we’ll see—I’m hardly going to contradict scouts who have seen him play recently on this point, when I haven’t.

a.1)
 I don’t think it is very likely this will hurt his development, if indeed he struggles. The brought up too soon and ruin the prospect fear is more of a concern with unpolished players, and from all reports Gillaspie is quite polished. It seems reasonable to infer from reports that he is essentially on the aa/aaa level, as far as refinement goes, and should he struggle, he should be able to adjust, and work on the issues on the minors, instead of imploding. If he does implode on the basis of that, well he wasn’t ever going to be anything anyway. But it could still could happen, and he could be screwed up by this, and this is the problem with the ‘throwing shit at the wall’ phrase, as this is a good prospect, not shit. It’s a gamble….a gamble in which the giants are not likely to lose big, but its still could happen.

b)
 team need. No doubt the need at 3b is severe (and I’m still hoping they try sandoval out there more). But is it likely he’s ready for MLB 3b? It is possible he could be…but very, very unlikely. However, he really might be as a mid-season callup next season, and the giants might be seeing if he could be that. If so, they’d want him to get a jump on adjusting to the MLB, and work on the things he needs to adjust on during the fall and winter. In this case, they’d stopgap third until then instead of getting a FA.

b.1)
as long as it doesn’t hurt his development, I like this idea better than trading too much for beltre, or buying bad back crede. It doesn’t seem Beltre is as cheaply available as he should be (and who knows what the interim seattle GM is up to anyway), but the current price for him seems to be Sanchez, and that’s crazy high— so for now, Beltre doesn’t seen a reasonable option.
b.2)
What is the club thinking about frandsen (2B? or splitting time at 3B with sandoval with velez at 2B? Or the consider him a big unknown because of the injury?)
b.3)
If they are trying to get Gillaspie for an earlyish midseason call up next year (presumably to stick)—as speculated above—that isn’t much of a gain on if they just pushed this process back a bit, calling him up earlier next year, sending him back down if he struggles, and have him on track to get back sept. ish. And that latter scenario has a lessened chance of ‘bring him up to early and ruining the prospect’ scenario happening, though, once again, there isn’t a very high risk of that even in the call up now, prep for early midseason call (or straight to MLB if he’s good in the spring). But there is enough risk that doing it all next season makes more sense than bringing him up now.

The next rule 5 draft is going to be interesting.

Related to the possibility of this being in Gillaspie’s contract, but slightly different: Gillaspie wasn’t signed to a professional contract, but now he has one. He’s on the 40-man, is in the union, etc. Might this have been a way around slot stuff? i.e., getting him a professional contract w/o giving him one out of the gate?

YOUDUMBYOUDUMBYOUDUMBYOUDUMBYOUDUMBYOUDUMBYOUDUMB.

I’d put money on this being a wink-wink part of his draft deal. There are things to rail against, but this isn’t one of them. If they didn’t want to give Posey a major league deal, but Gillaspie wouldn’t sign without one, this was the way around it.

1) There’s not going to be a 3b F/A signing.

2) Sandoval probably won’t see significant time at 3b in 2009.

3) There may be concerns about Frandsen’s recovery.

Bringing CG up now gets the “gee whiz” out of the way. If he’s doing well in AA/AAA next season and Frandsen stumbles, they want CG up and productive right away.

Well done Sabean. This will inspire a lot of confidence that the front office has a plan. A plan that is conclusive evidence you are "not an idiot".*

I guess the upside is he could have done a lot more stupider actions. Perhaps this will get enough of the idiot out of his system to avoid 3+ year contract to the next Rowan/Winn type outfielder or a to Crede type this off season.

.* The EPA has yet to find sarcasm to be a corrosive substance. Though it is advised not to leave clothing or flesh in it for prolonged periods of time.

…and once again Gillaspie is on the bench, with Aurilia getting the start at third today. WTF is the point of bringing him up and then not playing him? They want to evaluate his benchwarming skills up close?