Bruce Bochy: “Barry Zito is our fifth starter next year”
By trading Jonathan Sanchez to the Royals yesterday the Giants opened up a rotation spot and manager Bruce Bochy said that Barry Zito is the man for the job.
During a radio interview with KNBR today Bochy revealed: “I’m not gonna hide from it. Barry Zito is our fifth starter next year.”
Zito started just nine games this year because of injuries and ineffectiveness, and there was speculation throughout the season that the Giants might finally decide to eat his salary and release the veteran left-hander.
However, while Zito was a massive free agent bust and incredibly overpaid he’s also more often than not been a decent back-of-the-rotation starter and there’s no reason to part with that when the Giants are paying him either way. Zito had a 4.03 ERA over 192 innings in 2009 and a 4.15 ERA over 199 innings in 2010, and just about every team in baseball would be thrilled to get that out of their fifth starter.
The Giants aren’t going to try to re-sign Carlos Beltran
Jon Heyman reports that the Giants are no longer going to try to re-sign Carlos Beltran. Because when you add an .809 OPS outfielder like Melky Cabrera and take away a .910 OPS outfielder like Beltran, your severe offensive problems are all better.
Oh, I don’t know. I’m just being mean. I’m sure they have their reasons. Spending money on someone like Jose Reyes could be a reason. We don’t know. The point is, Beltran is now going someplace else. Probably Boston, if everyone who thinks they know a little bit about this sort of thing can be believed.
That makes two rent-a-player situations in Beltran’s career. With the 2004 Astros and the 2011 Giants. he hit well in both of them. Really darn well in 2004, but better than most people realized this past season too. Oh well. Some people are meant to be transitional figures, I suppose.