Last year the format for the offseason was fairly easy. The Giants needed a first baseman, but were pretty well set at every other position. It took the better part of a month to run down the candidates for the job, and the ideas ranged from fantastical trades for Carlos Delgado to six-team, twenty player deals that brought Adam Dunn over for Jason Ellison. In the end, the Giants decided to stay home and cook rather than go out and spend money. Lance Niekro played the can of Manwich. No meat, mind you. Just a bowl full of tepid Manwich. Bon appetit.
This offseason is a mess to keep track of. The Giants have 11 free agents to try and figure out what to do with. Everyone could go. A whole mess of them could come back. Holes will need to be filled with a weak free agent class. This probably isn't going to end well. We're gonna need a bigger boat.
First, though, I'm going to need your advice. The plan is to march through the pending free agents one at a time, see what the alternatives are, and see how likely it would be to bring them back. I'd like to have the same format for each. I'll do a sample using Todd Greene, who really isn't going to stir too many emotions up. I was thinking something like this:
Hrmm blah blah hrrmm Todd Greene blah blah hrrm Greatest Todd Greene of Our Generation blah blah mmm didn't do too bad, now go away.
Available free agent replacements
Backup catchers grow like Sea Monkeys. From Alomar to Zaun, there's a backup catcher for everyone. Whether it's a good place to drop a million is debatable.
Available free agent replacements that would actually improve the team
There is Gregg Zaun, Perfect Backup Catcher. Other than that, they're mostly different shades of Greene. If Eliezer is going to start, it would make sense to have one catcher who could play some defense.
In-house replacements
Justin Knoedler seems to be the organizational soldier of choice. If the Giants decide to go after a Mike Lieberthal or Bengie Molina, Eliezer Alfonzo would be a swell backup.
Would bring him back at...
Greene's a perfectly capable backup, and he has some power. Allegedly. If he would come back at one year, less than $1M, the Giants could do much worse.
First choice to replace him
I'd still prefer Zaun, but you can't just target one player in these mock roster thingies and assume they'd even consider San Francisco. Not to mention, Zaun is easily the class of the backup catchers.
Comment starter: The whole thing was a comment starter, you pushy bastards. But if you have any thoughts about Todd Greene or the backup catcher situation, this would be the place to dump them off.