Chris Stewart, We Hardly Knew Ye

I mean, really, we hardly knew him. He was up after the Posey injury. Kinda looked like Alex Smith. Threw dudes out. Hit his first home run in the majors. Hit .167/.250/.241 in August, which I think raised the team's averages across the board. He was a backup catcher, alright. Better than a lot of the ones I've seen over the years. Far from the best, but worthy of a job on a lot of major-league teams.

Still just a backup catcher, though. And more than that, he was a backup catcher without any options who was about to be put on waivers. Those kinds of players usually aren't traded. Or if they are, they're traded for future considerations. Maybe some cash.

The Giants and Brian Sabean actually got a pitcher who might be worth something for Stewart. I like Stewart as a backup catcher, but you usually don't trade those in for pitchers with these kinds of peripherals:

Lotta dingers. Can't just gloss over that. But George Kontos is an intriguing pitcher. River Ave. Blues has a scouting report on him:

The move to the bullpen allowed Kontos to scrap his weak changeup and attack hitters with his two best pitches: a fastball with some arm-side run in the 91-93 mph range, and a swing-and-miss slider in the mid-80′s. There’s a chance the 26-year-old, 6-foot-3, 215 pounder will add some velocity as he gets further away from surgery and gets more experience in the bullpen. His control has improved since college, but it’s still not stellar.

Maybe the best way to put it is that our SBN sister site, Pinstripe Alley, is really annoyed about the trade. We know what that feels like, so I'm not going to complain about being on the other side.

The odds are decent that we aren't going to see Kontos pitch more than a few September innings over the next couple of years. Especially in the Dan Ont-era that we live in now. But it's still value where value wasn't expected. Today has been a fantastic roster day.