From Chris Haft’s MLBlog:
The move cements Jonathan Sanchez’s demotion to the bullpen. Sanchez, 2-8 with a 5.54 ERA, has lost four consecutive games and, in the minds of Giants officials, simply wasn’t demonstrating much improvement.
I would be surprised if Sadowski makes more than 1-2 starts with the Giants. The 26-year-old right-hander has had a pretty marginal minor league career. Drafted out of Florida in 12th round of the ’03 Draft, Sadowski has slowly worked his way up the minor league ladder one season at a time. He missed 2006 with what I’m assuming was an injury. Since then, he’s mostly been a reliever. He went back to starting with Fresno this season.
In 13 starts in AAA his numbers shape up as the following: 70.2 IP, 62 H, 30 BB’s , 55 K’s, and 4.85 FIP. He’s posted a GB% of 47.6, a K/9 of 7.0, and a BB/9 of 3.82. He looks like your typical AAA starter with marginal stuff. His MLE puts his FIP around 5.57 runs at the MLB level.
Sadowski is getting the call because Kevin Pucetas pitched a couple of days ago and the Giants didn’t want to pitch him on such short rest. It’s clear that unless the Giants are willing to dip into the well that is Madison Bumgarner or Tim Alderson, any minor league replacement for Sanchez will most likely be a lateral move with a good chance for worse performance. Sanchez has struggled this season, but Sadowski (especially) or Pucetas aren’t much of an upgrade.
Hopefully, the bullpen assignment is a quick one and Sanchez can get back into the rotation and on track.
JOEY MARTINEZ!
Is he still rehabbing? I think the last boxscore I saw he was in San Jose? If he’s cleared to return, I like him much more than Sadowski. Slightly more than Pucetas.
Also, #1 JOEY fan right here.
Ok, let me count the ways this makes no sense at all.
1) Sadowski is not on the 40 man. Neither is Pucetas. We would have to clear a roster spot either way; if we later decide to give Pucetas a try, that’s two roster spots. Only one of which is currently taken by Brian Bocock. It’s entirely possible, in other words, if Sadowski doesn’t suddenly become Bill Laskey, we may have to try plan B, which would require that we expose someone WE MIGHT WANT TO KEEP. Henry Sosa, on the other hand, is on the 40 man. So is Sadler, so is Jesse English, so is Joe Martinez. If you have to come up with an emergency starter, maybe, just possibly, you try one of those guys? Or, I don’t know, construct a 40 man roster that anticipates the possible need for an emergency starter? See #5 below.
2) So, okay, the spin is that it’s Sadowski over Pucetas because Pucetas pitched two days ago. Does this provide some insight into how far out the FO makes decisions? Isn’t it barely possible someone might have made a phone call to Fresno and gently suggested that Pucetas miss his turn? Just in case?
3) Which opens the door to this thought; maybe Kevin Frandsen WAS ahead of Downs on the 2B depth chart? Since KF was outhitting MD by some 80 points of OPS? And since the FO was talking about making a move at second, is it possible they might have made sent Burriss down two days earlier and kept Franny up? Instead of being forced by the 10 day rule to go with Downs instead, and then spinning it as ‘the move we always meant to make?’
4) Which opens the door to wondering if maybe Steve Holm likewise got screwed by a FO that apparently can’t anticipate moves more than two days in advance? Oh, and maybe, just maybe, our 35 year old workhorse catcher gets hurt, in which case we might want a third catcher on our 40 man? Just in case?
5) Is it unreasonable to wonder if a Ramon Ortiz maybe is in AAA in case you need an emergency starter? Since he’s, like, a veteran and all?
Look, it’s entirely possible that the Giants’ front office actually really does know what they’re doing. Maybe the Downs call up really was a situation where our scouting department genuinely thought he was a prospect with more upside than what Frandsen offered. That’s not impossible. Maybe Sadowski has really been showing ‘em something, a new pitch, a competitive gleam in his eye. Maybe they just like the cut of his jib, and maybe five starts later we’re all going to wonder why we were so nonplussed by this. And I’m not even going to get into questions like why Juan Uribe was still playing second base in the bottom of the ninth with a (presumably) better second baseman on the bench. I just see move after move that suggest, to this uninformed outsider, a General Manager that keeps getting caught with his pants down. And it’s infuriating.
Plus, this was a bad loss. Some venting surely is permitted.
OK, so we disabled Kelvin Pichardo, to fit Sadowski onto the 40 man, and Aurelia’s bereavement leave opened a spot on the ML roster. So we didn’t have to expose anyone. Now we have a decision to make regarding our fifth starter. Sadowski made a strong case it should be him, but so did Sanchez by striking out the side in the 9th.
I still have reservations about the ad hoc way the FO seems to make decisions: what Conor Gillaspie is doing on a 40 man roster escapes me entirely. But props to Sadowski–first win, first hit–and Matt Downs, for his first ML home run.
Gillaspie is on the 40 man as part of his deal when he signed.
Chris, yes, Joey is still rehabbing. Hopefully he’ll be ready soon.
Yeah, I know Gallaspie is on the 40 man because his deal required it. But who signed him to that deal? As it stands, he’s both way too good and nowhere near good enough to be on the 40 man. We can’t expose him–he was a high draft pick, we paid a big bonus, he’d immediately be taken by someone. And he’s not good enough to be someone we could bring up in case of an injury. And he’s at least two years from being someone we could use if we needed to. He’s in high A, and he’s hardly impressing anyone down in San Jose. As it is, it’s a wasted roster spot on the 40 man, and those slots are valuable; they’re useful.
I think that’s what they required to sign. Considering he was supposed to be one of the more polished bats in the draft, I guess they thought it was an ok risk to take.