The Lunatic Fringe

What is the Uggla Treatment?

Ever since 2010, the Giants have been a team of castoffs, misfits, and a couple of home grown Hall of Fame potential players.  But we’ve celebrated the misfits and castoffs part.  Guys who were given up on (Aubrey Huff), waived (Cody Ross), cut (Pat Burrell) or never really found (Yusmeiro Petit).  Gregor Blanco was a key starter of two World Series teams.  Tim Hudson was over the hill, and then he finally got a World Series ring.  Jake Peavy looked like a has been, then he got to the Giants and dominated for two months.

And I haven’t even touched the story that is Ryan Vogelsong.

So, Dan Uggla was one more castoff who joined the team as a no-risk option to try and fill a role that the Giants desperately needed help at.

And he was booed.  A lot.*

• – A lot for San Francisco Giants fans.  We aren’t Philadelphia when it comes to disgruntled fans.  Hell, we’re barely Seattle when it comes to that.  But for loving San Francisco fans, we booed a lot.

For whatever reason, Uggla never really got a chance in San Francisco, at least by the fans.  Now, he didn’t do much to help things…he struck out six times in 11 at-bats, and added three errors.  But he only played four games.  Four games isn’t a slump in a season.  It’s a rough patch, but no slump.

But the fans could not stand him.  That probably helped lead to his quick removal.

And now, there’s Casey McGehee.

Casey has clearly gotten more of a shot.  Before his mini-benching, McGehee got 21 games in.  In that three week’s worth of games, he’s put together awful numbers, actually pretty close to his season-ending stint with New York that led to him going to play baseball in Japan for a year.  He’s got 9 GIDPs, which is one short than the total he had in 114 games in that 2012 season.  His five errors are more than double what he had in that 2012 season.

To not put too much of a fine point on it, he’s stunk.  Fans have begun to boo.  Not Uggla levels, but it’s begun.

The thing is, McGehee has been a humble guy.  He didn’t come with a big contract, or a long commitment (he’s a free agent after this season), or a high trade price.  He didn’t even come with high expectations as he took over the Panda’s spot in the lineup.  Few fans and even fewer analysts had positive things to say about his play.

This doesn’t feel like someone to boo.

But he’s been bad.  As other hitters have come around after some early-season blues, especially guys like Joe Panik and Buster Posey, McGehee continues to frustrate in key positions.  He has killed rallies.  The Giants’ first six-run game?  Came without him in the lineup.

The real problem is, we all knew he wasn’t a great hitter.  But what he was praised for was that he was a guy who worked counts.  And that hasn’t happened.  He’s seen just 3.54 pitches per plate appearance.  That’s the second least out of any starting position player, and the one lower than him (Joe Panik), has been hitting, so he gets some leeway.

So, what do fans do about McGehee?

Perhaps the Giants won’t give us the chance to choose.  Matt Duffy sure has looked good in McGehee’s place.  But in the meantime, Giants fans sure need to choose what kind of castoff they like, and which ones they don’t.