Bridge Ball

Congratulations Brian Sabean!
You just acquired two pitchers that gave up the most home runs in the National League. Well, actually, that's not quite true. They just acquired Wayne Franklin who led the senior circuit in ding-dong-the-pitch-is-dead-the-wicked-pitch-is-dead with 35. Earlier this off season he got Brett Tomko, the man who gave up the second most homers in the NL with 34. I'm a man who like clarity, amongst everything else.

As an added bonus, Sabean also got reliever Leo Estrella in the deal, who only gave up a paltry 10 home runs (although he accomplished it in 66 innings pitched--a rate even higher than Tomko or Franklin). The good news here is that all three pitchers will get much more effective pitching half their games at SBC Park. The bad news is that Estrella and, even more so, Franklin suck.

The deal (if you want to call it that) sure looks like (a.) the warm body approach for the Giants (as in they have none to pitch with Nen and Schmidt on the DL and Kevin Correia and Jerome Williams sucking) or (b.) the get-the-the-hell-out-of-town approach for the Brewers. How badly did Brew Crew GM Doug Melvin want these particular fellows out of town? This is what he says about Carlos Villanueva and Glenn Woolard, the two guys he got in return: "They're not top-level prospects," Melvin said. "This came down to being a deal that had a deadline to it." Damning by faint insult if i ever heard it.

Maybe that deadline had something to do with April 12-14. As it happens, the Brewers will be visiting SBC Park those days. Nothing like some early season down-home pitching for the Brewers.