The Giants are letting teams know outfielder Nate Schierholtz is available, tweets ESPN's Jerry Crasnick. Andres Torres might come off the DL soon after recovering from a sore Achilles tendon, perhaps leaving the out of options Schierholtz without a spot.
In Schierholtz, Pat Burrell, Darren Ford, Cody Ross, and Aaron Rowand, the Giants currently have five outfielders on the active roster. The Giants could retain Schierholtz by just sending down Darren Ford, who was recalled when Torres went on the DL.
There's also the question of whether Rowand has more value to the Giants than Schierholtz. The 33-year-old Rowand is off to a tolerable start in 69 plate appearances after his ugly 2010, and is owed $22.3MM through the 2012 season. Schierholtz has only 31 plate appearances, and has not produced.
Schierholtz, 27, was known to be on the bubble in March, but the Giants ended up outrighting Travis Ishikawa instead. Schierholtz appears to have defensive value, and has shown promise offensively at Triple-A.
NO! For the past 2 seasons or so he’s been the #2 most productive pinch hitter in all of baseball. He is also an above average defender, and a humble individual. It would be a shame to lose him.
And does anyone in the outfield currently have his speed and arm strength? Burrell never goes after a ball & even tho he is batting ok, how could they keep him? I hope Nate gets picked up and can play full time! He deserves better treatment.
Nate Schierholtz will be added to long list of, “He was a good Giant.” …unfortunately, most players on that list never find any success after leaving the Giants.
Giants are idiots for letting him go. You can never have enough depth on a team. Burrell is a clown in the outfield and both Ross and Torres have the type of injuries that can linger through out the year. Letting Nate go will come back to haunt them as the season progresses..
Burrell is hitting .270 with 5 HR’s already and is only making 1 mill! You don’t cut a guy like that. Nate is expendable.
They haven’t let him go. Over-react much?
I would love to see him as a Met. With Pagan’s injury, extra depth would be a great thing for the Mets. Plus, he’s a very productive pinch hitter with good defensive ability. He’d let us drop the scrub that is Scott Hairston.
No need to overreact, but this is a curious move. Got to be more to this…why keep Ford over Holtz?
I think that’s the idea of this article, Ford will be optioned, unless the Giants get a great deal for Schierholtz. IT’S ALL HYPE
I hate to see him go, but we have too many OF’s! And unfortunately, Rowand’s ridiculous contract keeps him around.
This has nothing to do with Torres coming off the DL, which, BTW, most local papers place as no sooner than after the road trip. Schierholtz was put on the trade rumor mill in the spring because of Brandon Belt’s eventual ascension to the 25-man roster and nothing has changed that mid-season collision on the 25-man roster. That is why the Giants are trying to trade him now, in order to get value for him instead of having to DFA him mid-season and get less back in return.
Ishikawa was clearly the first reserve off the island when the spring training cuts came, as Brandon Belt made him expendable as an asset eventually and he only played one position, whereas Schierholtz played all three OF positions. People mistook the Giants making Schierholtz available in spring as a sign that they wanted to get rid of him first. It was just that Schierholtz could be a starter for teams out there and would be picked up if he were put on the waiver wire, while Ishikawa wasn’t, else someone would have selected him when he went through waivers. Hence they have made him available since spring training in hopes of getting something in return.
With Whiteside, DeRosa, Fontenot, and Rowand holding 4 of the bench spots, plus whichever OF gets pushed out when Belt comes up and either he or Huff moves to the OF, that would make Schierholtz the odd-man out eventually, unless the Giants somehow trade Rowand (unlikely) or Belt struggles in AAA (also unlikely, but you never know) or decide to go just with DeRosa as the only MI backup (unlikely) and DFA Fontenot. So the Giants have been trying to peddle him for a prospect somewhere.
I would love to keep Nate around, he grew up a Giants fan, and I think the Giants might need him to start next season, as you never know whether Burrell or Ross finally hit their eventual 30’s decline, and open a spot for a less expensive OF. The Giants trying to repeat this season makes that impossible, well that and Rowand’s contract, so unfortunately they have to try to trade the one 25-man roster asset that is tradeable.
Nevermind. Just saw he bats left.
Like an earlier post he was supposed to be a productive player. He’s a super sub. Only thing he’s got going for himself is that he is left handed. That’s about it.
Not really. He has compiled OK stats in AAA, his MLE suggests that he can be average offensively in the majors.
Meanwhile, he can provide a lot of value via his defense and baserunning. He has been rated at worth more than one win and up to two wins from his defense in RF, if he would produce at his production rate over a full season (150 games), due to his speed (relative to others) and great arm. Thus he provides good value as a starter just for his defense and if he can produce offensively at a replacement level.
He is also evaluated to be very good as a baserunner by Bill James baserunning efficiency metric, he is in double digits despite not getting to play a full season and not being a great basestealer (though adequate enough to get close to double digits if he were to start a full season).
Those assets plus cheap control makes him a valuable player to acquire at zero cost via waivers and thus a team, if they have a need for a great fielding RF who is OK offensively, with some pop and speed, might be willing to give up a mid-level prospect for him.
