MLB Trade Rumors: Jose Guillen To Giants? Don't Do It, Brian Sabean!

Buster Olney passes on a rumor that the Giants had scouts eyeing the Royals’ Jose Guillen. Sigh!

One of the definitions of an idiot is someone who cannot learn from his mistakes.  Guillen isn’t worth anything more than a single B-grade prospect, if that, but he’s exactly the type of overrated psuedo-power hitter Giants GM Brian Sabean has overrated so many times in the past.

Guillen is 34 years old and having a good season for him (.800 OPS so far this year); but even at this rate of performance, he really isn’t worth two lumps of sugar, when you consider that he’s playing his home games in one of MLB’s best hitters’ parks (although I will acknowledge he’s hitting a little better on the road this year than at home).

Guillen’s outfield defense is so good at this point in his career that he’s played all of 19 of his 93 games this season in the field. 

The Giants are already playing Aubrey Huff and Pat Burrell in the outfield way more than can be considered desirable, because the team’s hitting is so bad.

Since the Giants now have Pat Burrell, who they are paying the major league minimum and cost them nothing in terms of talent sent away, why in the world would Jose Guillen even be on their radar?  It just doesn’t make any sense in a rational universe.

If you haven’t notice, we don’t live in one.  Every time I read about the Giants’ reputed interest in Guillen, I have flashbacks (in the PTSD sense) of Shea Hillenbrand. 

This was one of Sabean’s worst moves, even though Jeremy Accardo only had one good season as a Blue Jay.

Hillenbrand wasn’t just bad: he actively hurt the Giants the last two plus months of 2006 with his sorry offensive performance as the everyday first baseman.

Hillenbrand was an awful lot like Jose Guillen: a downright mediocre player who thought he was a star and had the attitude to go with his mistaken, unjustified self-image. 

Another ex-Giant, Neifi Perez, comes to mind when thinking of this kind of player, but at least the Neifster could pick it on defense.

These kinds of guys are a pain in the ass from the get go, and if you are stupid enough to bring one of them on board, you deserve what you get.

I would feel a lot better about it all if Brian Sabean hadn’t traded away talent for turkeys like these so many times in the past.