That's just it. Hennessey never had the fire to be a closer. So moving him around can't possibly provoke any sort of anger. He's just steady 'ol Jimbo. He'll make a nice package with Lowry in the offseason.

I'm more disappointed in Messenger than anything. I half expected a bounce back from him.

How could the PLODAG not be Randy Winn? I mean the guy just tears up two of our divisional rivals, he is just a quality character, a true professional. If there is 1 old outfielder I wouldn't mind seeing next year, it is him.

Very classy of you Lefty to honor Hennessey for being a good soldier. Yes, he's been good (or good enough) in every situation he's been used in, but I guess the pressure of Wilson and Walker (hmmm, motto? There's a "W" at the end when the W's at the end?)

Yeah, Messenger was disappointing but he hasn't pitch in a while. He normally would be pitching in the minors to get the kinks out. I would give him a break.

I'm hoping the Giants sweep the D-backs out of first place, Go Giants!

I would love to see Winn back next year as well, on a personal basis, but really, Roberts is the one to keep of the three, we have a minor league FULL of fast guys, like Davis, Velez, Richardson, McBride, Sanders, and Roberts not only is high volume but high quality, his success rate is out there, around 90% every year. He could teach these guys so much during spring training for the next two seasons.

Winn is lucky to steal successfully half the time, which means that on an overall basis, he's subtracting from the offense by trying to steal.

Ooops, forgot to finish my thought, perhaps the pressure of Wilson and Walker doing so well got to Hennessey. It's like Satchel Paige said, don't look back, 'cause he might be gaining on you.

It really doesn't have anything to do with Wilson or Walker. It is more about the fact hat Hennessey is just not that good of a pitcher. He has average stuff and is just not closer material. Middle relief is where he belongs.

I really don't think keeping Roberts around is going to make our other base-stealers that much better. They have raw, unadulterated speed, and as long as they get on base, they can learn on the fly (no pun intended).

Randy Winn kills the dodgers. Randy Winn kills the d-backs. Randy Winn has good speed, good defense, he can play anywhere in the outfield, he is the upmost professional. If there is a guy to learn from, it is Randy Winn. Roberts should already be sharing his limited knowledge with Davis and Co. right now.

Randy Winn absolutely kills LHP: .347/.397/.517 so considering that most of our young outfielders are better vs. RHP, Randy has WAY more value to us.

If we eat Roberts' contract to bring him down to $4-$5M/year, I think we can find a team to take a chance on him.

Can't Randy play 3B??? Wouldn't that be nice...

I agree that Brennaman is terrible but he's no longer working with the D-Backs. He left this year to go do Reds games.

The new guy is Daron Sutton, who weirdly sounds a lot like Brennaman, and is pretty bad in his own right. I really don't like the D-Backs announcers. Sutton yells wildly when anything happens thats good for the D-Backs and Mark Grace is just a moron.

So, Lefty, what is your take on Henn's implosion the last 10 days?
I also think both Winn and Roberts have a lot of value. I am all in favor of going with any or all of the young OFs, but Winn really has value to us (when we're in contention) because he just rakes the Dodgers and D'backs. Roberts I think is really underrated - as are most OFs who don't have power. He is an outstanding leadoff hitter - which, as we well know is a hard commoditiy to find. Take away his injury influenced months and he is producing at near career levels.

BTW, Lefty, on McCChron's during the game a guy was posting some, like, coordinates, which showed where the pitches were - and many that were called balls were well within the strike zone. There was a lot of comments that last nihgt's home plate umpire is one of the worst balls and strikes guys in the league - so that may have effected a guy like Henn.

That wasn't Brennaman??? I watched the video highlights last night on sfgiants.com, and it sounded exactly like him. That's creepy. Tom Brennaman is probably Darin Sutton's hero.

My take on Hennessey's implosion: It's not a matter of "stuff." Trevor Hoffman, Bob Wickman, Todd Jones...there are many closers who get the job done without a 95-MPH fastball. So it has to be pitch selection and location. He gets into hitter's counts, and that's when his lack of stuff comes into play. He'll never blow a 2-0 fastball by anyone, and only rarely does he break off the really nasty slider.

Bingo, Hennessey’s upside is Tim Worrell. He has to get strike one to be successful. Worrell was maniacal about strike one. Very few hitters are going to rake the first pitch they see from a reliever, even one with weak stuff like Hennessey. And the guys that do that are typically guys that will swing at something near the corner. Long relief was really Hennessey’s best role. They should let him do that again. Every Giants starter is good for a 100-pitch, 5 inning performance every fourth or fifth time out. Long relief is an important role for the Giants.

I agree with Johnathan. Hennessey was best in that role, and considering that we will have one or two new faces in our starting rotation, we will need an official long-reliever.

Jason Ellison has raw speed and he's never done anything with it. Raw speed guys are dime a dozen who get caught too often, which nullifies the advantage of their speed on the basepaths.

We need someone who learned from the feet of a master and have him impart this knowledge into our organization. Roberts is that guy. And if it was as easy as passing that info over during one month of the season, you wouldn't really need a stolen base coach, you just roll our your teacher during spring training and his job is done, everyone has learned, you can move on.

If it was so easy, then everyone would be stealing at a 90% success rate, like Roberts has, even better since they run faster than Roberts.

Winn is a nice guy and he rakes on LHP, which is good, but he's not really good at any one thing, he's just pretty OK at most things, though I would note that he gets caught stealing too much, it's pretty sad getting success rates as poor as he has during his career particularly since he is considered fast.