San Francisco Giants will not face Cody Ross or Yasmany Tomas

With the San Francisco Giants getting ready for the 2015 Opener against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field on Monday, big things are going on in the desert. The other day, when I wrote the “Know Your Enemy” piece on the Snakes, the status of Yasmany Tomas was still up in the air. He has since been reassigned to the minor leagues, which is only part of the news.

The other part is that Cody Ross has been released, with a contract still in place which will pay him nine-point-five million dollars for this upcoming season, including a one-year buyout for 2016. Ross featured prominently in San Francisco’s inaugural World Series Championship in 2010, but was not re-signed after the 2011 campaign.

Cody Ross will not cost a team much this season.

Any team which signs him for this season, would be responsible only for the league minimum.

Yasmany Tomas is the Cuban exile who played from 2008-2013 for the Industriales of the Cuban National Series League, and defected to be able to play for Major league Baseball. He was used as a corner outfielder before he came to the United States, but the D-backs envisioned him as a third baseman, as did certain followers of the Giants, who were justifiably worried that Pablo Sandoval was trying to escape.

Feb 24, 2015; Ft. Myers, FL, USA; Boston Red Sox third baseman Pablo Sandoval (48) leaves the batting cage at JetBlue Park. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

Back in October, I wrote a piece saying, “Thanks, but no thanks…” to the prospect of paying out a huge sum of money (six years, $68.5 million) for an unknown commodity. Sure it’s all grand if things work out but there is a great deal of risk involved-unnecessary in a business already fraught with uncertainty.

As it turned out, Tomas was not able to master third base in the weeks allotted to him this spring, and he was sent down to either allow him to continue to learn, or at least to take the pressure off of him to perform on the MLB level. It remains a risky bit of business that the Giants did not need to engage in.

There are those who will laud Tony La Russa’s actions, saying that desperate times required desperate measures, but it has yet to be determined if Tomas can even fill the bill. In any case, he was not the fit that San Francisco was looking for.

I’m not sure I can say the same about Cody Ross.