Dave Cokin’s Hardcore Baseball: Giant bust

I enjoyed another huge day on the diamond Thursday, and there’s just no question I’m in a zone that’s about as good as it gets right now. To cash in, buy my plays here.

The San Francisco Giants get back home tonight following a disastrous road trip. They lost every game and were outscored 42-14 in the process. They are an exceedingly bad looking baseball team right now in every respect. Not only that, they’re lifeless. Maybe getting back to the Bay Area will liven them up, but it’s alarming to see a team this flat this early in the season.

Part of the reason is Barry Zito. I’ll never knock Zito for signing what was one of the most ridiculous contracts ever. That’s all on the braintrust of the Giants, who jumped the gun and made Zito an offer that was far more than any other team apparently would have even considered.

Fact is, Zito was already in decline when he left Oakland, and the Giants were evidently the only ones who missed it. Zito is now 21-33 with the Giants with an ERA that’s just plain unsightly. In my eyes, the Giants look like a team that knows they’re going to get beat every time he takes the mound.

By all accounts, Barry Zito is a really good guy and I’m sure he’s giving it his best effort. But he’s simply not a big league caliber starting pitcher anymore. Zito was flat out awesome back in 2001-02 with Oakland. He was respectable for the next four years and managed to win more games than he lost in that span.

But his peripheral numbers kept on getting worse, and just about every sharp analyst I talked with when the Giants signed him basically thought the same thing. Bad, bad move by Brian Sabean and the Giants. This is not a case of Monday morning quarterbacking. It was an easy call the day it happened.

The Giants are stuck with Zito. The only way they can move him is to, in effect, pay another team to take him off their hands. That’s unlikely to happen. But I just don’t understand why Bruce Bochy continues to send Zito to the mound every fifth day. The idea is to win games, right?

I’ll accept the idea that the prospects down on the farm aren’t ready yet, and the Giants are right not rush high end talents such as Madison Bumgarner and Tim Alderson. But this is pretty ridiculous. At the very least, move Zito to the bullpen and let him eat up some innings when needed. Jeremy Affeldt has said he’d like to give starting another shot.

Hey, Bruce Bochy, what have you got to lose?

By the way, lest you think the Giants learned their lesson from the Zito fiasco, think again. Their megabucks signing of shopworn Edgar Renteria in early December is destined to be beyond any doubt the dumbest free agent maneuver of this past offseason.

Sabean completely misjudged the market and made a big offer way too soon, as it’s now crystal clear he could have gotten Renteria for far less money. Beyond that, going after Renteria was an horrendous decision. He’s an aging shortstop who has lost his range and is now a very poor defender.

Plus, he really declined offensively last year with Detroit, and that was when he was hitting amidst a slew of potent hitters. Renteria is off to a terrible start this year, his K rate is up and he’s already been dropped to the No. 8 hole.

He might work his way out of this slump, but I would say his ceiling is about .270 with ten HR, and he’ll cost the Giants with his defense. Not exactly the optimum return on the investment made by the Giants.

This team does have some exciting prospects on the way up, but any credit in that area goes to the scouting department. The bottom line is that the current front office regime just doesn’t get it, and it’s my contention the Giants organization is in dire need of a substantial overhaul.