Barry Zito: What San Francisco Giants Fans Should Hope for with Zito

Tuesday night will mark the return of Barry Zito to the San Francisco Giants pitching rotation.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well, it could be either, but what it definitely will be is telling.

Zito has certainly had some good starts in his time in San Francisco, but his career in a Giants uniform has been nothing short of disastrous.

2007 and 2008 were awful. His 2009 season wasn't bad, but it was far from great, as his ERA was still north of 4.00.

The first half of 2010 gave us Giants fans some hope that maybe Zito was finally returning to his pre-San Francisco form.

But then the second half came around, and Zito returned to mediocrity. He was left off the playoff roster, and the Giants won their first World Series since moving to California.

We know all of that—this isn't meant to be a history lesson. No, now the goal is to look forward and try to figure out what we want from Zito. Really, it just comes down to two options.

Option one: Zito returns to the form that he had in Oakland, where he won a Cy Young Award and was 102-63 from 2000-2006.

Option two: Zito is bad—really bad.

Yeah, option two is the far less attractive option, but it's the more realistic of the two. But what would be wrong with a performance between options one and two?

Zito is the sixth-best starter on the Giants. Realistically, if you want to field the five best starters, the rotation is Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, Madison Bumgarner and Ryan Vogelsong.

The injury to Sanchez gives Zito a couple of starts to show what he has. The only positive that something in between one and two would give the Giants would be that one of their current top-five guys would become more expendable.

That guy would probably be Sanchez. But even that's not as good as some believe.

I've heard the rumors about trading Sanchez for Jose Reyes. That's not a realistic option. If it was realistic, it would have been done by now.

Sanchez just doesn't have Reyes' value, even though Reyes is a free agent at the end of the year.

No, Sanchez could bring San Francisco a decent player; that's just not a great option if the only Zito we get in his place is an average, hit-or-miss Zito.

These few starts are really important. If Zito can't return to his Oakland form, it's time to release him.

One way or the other, his contract is going to be paid by the Giants. There is no way to concoct a plan that would have the Giants not paying all of Zito's contract. Believe me, if it happens, I would be happy to be wrong.

If Zito is still bad, it's time to cut him and stop having him cost the Giants games. If he's good, then the Giants should keep him and try to acquire a bat with one of the others, probably Sanchez.

If he is in between, the Giants are stuck. An in-between version of Zito is still probably the Giants' worst starting pitcher, and Zito isn't the type who can even be moved to the bullpen.

His problem has been how he starts games, not how he finishes them. That's not a sign of an effective bullpen man.

With Buster Posey out for the year and Freddy Sanchez likely with him, the Giants are a team that will go only as far as their pitching takes them.

If that pitching rotation includes Zito, it needs to be the Zito that we saw in Oakland.