Giants Management Continue To Botch Brandon Belt Situation

To say the Giants handling of “top prospect” Brandon Belt has been unique would be quite the understatement. The roller coaster of a ride continued today with Andrew Baggarly’s most recent piece in which the Giants’ brass continued their somewhat flabbergasting ways, again blaming Belt for what will be an obvious demotion to Fresno.

Per Baggs:

"Giants officials chewed over every aspect of their roster Monday night. They’ll continue to digest the Brandon Belt decision.But there is skepticism about Belt’s readiness to succeed at the big league level."

As it pertains to Belt, while I’m no fan of it, I understand the business side of having Belt open in Fresno. They’re committed to Aubrey Huff and Bochy is a veteran enabler – I get it. I don’t agree with it, but I get it. It also makes little sense to have Belt on the roster and not playing nearly every day, so knowing what we know of Bochy’s love of all things 35 years plus, it’s probably best given the veteran love that Belt get daily playing time Fresno – however – the Giants simply continue to just drop the ball on how they’ve dealt with the Belt situation, the latest goof coming from the above quote.

Belt, not ready for the big leagues? Seriously? Will Belt have his struggles? No doubt – young guys do. But Belt’s one of the best offensive players on the team, struggles or not. Outside of Melky Cabrera, no Giant has had a better Spring with the stick (though honorable mentions go to Gregor Blanco and Hector Sanchez). Do Spring stats matter? Most times, no, but Belt’s done all he’s been asked of and succeeded at a high level in doing so. More than that, the Giants are a pitching and defensive oriented squad. Brett Pill and Aubrey Huff are not even close to the defender that Belt is at first which is another blunder in the Giants’ reasoning for sending Belt back to Fresno.

This isn’t an anti-Huff piece. Again, I understand what Bochy is doing. I’ve seen him do it in San Diego, we’ve all seen him do it in San Francisco. Remember when Buster Posey “wasn’t ready”? Sure, he wasn’t. Molina was just killing it…blocking Posey was the obvious and correct decision. Har. Har.

Belt’s done more than enough to be a member of the big boy club, and while I get the Giants feeling a commitment to Huff, their reasoning is as hogwash as ever. Fact of the matter is, Belt’s a better defender than Huff and more importantly, he’s the future while Huff is all but in his final year with the black and orange. This is an NFL team leaving their young, talented, future of the franchise QB on the bench for the bigger name veteran who’ll be moving on with hopes of a few more victories in the end. It may or may not work in that regard, but it’s not the way you handle your future cornerstone type players.

Just call it like it is – don’t belittle the player and beat around the bushes. You’re committed to Huff, for right or wrong – that’s not Brandon’s fault, so don’t blame him for your poor decisions.