Our Cheap Bastards

The Giants insist that they would like to sign Bengie Molina for 1 year while their future catcher, Buster Posey, learns how to catch. Ready for prime time? Not yet, Buster. Overlooking his difficulties hitting in the majors, have you actually seen him catch? He’s going to get some home plate umpire killed some day.

They are trying to get a mediocre old guy to sign for one year. Now it appears mediocre old guys are in vogue – IRod has signed for 2 years for real money. Does anyone see Torrealba hitting more than 4 homers in Telephone Park?

Now I don’t think Bengie Molina is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but he did hit 20 dingers. Hey, I get it that they aren’t going to sign him because Bengie can definitely get a multi-year contract from somebody.

So if that is true, why didn’t the Giants offer him arbitration? Isn’t that the best of all worlds? If somehow he stays, he’s signed for 1 year. OK, it will be expensive, but it’s for 1 year while Posey learns how to catch an outside pitch. But come on, he’s not going to stay. This is his last chance to make some bread. He’s got to sign with somebody else. And if he does, the Giants get not one, but two high draft picks.

Where, exactly, is the downside?

That would be in the Giants’ owners’ wallets. Those high draft picks cost money, sometimes real money. The Giants, with their self-proclaimed best farm system in baseball, don’t want to shell it out.

Do you remember when the Giants signed Michael Tucker as a free agent? Tucker had been playing for the Royals in 2003, having hit .262 and 13 homers. The Giants signed him to be the right fielder du jour in 2004. But they signed him the day BEFORE the arbitration offering deadline, which meant that the Giants had to forfeit their 1^st round draft choice. The Royals were not going to offer him arbitration. The Giants rushed the deal to beat the deadline so they could get rid of their draft pick so they would not have to pay a big signing bonus. This is not speculation – this is what they said publicly when they did the deal.

So this year they decided they didn’t want any more of those nasty, expensive bonus babies, so they didn’t offer Bengie the arbitration he was never, ever going to take.

And that’s your Giants’ Replay.