Now Ramon Ortiz is tied with Russ on the Giants' all-time reacquired Ortiz list. This was unexpected.

Of course, Ramon Ortiz has never started a game for the San Francisco Giants. He started 16 games for the Fresno Grizzlies in 2009 and bounced around three different organizations after that. He'll be 39 in March, but he's still putting up decent K/BB ratios in AAA, so he's not ready to retire just yet. That's commendable, in a way. There will be a lot of time to not pitch, so keep going for it as long as you have teams offering contracts. Or maybe he just likes Fresno. It's possible.

Even in his prime, Ortiz wasn't much. He had a nice season in 2002 -- of course he did -- but after that he was average at best, pretty bad at his worst. So this is probably non-news.

But this story goes on the front page for one reason: Ryan Vogelsong. When Vogelsong was signed, I didn't even make former-Giants-prospect jokes. I just ignored it because there wasn't any way he was going to make a difference in 2011. I learned my lesson.

So this is a story about Ramon Ortiz, who will end up leading the 2012 Giants starters in ERA. You read it here first. Note that my powers to edit a post never go away, so I can tidy this up later. All screenshots are obviously doctored. I can tell by the pixels and from seeing a few character-assassination attempts in my time.

I'll admit it -- I'd never heard of George Genovese before reading this fantastic article by Chris Haft:

Genovese signed approximately 40 players who proceeded to the Major Leagues. That group included Garry Maddox and Gary Matthews, who patrolled the Giants' outfield in the first few seasons after the club traded Mays to the New York Mets in 1972. Along with Bobby Bonds -- whom the Giants signed only after Genovese's intense lobbying -- Maddox and Matthews helped maintain the club's proud black legacy.

The article also notes that Genovese signed George Foster and Chili Davis in the '70s, and Rob Deer and Matt Williams in the '80s. I've long been fascinated with the parade of All Star outfielders that the Giants had (and frittered away) in the '70s, but I had no idea that one guy was responsible for the bulk of them.

And without Genovese lobbying for Bobby Bonds, there's a pretty good chance that my memory is 586 home runs lighter because the Giants don't sign a certain Pirates outfielder after 1992. I don't like that alternate dimension.

Last year on Valentine's Day, this very site featured a community projection for Miguel Tejada. That seems like a perfect metaphor. So much tenderness (of the hamstrings). So many broken hearts. Those candy hearts taste like the rosin bag that Tejada would use to keep his hands dry. It all fits.

It's community-projection time! Maybe you don't think that needs an exclamation point. But I like these posts. They're excuses to talk about particular players. Of course the projections are going to be awful and inaccurate -- we're all idiots here -- but it gives us a chance to convene and decide which players we're optimistic about, and which players are supposed to be in the lineup. Remember when we were pessimistic about Aubrey Huff, and then the next year we were optimistic? That was awesome. The first time.

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