According to Andrew Baggerly’s twitter feed the Giants are close to a deal with Jeff Suppan.
“Jeff Suppan’s deal w/Giants, once finalized, includes $1 million if he makes club. He has an out clause in late March if not added to roster”
I would assume that the roster in question is the 40-man roster, and that Suppan would be the insurance starter stashed in Fresno. Just by being up for that role, you know that Suppan has been bad. We are talking about Todd Wellemeyer level of bad, or worse than some random AAA scrub bad. He’s posted Mark Buerhle type strikeout rates (4.45!) with out the other attendant skills that make for Mark Buerhle type ERAs.
It’s hard to say if he’s any better than any of Yourkin-Loux-Daigle collection that Chris covered in yesterday’s post, but that uncertainty speaks for itself. Add him to the list of guys you hope don’t pitch meaningful games for the Giants this year.
**UPDATE
Some tweets from Hank Schulman make it clear that Suppan’s contract does indeed hinge up him making the 25 man, then quote his agent to the effect that Suppan is okay with relieving (I should hope so). That means he’s either going to have to be okay with spending some time in the minors or have to beat out Mota for the last spot in the bullpen. I’m pretty sure that Mota is the better pitcher, but I could see the Giants keeping Suppan around because he fits the job description better.
I agree. It would be a very good idea to have one or two Joe Martinez, Eric Hacker types that we actually could stash in Fresno. If we sign at least one of these to a minor league contract then the option of just letting Suppan go and going with Mota as the 7th member of the bullpen looks like the better option. That said, these types seem to be choosing other teams where they see more opportunity to get MLB playing time. If this continues keeping Suppan and letting Mota go may be the only option available to get some rotation depth. In the end the Giants may decide that having a better final member of the bullpen (Mota) is more important then having this rotation depth (Suppan) but only time will tell which way they choose to go.
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