Looking at the starting pitching options for the 2015 Giants

After Monday night's loss to the Dodgers, this here blog was particularly hard on Tim Lincecum. I always wake up the night after a post-game thread like that and feel like I drunkenly mumbled something about eugenics the night before, and now I'm embarrassed and contrite. All I want is for Lincecum to succeed and the Giants to succeed with him. It's been a long few months, so I think the universe owes Giants fans that much.

However, the overall logic is still sound. There are emotional reasons to keep trying Lincecum in the rotation. There are fewer and fewer pragmatic reasons. This isn't a six-month slump; this is year four. However, here we run into some problems: It's not like the next pitchers on the depth chart are mythological heroes. To emphasize this point, I bring to you the McCovey Chronicles Starting Pitcher Scouting Report, 2015. It should be available on Kindle later this year.

Madison Bumgarner

Mean, glowering eyes. Warm, open heart. Arm forged in the fires of a place we can't understand. We wouldn't want to understand. It's not for us to understand. Built like an upended container ship with limbs. Fears his opponents like an upended container ship with limbs. Power. Grace. Steadfastness. He is the hero we deserve, and also the one we need right now.

Tim Lincecum

Doesn't throw much over 90 these days. Needs to hit his spots to be effective.

Jake Peavy

Doesn't throw much over 90 these days. Needs to hit his spots to be effective.

Tim Hudson

Doesn't throw much over 90 these days. Needs to hit his spots to be effective.

Matt Cain

Doesn't throw much over 90 these days. Needs to hit his spots to be effective.

Ryan Vogelsong

Doesn't throw much over 90 these days. Needs to hit his spots to be effective.

Chris Heston

Doesn't throw much over 90 these days. Needs to hit his spots to be effective.

Yusmeiro Petit

Doesn't throw much over 90 these days. Needs to hit his spots to be effective.

Thank you for reading my scouting reports. And here are some of the prospects who are closest to the majors:

Clayton Blackburn

Doesn't throw much over 90 these days. Needs to hit his spots to be effective.

Kevin Correia

Doesn't throw much over 90 these days. Needs to hit his spots to be effective. Also, he's in the minors, so he's probably a prospect.

The Giants have somehow, miraculously, accumulated a pile of the same pitchers. It doesn't matter that some of them are left-handed and some of them are right-handed, or that some of them started with Cy Young stuff and ended with back-end stuff. They're offering you a GMC Yukon and a Chevy Tahoe, and you're supposed to pick between them, even though they're the same thing. All of these pitchers have been rebadged!

Until July or so, there isn't much the Giants can do. Even in July, there probably isn't much they can do, considering the shiniest prospects are all in other organizations. There are live arms in the system, but they're raw, sharp, and jagged arms. The Giants will need to hit their spots to be effective, and they'll need to do it every danged night.

At the risk of belaboring the point and devolving into self-parody, though, I'd like to highlight just one phrase from those scouting reports.

Needs to hit his spots to be effective.

Mmm. Yes. We've seen Hudson do it as recently as last start. Peavy did it in the second half last year, and I'm not going to shovel the dirt on him just yet. Heston can clearly do it, which is why he's one of the most pleasant surprises of the season. Vogelsong was much improved in his last start, and he's done it before. Petit had a messy inning on Monday, but he's proven his ability to pitch to that scouting report. We don't know what the new Cain is going to look like, but even if he's not like the old Cain, he should join the overflowing ranks of spot-hitters.

There is a name I left out of that paragraph. There is a pitcher who has not hit his spots very often, at least in his recent incarnation, so to expect him to do it now would require a leap of faith. That's all. That's my main thesis, why I'll continue to bleat the same sad bleat every week or so. The Giants are sort of locked into their blueprint of steady pitchers who need to hit their spots to be effective, but the good news is that can still work. Solid, unspectacular pitchers can still help teams win.

They just need to hit their spots.

I would prefer to watch the pitchers who have exhibited this ability before. That is my baseball opinion, and it is what I baseball believe. Thank you for reading my baseball blog.