Speed, arm strength, younger. Hope some team picks Nate up, helps him with batting against right handers and he becomes a full time player. Why Burrell is playing over him is a mystery and the debacle of Huff in right field says alot about Giant management. Bouchy has never seen him as an every day player and he deserves his shot somewhere. I hope he gets traded soon! Oh by the way, doesnt he have the longest hit home run in MLB right now? just saying…
Bochy won a a championship because he made all the right moves, now you’re questioning his ability?
One mammoth shot isn’t worth Burrell’s five dingers, and just because it was a mammoth shot doesn’t mean the guy has power. I remember a few years ago when Reggie Abercrombie absolutely tattooed a ball in Florida but you don’t see him around anymore.
Point is that Scheirholtz won’t be traded unless they can get value for him. Ford is younger and can do a lot of things well. I can see why they want him on the 25 man roster. If the Giants don’t get value for Nate you’ll see them send Ford back down. It’s a non-issue
justin upton hit a 478 footer a few weeks ago actually.
I think the reason Burrell is starting over Schierholtz is pretty clear: he is a much, much better hitter over his career than Nate has shown. Pat the Bat has been around or significantly above .800 OPS for most of this season so far and had a .872 OPS for the Giants last season and in prior recent seasons were near 900 OPS. Not too many hitters who can do that.
I think the Giants compiling and, more importantly, keeping the pitching that they have rather than listening to the majority of fans who criticized their offense and would have traded away key pitchers like Lincecum, Cain, and Sanchez for OK players like Alexis Rios and Corey Hart, says a lot about the quality of decision making that the Giants management have made in recent seasons.
Bochy has actually been a Schierholtz supporter over the years. Once Nate started hitting, Bochy would insert Schierholtz into the starting lineup and would keep him there even while he slumped and didn’t hit worth squat. He even returned Nate to the starting lineup when he came back off the DL before, but Nate not hitting eventually drove Bochy to remove him from the lineup.
Nate’s problem, from my viewpoint, is that he has been too aggressive, which has hurt him in multiple ways. First, that has made him susceptible to injuries which would hurt his hitting stroke and he would slump. Second, he would continue playing while hurt instead of getting well and returning to his hitting form. Third, he would try to return early, before he was ready, and he would return cold and slumping. Bochy has given him a lot of chances over the years and put him in there, but Nate would force the issue through very poor hitting.
And I love Nate and hope that he finally gets the chance he deserves, I think he will do well when given the chance and if he can stay healthy. He admitted as much this off-season in an interview where he talked about how he hurt himself by coming back too soon from his injury last season.
Belt has been playing LF 5 days a week in Fresno. I imagine he’ll be coming back as the 5 outfielder as needed.
He hasn’t even been there five days.
Besides, when he comes back up, it’s not to be a bench player. This has been said by management over and over.
he’d been there 6 days as of your post.
Correction. The plan is to have him play 5 days.
As ramjamrock noted, management has made it very clear (and over and over) that Belt will be starting wherever he goes, whether majors or AAA. The Huff debacle made it clear that it would be better to have Belt in the OF rather than force Huff to RF by starting Belt at 1B. Playing Belt in LF and RF would allow a lot of options for the starting lineup, but in any case, will be starting most of the games.
For example, Ross is not the greatest against RHP and Huff is not the greatest against LHP, so both could sit for Belt against those pitchers. Burrell is also not the best against RHP either, so Belt could take starts there as well.
I think Belt will be playing in the minors until the Giants are comfortable with his defense in LF and RF, as well as with his batting stroke. Plus, now that he is down there, they can work on trading Schierholtz and just hold Belt down there until a trade can be made or until Belt forcefully push his way into the majors with his play.
I wonder what the Giants would even want for him. BP? I honestly have no idea.
The giants would likely want a pitcher with options left. Obviously nobody outstanding, but maybe a long relief/spot starter they could stash as depth in AAA. I think if they ask for anything more than that they are asking for too much. The entire reason for dealing him will be to clear a 25 man roster spot, so it has to be a minor leaguer.
If anyone on here watched the giants game last night, you saw why they Giants are wanting to trade Schierholtz. Darren Ford is just as good as an outfielder and plays CF. Ford also is by far the fastest base runner on the team and possibly in all of baseball. Ford will be more valuable than Schierholtz. Whoever ends up with Schierholtz is getting a good player. On a lot of teams, he could start a few times per week. This move would have nothing to do with Schierholtz not being a good player, it has to do with the desire to keep Darren Ford in the mix.
When Torres comes off of the DL, it will come down to sending Ford to AAA or getting rid of Schierholtz, since Nate is out of options. Ford’s game changing speed is the difference.
Ford has nothing to do with the decision to trade Schierholtz. Once Torres and Belt returns to the majors, both will be gone from the 25-man roster.
Ford is here because the Giants were already speed challenged when Torres was in there, he is there to help offset the loss of speed on the team by allowing Bochy the opportunity to PR Ford in key situations late in the game when the Giants need a run. Has nothing to do with Nate.
Unfortunately, Ford is just another in a long line of all-defense&speed/no-hit CF that the Giants have had among prospects in the past 20-30 years, like Calvin Murray and Jason Ellison. Though I would point out Gary Brown as looking probable, to me, to become that lead-off CF basestealer who can get on base that we have lacked since Brett Butler took one to the nuts and left us for LA.