The Cubs answered the Brewers acquisition of CC Sabathia, picking up Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin from Oakland on Tuesday for Sean Gallagher, Eric Patterson, Matt Murton and Josh Donaldson.

The right-handed Harden is 5-1 with an 2.34 earned-run average and 92 strikeouts over 13 games for Oakland, bolsters a Cubs rotation that just got saw the return of Carlos Zambrano.

That seems like very little for Rich Harden, injury risk notwithstanding.  More of a quantity over quality deal, IMO.

But, wow, what an answer to the CC Sabathia trade.

Sadler & Holm down, Matos & Notgardo up:

More roster changes

The Giants made a couple of moves today. They optioned catcher Steve Holm and reliever Billy Sadler to Triple-A Fresno and recalled catcher Eliezer Alfonzo from Fresno and right-handed reliever Osiris Matos from Double-A Connecticut.

The catching move surprises me a little. The brass had been talking up Holm all season and were not happy with Alfonzo's performance or conditioning this spring. Plus, Alfonzo just served a 50-game suspension for violating baseball's drug policy.

Matos, 23, had a 1.23 ERA in 27 games for the Defenders, with 11 walks and 37 strikeouts in 36 2/3 innings. Sadler sealed his fate Monday when he walked the bases loaded before allowing Mark DeRosa's grand slam.

By the way, Vinnie Chulk cleared waivers and the Giants outrighted him to Fresno.

Posted By: Henry Schulman (Email) | Jul 01 at 04:08 PM

 

I feel kind of bad for Holm. 

Confirming what we already knew:

Peter Magowan will announce Friday that he plans to retire as the Giants' managing general partner and president at the end of this season, ending a 16-year reign that brought to San Francisco a new ballpark, Barry Bonds, a World Series and, ultimately, scorn as the team became the eye of the baseball steroids storm.

He will be replaced by William Neukom, former Microsoft lead counsel and president of the American Bar Association. Larry Baer, who has been the executive vice president of the Giants and right-hand man to Magowan, will step up to become team president.

There's also this tidbit about Sabean:

General manager Brian Sabean, whose contract runs through 2009, is expected to survive the management change and could emerge with more authority if Neukom takes a less visible role than Magowan did.

Ugh.

Story Here

This seems like pretty big news.

Per Kawakami and Ratto:

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/kawakami/2008/05/08/red-alert-giants-swept-in-pittsburgh-chatter-that-magowan-could-quit/

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=22&entry_id=26359

Rumors that Peter Magowan may be ready to retire from his job as the Giants' managing general partner have been circulating for more than two weeks, but they picked up steam Wednesday night when a Chicago Tribune blog on the White Sox-Twins rain delay included a reference buried at the bottom to "a change in control coming soon" for the Giants.

http://www.sjgiants.com/playerlist.aspx?SecID=43

Alderson, D'Alessio, Edlefson should all be interesting.  I'm also looking forward to seeing if Craig Whitaker has anything left.

This is from the Merc this morning.  Zito's obviously a cerebral guy and it must be frustrating for him to know that 5 mph is the difference between being a great pitcher and a league average starter.  Zito used to be so good because he would throw that big floppy curve on the outer part of the plate to righties and then jam them up and in with a fastball when they starting leaning out to cover the slop.  When you pitch like that, you don't need more than 88/89 to be successful and keep hitters honest.  Now that he's at 84, no one respects the inner half of the plate any more and hitters can go diving out across the plate for the slop.  Plus, if he misses on the inner half of the plate with the fastball now, he gets crushed. 

And, the saddest part is I don’t think that velocity is ever coming back.  Too many innings, too many pitches, too early in his career.  He’s going to be done at 31.

________________________________________________

Giants' Zito says he's frustrated
By Andrew Baggarly
Mercury News
Article Launched: 04/01/2008 01:36:44 AM PDT

LOS ANGELES - Whenever asked about his dip in velocity last season or this spring, Barry Zito would play it cool and steer the conversation toward the importance of pitch location.

So it was somewhat stunning when Zito, moments after another disappointing opening-day performance Monday, acknowledged frustration over his tame fastball and said he would continue searching for ways to rediscover power.

"It's a very interesting thing because health-wise I feel good," said Zito, who allowed four runs in five innings. "No pain or anything. I still feel when the ball comes out of my hand, it comes out good. But it's still 84 to 85 (mph) on the high end, which is frustrating for me. Usually when this happens it's because of an injury, which it's not, or it's mechanical.

"I want to get 88, 89, 90 back. I'm sure it's just a small tweak away."

Zito's latest tweak - keeping his hands at chest level as he starts his windup - didn't yield any heat. His fastball ranged from 81 to 85 mph, and even throwing from the third-base side of the rubber, he had trouble pitching inside against right-handed hitters.

Giants Manager Bruce Bochy said he just wants Zito to focus on getting out of the gate cleanly. Four batters into the left-hander's start, Jeff Kent hit a high change-up for a two-run home run and the Los Angeles Dodgers had a 3-0 lead.

"The first inning has been a little bit of an issue," Bochy said. "That's an area Barry's got to get a little better at."

Zito appears to be caught between two desires: to compete with what he has in the short term, and to rediscover his top form for the long term. Considering he is just one season into his seven-year, $126 million contract, the incentive is strong for him to find his fastball again.

For now, he said, "I have to pitch the way I have to pitch."

Good Lord.  I won't post the whole thing for copyright reasons, but here are the memorable excerpts:

The roster looks like someone’s keeper list from the second Clinton Administration...That’s better than the situation at shortstop, where in the absence of Omar Vizquel and his stories of a time before electricity, the Giants are going with something called Brian Bocock, who hit .220/.293/.328 in the Cal League at the age of 22 last season. Nothing against Bocock—it’s not his fault his superiors can’t run an organization—but what does it say that the second-best available option at shortstop in the system is a 23-year-old who was one of the worst players in High-A?

At the same time the Giants are assembling a roster of Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, and 23 Fresno Grizzlies, they’re embarrassing themselves by erasing all mentions of Barry Bonds from AT&T Park. Bonds is responsible for that park, in the same way that Ken Griffey helped create Safeco Field and Tony Gwynn built Petco Park. It’s one thing to squeeze every last dollar out of the man’s career, another to discard your best player because of public-relations concerns, and another thing entirely to erase him from existence....The spin that a Bonds-free clubhouse will somehow make up for a Bonds-free baseball field has no credibility whatsoever. This is the worst team in baseball, and rapidly challenging for the label of worst organization.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7284

Anyone catch Sabean on with Ralph and Flem this afternoon?  If you didn't, you didn't miss a whole lot outside of one draft tidbit.  Without being asked, he said the Giants will almost assuredly be looking for a "high impact positional player" with the 5th pick and "have acknowledged (we) have been too pitcher focused." Even if it should have been obvious, it was nice to hear.

Stated that any bats they'd acquire would be preferable left handed (although can beggers be choosers?) and reiterated what he said yesterday that "the best players are going to play regardless of contract."  Admitted they rode the Bonds train too long and "should have started the transitional phase 2 years ago."

Full interview is here: http://knbr.com/razorMrT/index.html