I was wondering why we were getting radio silence from Andy Baggarly of the Merc for the past week. Now we know: he was on unpaid furlough, as he notes in today's blog post. The second biggest daily paper in the sixth largest U.S. metro area can't afford to pay its Giants beat reporter full-time. Welcome to the recession. It doesn't help that the Merc is now owned by Dean Singleton and MediaNews, a notoriously cheap company even in the best of times.
So welcome back of sorts, Baggs. He returned to publication with an interesting note about Noah Lowry. It turns out Lowry has an option left, so he could start the year in AAA if he's not quite ready or if there's no room for him on the big squad. When asked about the possibility of not enough rotation spots come Opening Day, Lowry said, "It will create movement somehow. That's what spring is about. I don't think it'll be movement by me to the bullpen."
Baggs reminds us that Lowry is due to make $4.5 M this year, so in this new economy it's unlikely a team would trade for Noah until he shows himself to be fully recovered.
Both Baggs and Henry Schulman reported that Lowry has some shoulder tightness that for now doesn't seem serious but could delay his progress: "Bochy acknowledged this lessens the chances that Lowry will be 100 percent ready by Opening Day, but Lowry believes he is only a week or two behind the other pitchers and will have plenty of time to catch up because of the longer spring training."
If I had to handicap it, I'd put the odds on Lowry starting the year in Fresno much higher than him or Sanchez being traded in spring training. Remember, Randy Johnson is very unlikely to make all his starts this year. The Giants will need a spot starter. If Johnson goes down early, the Giants would probably regret not having both Sanchez and Lowry on the depth chart.
