BULLPEN WOES: Grant states: "Anyone who can throw above 90 MPH has the potential to put up 60 innings of 3.00 ERA relief work." Potential, yes. Number of Giants pitcher who performed this feat last year = zero. Pitcher who came the closest = Mike Stanton.  Where Stanton pitches now = not SF. Giants bullpen = eternal promise of "potential." SF bullpen ERA over last three seasons = ranked 14 in the National League. Emphasis on rank.

Potential is great, but the Giants have been loaded with young bullpen pitchers with lots of potential for the past three years, and exactly one SF player since 2004-2006 has  accomplished 60+ IP, sub-3 era. That would be Scott Eyre, in 2004, with 68.2 IP, 2.63era. Over the past three seasons, only two other Giants relievers sported sub-3 era's: Scott Munter with (38.2 ip, 2.56 era), and Jack Tachner, (22.2 ip, 1.59 era). Tachner & Munter have come back down to earth after stellar debuts, to put it mildly.

Good bullpen guys tend to come out of nowhwere, and yes, the Giants once again enter 2007 with a number of young arms who might surprise. Yet the core bullpen issues remain the same as last year. Namely, the Giants are banking on Benitez and Kline to be clutch late inning performers; counting on the entire quartet of Correia, Hennessy, Sanchez, and Chulk to continue their improvement; banking on Ortiz, Linecum, Cortes, or Kim to hold down the 5th starter role; and banking on at least one youngster (Wilson, Sadler, Threets, Misch) to have a break-out year.

Simply put, these gambles have not paid off the over the past three seasons. Bullpen performance is incredibly hard to predict, so perhaps the Giants are due some good luck, but the stats don't look promising.

Shame on MLB establishment for not growing a pair and changing the public perception on steroids to what it always should have been.  A very complex sports medicine issue as complicated as ligament transplants were a generation ago. By saying nothing, they let those with a vested interest in the status quo, those who are stuck in the past, those with a political agenda, and those who were simply looking for any club handy to beat individual reputations about the head, shape the public perception of hormone therapy, and denigrate the great accomplishments of extemely talented individuals. By saying and doing nothing and pretending there was nothing, they were essentially saying it was everything the vested interests said it was. The grandstanding politicians. The smited media. The memorabilia collectors. The good old we don't want change network. The fear mongers. The charlatans and poseurs. In other words the usual suspects when it comes to resisting change and advancement.

The real tragedy is that hormone therapy has been driven underground. The real tragedy is that if in fact Jason Schmidt's career could benefit from Andro, he faces expulsion, shame and ridicule for using a legitimate pharmacuetical to prolong and enhance his heretofore substantial and significant career.

Shame on Bud Selig and the others within MLB power structure who know this even more than I, and sit by wringing their hands in front of Congressional blowhards and morally bankrupted law enforcement while the very athletes who made them famous and made them wealthy twist in the wind, humiliated by the dregs of society.