Thoughts on Durham

Oh yeah, baby. Dude's gone.

Our friend at Giants Win relayed the trade of Durham to us over the weekend, though it was being hinted at in the Chronicle a few days prior. While it's great that the Giants are finally trading out veterans, and people like Buster Olney are finally journalistically integrous in stating that the Giants may be trading a lot more now, there's always room for fan feedback.

Here's mine --

Pro #1: It does in fact show that the Giants are no longer under the delusion that being 7 games back in their own division constitutes being anything less than darn near 20 games back in the NL Central, thus playing "competitive" baseball. Thank God for that.

Pro #2: We've recognized that trading vets can actually garner some additional income-recovery from the Zito-contract debacle. I do like Zito as a man, but paying him $126m over almost a decade was insane. We need to recover costs as best we can, and saving $3m on the end of Durham's contract was a good start.

Pro #3: It opens up the position for more youth to take the field and gain experience. While it was always great to have his steady AVG at 2B, his veteran-entitlement attitude was wearing a little thin. He was once quoted in the Chronicle as saying that even though Kevin Frandsen was batting almost .650 in spring, that he would be the starter because it was "my position", regardless of his performance, strictly because he'd been playing longer than Frandsen. Granted, Frandsen got injured, so it wasn't an issue; but Ochoa is finally getting some time, freeing up the SS competition. We've been well-aware about that kind of attitude from Durham since he called out his "entitlement", and it's nice to see that the attitude is out now. Aside from this, it also brings to mind the most glowing "veteran-obstacle" for the team, Randy Winn and Nate Schierholtz. Nathan isn't playing because "there's no room", and though I do like Winn and his attitude is much better than Durham's, we need to be thinking about shopping Winn around as well. We're not going to win the division this season, and even if we did we'd get swept out of the playoffs. What's best to ensure victory in the long-run is to get the youth out on the field and gaining experience when it doesn't matter how bad they will be at first. This trade makes me think that such a hint might be seen by now.

Pro #4: Durham is, and has been, one of the most atrocious fielders for percentage at 2B. Enough said.


Con #1: Who we obtained for Durham. Notice that this is the only such "Con". But, given all of the above positives, there's still a glaring negative: we got very, very little for Durham. Yes, we cleared cap room. Yes, we cleared the way for youth that we've liked for a few years. However, we got a single-A outfielder who isn't that great, and we got a triple-A pitcher who is basically OK. Why is that a problem? Because we don't really need OFs, and we certainly don't need pitching. With Loree, our two out-of-high-school pitcher draft picks, Espineli, and the recent international signings of both Villalona and Rodriguez, we didn't need players at either position. We needed players at the corners, particularly 3B potentials. Hopefully, since it's clear that we might be trading a lot more in the next 1.5 weeks, we're garnering up potential "package prospects" to gain a triple-A 3B by the trading deadline.

All for now,
MSH