1B/DH Jesus Guzman, who was DFA’d late last month, has cleared waivers and will be outrighted to AAA Fresno with an invite to Spring Training. Guzman has generated a lot of interest among Giants fans because of his 2009 season with the Fresno Grizzlies when he hit: .321/.379/.507 in 452 at-bats. I’ve written a little about Guzman on this site before, but he’s essentially a .750 OPS hitter (best case scenario) in the majors with a poor glove at first by most scouting reports.

In other words, he’s probably not that much different than Huff.

He’ll get shuffled back into the mix of other options at first base: Ishikawa, Guzman, Huff, etc. I except that he’ll start the year back in AAA.

~ Dan Szymborksi of BBTF has released his 2009 ZiPS projections for the Giants — do yourself a favor and avert your eyes from the Burriss projection. ZiPS is one of my favorite projection systems so I’ll definitely be going back over them later this week. I’m thinking of doing another hitters chart like I did with Marcel, but I might wait until PECOTA and a couple of other systems make their release.

~ The Giants have signed 3B Jesus Guzman to a minor league contract. The 24-year-old Guzman, who was in the Oakland Athletics farm system, destroyed AA Midland this year, posting a .415 wOBA in 375 ABs. Guzman owns a career minor league line of: .295/.366/.463 and could prove to be an attractive option for the Giants at third depending on how the roster takes shape. I’m not sure, but I think it’s possible that despite the Giants signing Guzman to a minor league deal, a team could take a chance on him in the Rule 5 draft next month. If he starts 2009 in the Giants system, he’s probably a top option at 3B on the depth chart.

~ The Giants continue to nibble here and there on the free agent market. Latest rumor has the team exchanging contract proposals with free agent SS Edgar Renteria. The 33-year-old Renteria is coming off a weak year in Detroit. His already suspect glove took a step back last year — plus/minus of -9 for SS — but if Detroit refuses to offer him arbitration, he could be an attractive solution for SS. The boys over at RMC are wondering about the possibilities of Renteria in orange and black.

~ With the due date for adding players to the 40-man roster passing this last week, the Giants added four more players to the team’s 40-man roster. Failure to add these players to the 40-man would have made them available in the Rule 5 Draft. The team chose to add LHP Jesse English, RHP Joe Martinez, RHP Henry Sosa, and RHP Waldis Joaquin. Baggs has more information on the recent additions on his blog.