Giants sign catcher Miguel Olivo to minor-league deal

Miguel Olivo is a lot of things. He's a 37-year-old catcher who will turn 38 during the season. He's a catcher who used to be good for 15 to 20 homers per year with a lousy on-base percentage, and then he got sucked into the Safeco death fog, never to recover. According to Baseball America's transactions log, he recently signed with the Giants, which means he's depth for an organization that didn't really need it, behind Trevor Brown and (hopefully) George Kottaras.

And he's also a dude who bit a Dodger's ear off.

That might be a positive in your book! It's so hard to judge these things. But I'll go out on a limb and suggest that Olivo biting a chunk of Alex Guerrero's ear is not a nice thing and a red flag when it comes to the general subject of clubhouse chemistry. If you needed another anecdote, remember that in 2013, he left the Marlins before the start of a game because he wasn't getting playing time.

The cache of Olivo anecdotes isn't all bad news, though. Apparently, he's tough.

APPARENTLY, HE'S VERY TOUGH. And he bit a Dodger's ear off once, too.

No! That's a negative. A clear, unambiguous negative. I don't know what the Giants want with Olivo, frankly, unless they just got some news about Kottaras that we don't know about. Olivo was a sensible second catcher to keep around in his late 20s or early 30s, but it's hard to see him as a fit on this roster unless something goes seriously wrong, several times over. The last time he was on a Triple-A roster, he was released because he bit a teammate's ear off, so it's hard to think, "It's only a minor-league deal, so what's the harm?"

It's an interesting move, though. Maybe. I guess. You can't say he's an uninteresting individual, at least. And perhaps -- just perhaps -- it trolls the Dodgers just a teensy bit. We have a new emergency broadcast player; if you see Miguel Olivo, and it's not just a test, you'll know that something has going dreadfully wrong with the even year.