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Internal Medicine

Immediate internal changes I would make:


Jack Taschner down; Pat Misch up.

I love watching Taschner pitch when he's on. He has a filthy slider that can break down the best left-handed hitters in the game, but he has no control. It isn't just the walks that are killing him; it's the pitches over the heart of the plate. There probably isn't much that he can learn in Fresno that he can't learn from pitching to a tire hanging from a tree branch, but he's just too combustible for the majors right now.


Steve Kline traded or released; Jack Taschner up.

Eh, Taschner could still be a good second lefty. Kline has nothing left. If an active Giants player happened to stumble on this site, it'd be this kind of suggestion that would cause them to close their browser, laugh at me, and never visit again. The clubhouse is filled with human beings, not baseball cards. Kline's a pretty popular guy in the clubhouse from all indications, and he's a proven veteran to his teammates. Releasing Kline wouldn't make sense to the teammates, and that's a significant concern.

Morale and chemistry aren't just old-timey myths told by grizzled baseball lifers. It's almost certain that morale and chemistry concerns can be overblown, but if baseball is like any other job in the world, a group of people who don't like the decisions being made above them, don't like with whom they work, and don't like their work environment in any way aren't going to produce good ad slogans, TPS reports, or games against the Dodgers.

Kline's awful pitching and weekly meltdowns supersede that. Plus, Misch might be around for the next good Giants team. Kline will not. Take the short-term morale ding for the short-term and long-term revelations about Misch's potential.

I suppose I could have left Taschner out of this and just swapped Misch for Kline. Consider it a 10-day timeout for serving as Ryan Howard's personal man-tee.

Comment starter: What immediate internal changes, if any, would you make? I'd also be tempted to send Messenger down and bring up Dan Giese - the Official Irrationally Beloved Minor League Journeyman Reliever of McCovey Chronicles - but I have zero idea about Messenger's option status. Also, if Giese were to get bombed in that scenario, it would have looked pretty asinine to send down a guy with an ERA under 3.00.