There are two people responsible for the Giants likely signing Pablo Sandoval

This is mostly a tongue-in-cheek post, a simple way of pointing out how the Giants possibly arrived at the opinion that reuniting with Pablo Sandoval was a good idea. Do not take this seriously. Do not get mad. Laugh. Laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

Laugh at the idea that in 2017, the San Francisco Giants might lose 100 games and reunite with Pablo Sandoval. Because, buddy, if you don’t, you’ll cry. And no one wants that.

Sandoval hasn’t been good for almost three seasons, and that’s an understatement. He’s been, quite possibly, the worst regular in Major League Baseball during that time. He’ll be 31 next year, and he doesn’t fit the profile of a player that a 100-loss team might be interested in him. But the Giants are going to take a chance. Why? Who is responsible for this?

I have two culprits.

Austin Slater’s trick hip

Or groin. Still not sure if we got clarification of where the hip flexor ends and where the groin begins, but we’ll leave that question for the philosophers.

My theory goes like this: If Austin Slater is still healthy, the Giants keep him in center field for the rest of the year. With Slater in left, Ryder Jones is the third baseman they want to look at in August and September, not Sandoval.

With Slater hurt, they can look at Jones in left (also something they were curious about) and Sandoval at third. There aren’t any prospects to block, considering the Giants seem pretty adamant that Miguel Gomez is a second baseman. Jae-gyun Hwang hasn’t been very impressive in his limited time. They’re running out of people to audition.

Also, if you think this is just a minor-league deal, please disabuse yourself of that notion. Dan Uggla was signed to a minor-league deal. So was Jeff Francoeur. So was Pat Burrell. Sandoval isn’t choosing the Giants just to fight his way to the majors. Promises were almost certainly made.

Dean Deetz

Yes. This is the guy, the mastermind of it all. If you don’t know who Deetz is, well, he’s the biggest reason that the Giants are reuniting with Pablo Sandoval.

Deetz is a 23-year-old pitcher in the Houston Astros’ system. He pitched so well in Double-A this year that he got called up to the Fresno Grizzlies. So far he’s been a little wild, but the Astros still think highly of him.

How wild? He’s walked 17 in 20 innings. But he also hit a guy.

That guy was Christian Arroyo, who is probably out for the season.

If the Astros keep Deetz in Double-A, Pablo Sandoval isn’t on the Giants in 2017. If Christian Arroyo comes back just one day later, Sandoval isn’t on the Giants. If the catcher calls a curveball instead of a fastball, Sandoval isn’t on the Giants.

If Arroyo could actually hit when he was called up, Sandoval really isn’t on the Giants.

Hey, pipe down, I’m building toward something. But, yeah, there are a lot of reasons why Sandoval is on the Giants. The biggest one is that the likeliest starter at third base next year is still Christian Arroyo, and the Giants were probably super eager to see him back up and auditioning for that gig. If he were healthy, he would be the player the team would try at third.

With Arroyo and Slater being hurt, though, the Giants went from having too many players to audition to too few. Ryder Jones will get some looks. Chris Shaw might, too. But when it comes to third base, the Giants are going to hop on the change-of-scenery train and see if they can wring some more hits out of Pablo Sandoval. It took a lot of twists and turns to get here, but the Giants are so bad, so depleted, that it’s almost sensible.

And we will never forget your name, Dave Deitz. It doesn’t matter if the experiment fails or succeeds, we will never forget your name.