Remembrances of Giants Past

Remember Darren Ford?

That’s a name many of us had forgotten. At best he’s a distant, but pleasant, memory. Half a decade ago he added some speed to a station-to-station team and in the process earned a share of the postseason pie and a World Series ring. 

And like Heather O’Roarke in the original Poltergeist, he’s baaaack. Well, sort of.

The Giants have made a habit of returning old friends to the fold. Most recently, former Giants like Ryan Vogelsong and Travis Ishikawa were invited in for a second cup of coffee, and they produced enough to make the experiment worthwhile. We’ve also seen the team give Jesse Foppert, Adam Pettyjohn and others another bite and the apple, only to come up with the worm. Agave it wasn’t.

With the 2016 season about to dawn, San Francisco seems to be doubling down on the nostalgia tour.  Both OF Ford and LHP Mike Kickham have inked minor league deals with their old clubs. It makes one wonder what the heck the Giants are up to.

It’s not really a homecoming for Ford. Nicknamed ‘The Bullet’ (or so says his Wikipedia page), he was a breath of fresh air on a team that featured the Wild Kingdom outfield of Pat Burrell, Aubrey Huff and Andres Torres (two water buffalo and a gazelle). But that was 2010.

Ford is now 30 and, despite his Mercury-esque gift, hasn’t taken and Major League at-bat since 2011. He spent a year each with the Mariners and Pirates but never escaped minor league purgatory. He’s spent the last two seasons patrolling AAA outfields for the Giants, putting up a .261/.333/.403 line while swiping 33 bags last season at Sacramento.

Kickham, who fans affectionately dubbed “Kick Me” during his sporadic appearances in 2013-14, had farm stops with the Rangers and Mariners a year ago. Quite frankly, he was the same pitcher the Giants saw the first time around. He sucked. Kickham totaled just 27 innings but walked 35 guys, not a far cry from his Giants days: a 2.14 WHIP and 3.3 walks per 9 while putting up an 0-3 record in just 14 appearances.

You gotta figure the Giants have some affinity for these two: there’s no other reason to keep them around or bring them back.

Ford can be considered an insurance policy but any at-bats he gets take away from the development of younger talent, particularly when guys like Jarrett Parker and Mac Williamson are likely to start the season in AAA.

Kickham is a bigger head-scratcher. The Giants added eight pitchers to the 40-man roster just prior to the Rule 5 Draft, ostensibly to protect their rights, then sent Cody Hall packing. Now the return of Kickham, plus the inking of career minor league righty Vin Mazzaro (eight teams in 10 seasons), puts a further squeeze on the roster.

It’s not as tough to get innings for developing pitchers so the likes of Ty Blach, Clayton Blackburn, Tyler Beede and Kyle Crick are going to see action, but you can have too many arms. Every frame thrown by some guy on the wrong side of 30 is one less for a guy from whom the Giants might get long-term benefit. One extra arm is insurance, and that might be Chris Heston’s role.

Dear God, please let that be Heston’s role. If he starts the season in San Francisco, his ‘A’ pitch isn’t the only thing that’s sinking … or not sinking. Better to stash Tim Lincecum in the swing role if he’s healthy, giving him a chance to become The Freak again before Jake Peavy is shown the door.

If the Giants have swiped Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine, they could do better. It seems they’ve already held onto guys like Ehire Adrianza a bit too long, especially with prospects like Christian Arroyo and Lucious Fox knocking at the door.

San Francisco earned a reputation of stockpiling pitchers, often at the expense of other positions. They went from Matt Williams to Buster Posey without developing a single impact position player. Pablo Sandoval was next, but both is performance and waistline fluctuated greatly before he ultimately went Bennedict Arnold. The team now has some homegrown stalwarts but Brandon Crawford, Joe Panik, Matt Duffy and potential utility man Kelby Tomlinson have one thing in common -- none got a chance until the front office was forced into using them. There were plenty of Dan Ugglas and Casey McGehees in line ahead of them. The latest signees can't be allowed to throw up similar roadblocks.

This is a cutthroat game. The 49ers, back when the front office was run by adults, always assumed it was better to lose a guy a year too soon as opposed to a year too late. Hence a Jerry Rice or Joe Montana were moved to make room for a Terrell Owens or Steve Young. The Giants have sometimes failed to learn that lesson – Vogelsong overstayed his welcome and even Kirk Rueter was on the dance floor after the music stopped.  

Here’s hoping the Giants are amassing chips for something else. An installment of Work Porker Tour is fun to watch. An episode of Hoarders is just sad.