The Carlos Delgado Telethon has been canceled. Refunds are available through a long, protracted series of forms designed to make you forget about the whole thing.
The more I think about the offseason, the less I worry about the pitching staff. Schmidt, Cain, Lowry, and Hennessey will all have various struggles, but the team doesn't need to make a drastic move to give hope for the pitching in the upcoming season. The Giants will also nab a pitcher at an inflated price to do something, and that can't be ignored.
The offense is a mess, though. The Giants have already decided to punt offense from the catcher's spot. Omar Vizquel ended the season with a Neifurious bang. Picking your poison from between Pedro Feliz and Edgardo Alfonzo is only going to lead to tears. That's three of the eight slots that are automatically given a vote of no-confidence. Without help, the team will be counting on Randy Winn to continue to draw superhuman power from San Francisco's yellow sun, and for Barry Bonds and Moises Alou to stay healthy all year. With organizational blueprints like these, who needs Dodgers?
This is what makes the first base hole so critical, and why it's such a shame to see Delgado passed up. Fooling around with never-weres like John Mabry and the like will mean half of the lineup is, at best, well below-average. The Giants don't have much to trade, but they could have come close to the Mets package of Petit/Jacobs/negative $7M. It's all a moot point now and, heck, for all we know the Giants did send in the Maddux ninjas to cut a stealthy deal, and had all of their attempts rebuffed.
If the Giants want a player to make a huge offensive difference, they either have to hope the Phillies will eat a massive chunk of Jim Thome's salary, and hope that Thome even wants to come to San Francisco, or they'll have to give in to Paul Konerko's ludicrous demands. Neither is likely, and the Konerko idea is so damaging to the team's long-term prospects, it isn't desirable in the slightest. But something needs to happen for the Giants to have more than a fluky 1997 season of a chance.
Nomar to first? If he'll do it, I'm up for it. He's going to get multiple offers from teams all over the map, and the offers will be to play at positions he's sure to be comfortable with. If Mia Hamm has a favorite great-uncle Lester living in Pacific Heights, or something similarly absurd, maybe we could get Nomar at market value to play first. Otherwise, we'll have to offer more years, more money, and less incentive-based tomfoolery than the next guys. That's not the worst thing that could happen, but it still isn't likely.
I give up on ideas. There are inoffensive ways to bandage the wound in the short-term (Roberto Petagine), offensive ways to do so (Daryle Ward), ideas that sound great long-term but iffy for the short-term (Casey Kotchman, Adrian Gonzalez), and paying through the nose in talent or cash to actually help the team (Lyle Overbay through Thome). Each solution has problems, and the only common thread is that the Giants of 2006 are almost guaranteed to struggle scoring runs. Counting on Matt Morris to emerge the victor in a bunch of 2-1 games is a silly plan, but I'm not seeing it's going to be avoided.
edit: And now Thome's gone to the White Sox. Phooey.