No Dice on the Trade Front

Well the 1pm deadline passed without much consequence today. I was watching ESPN starting at 12 waiting for something to happen, and much to my disappointment, I was left without any major trades to speak of.

The Randy Winn deal is a moot point if there's no follow up to it. The Giants roster is overstuffed right now, namely in the outfield, and Winn is not the solution to the Giants problems. When it was said that San Francisco wanted a "solid left-handed bat", I did not have this in mind. As pointed out here, Winn's stats bare an eery resemblance to those of outfielder Michael Tucker

Winn: .275 BA/.342 OBP/.391 SLG
Tucker: .260 BA/.338 OBP/.399 SLG

So now we have two Michael Tuckers. Hooray? I'm only hoping that Sabean made this trade with another move in mind. I'm still hopelessly clinging to the fact that Sabes claimed that it would "take a series of moves to improve, and that may not happen by the 31st". If a post-deadline waiver deal doesn't happen, then that renders this trade pretty obsolete. The Giants are likely to place someone on waivers when they make a roster move when Winn joins the team. What exactly does being on waivers mean you ask?

After the July 31 deadline, any player on a 40-man roster must clear Major
League waivers before being traded. That is, the player must be offered to the
other teams in reverse order of the standings, and if he is claimed by one of
the teams he cannot be traded. The club that made the waiver request can either
withdraw the request and keep the player or let the player go to the claiming
team, which would then have the rights to the player and be obligated to that
player's current contract.

A Giant Pitching Problem

San Francisco is still is in desperate need of a starting pitcher, with our current rotation in shambles. Jerome Williams' 3-2 with a 3.83 ERA is looking awfully attractive right now. I never thought I'd say this, but it would be nice to have Livan Hernandez back. He decided to be a consistent pitcher right when the Giants traded him. He's 39-29 since the Giants traded him, and hasn't sported an ERA above 3.60 in the last three seasons with the Expos/Nationals. He continues to have us Giants fans pulling our hair out even when he doesn't pitch for us anymore, with him emerging as the staff ace of freefalling Washington. Our rotation is looking like this right now:

Jason Schmidt: 7-6/4.56/ 58 walks in 120.1 innings
Noah Lowry: 6-11/4.59/17 HR surrendered
Brett Tomko: 7-10/4.90/140 hits in 128.2 innings
Kirk Rueter: 2-7/5.95/131 hits in 107.1 innings

Fun Facts About the Rotation:

• Kirk Rueter hasn't made it past the 5th inning since June 23rd
• Jason Schmidt is 1-3 in the month of July with a 4.03 ERA with 2 no decisions
• No Giants pitcher has gone thrown a complete game since May 9th
• A Giants starter has made it into the 8th inning only 3 times

Point in case, without a solid addition to the starting rotation, the Giants aren't going to make much noise in the NL West. It seems as though Sabean views Randy Winn as the second coming of Kenny Lofton. The key difference this year compared to 2002 though, is that Lofton was the final piece of the puzzle for the Giants; Winn doesn't shore up all too many holes in our struggling offense. What harrows me the most, is that even if the Giants do win the West, they're still going to get annihilated by a team like the Cardinals. Right now, we can barely beat the Brewers, much less a perennial World Series victor, especially without Barry Bonds.

Giants take on the Rockies tomorrow, so that should be a good pick-me-up. Or a total confidence destroyer if we get swept. Whichever.