No one is gonna be happy about this

Somewhere in Arizona the game of chicken is about to begin. Fortunately we like McNuggets, because there's likely to be a heck of a crash.

The Brandon Belt arbitration hearing is set for today and unless one side blinks, the Giants will sit across the table from their home-grown fan favorite and try to explain why they love him; just not as much as he wants to be loved.

The arbitration process sucks, and sucks hard. It's a Dyson Cinetic Animal kind of suck. Team and player each pick a number it believes represents the player’s worth and a third party gets to pick one or the other. No Solomon-esque, split-the-puppy/monkey/baby compromises here. The result is almost always hurt feelings: the player gets an “I told you so” moment or he’s returned to a team that he thinks undervalues him.

Who designed this process, Torquemada? It’s not exactly spider monkeys in a cage flinging poo at each other but it’s certainly in the same zoo.

 

They offered what? Aw, come on!

The sides weren’t in the same area code when figures were exchanged. Belt made $3.6 million last year and wants a bump to $7.5 million. The Giants offered a raise to $5.3 million, not exactly pauper’s wages but well short of Team Belt’s ask.

  

The Giants simply abhor arbitration. They’d rather go swimming with sharks in a sirloin suit. Notorious crotch-puncher AJ Pierzynski was the last Giant to test the waters back in 2004. Pierzynski won a short-term victory but was gone in a year. Since then the gun-shy Giants have always found common ground, most notably with Tim Lincecum’s day-of-hearing deal six years ago.

Despite that back story, Belt picked a bad time to test the Giants mettle. He failed to reached the “we have to lock him down” status attained by Madison Bumgarner or Buster Posey, who would have prompted fan revolts bordering on nuclear attack if the Giants hadn’t guaranteed their services.  Belt did chalk up apersonal-best 18 home runs and 68 RBIs last year. He also suffered his third concussion in six seasons and didn’t take the field after mid-September. 

The Giants used his absences to give Posey the occasional quasi-day off by planting him at First Base in Belt's stead, a potential harbinger of things to come. 

The San Jose Mercury News reports the Giants are trying to hammer out a one-year-deal to avoid arbitration but this could be a benchmark day.  As we and others have opined, Belt may not be long for San Francisco.

He’s a potential free agent after next season, at which time we’d assume Posey will have just completed his eighth campaign behind the dish and may be ready for a full-time move to 1B. Posey’s longevity is more valuable than Belt’s, as is his marketability.

 

FYI: Belt is on the right.

The Giants got along just fine last year without the sale of panda hats, and giraffe hats aren’t vital to the team’s future success. Absent a breakout season, neither is a present-day Belt. If he’s intent on going to arbitration, there’s no way this ends well.

Belt is going to be a Giant in 2016. In all likelihood he’ll be a Giant in 2017, even if the parties end up back in this same position a year from now. But chances are someone isn’t going to be happy. If the Giants win their case, Belt feels slighted. If Belt wins a payday, the team feels it overpaid. Unless Belt get his money AND puts up numbers both offensively and in games played, one side will be convinced it got the short end of the stick.

That would seem to be in conflict with the “team chemistry” that makes the Giants special.

Stay tuned.