I really have a fan-boy crush on Yunel Escobar.  After watching him play he really seems like the second coming of Hanley Ramirez.  His defense looked great the last series down in Atlanta and he was absolutely crushing the ball.  His line this year is .307  .370  .477  with 11HR which is not quite Ramirez territory but It's only his second full season in the bigs.  He is still young, cheap, under control, and just entering into his prime.  Normally you would never hear trade rumors about a guy like this but it seems like there has been a ton of talk about him being traded the last couple of years, and apparantly has spent a bunch of time in Cox's doghouse.

If we traded for Escobar we could move Renteria to second base where his range and arm wouldn't be such a liability.  He also would be a lot cheaper than Sanchez next year so we could upgrade our outfield and/or pick up a 5th starter with that money saved.  An infield of Pablo, Escobar, Renteria, and Garko/Ishi would be awesome for the next couple of years and we wouldn't have to live with another year of Renteria at short-stop.

I have two questions for those who follow trade-rumors more than I do.  First off, what were some of the names being floated around for him, and what would we have to give up to get him.  I think this is the type of player that would be worth trading one of our bigger chips to acquire.

Thoughts?

So, after watching this team the last couple of series it is obvious something has to be done to spark the offense.  I am so sick of hearing about productive outs and watching countless runners being left on base.  What ever happened to expecting to see a run scoring single and being able to live with a "productive out"?  The last two games have been especially painful because our 4-5 pitchers have pitched great only to get a couple hard-luck losses. Well, everyone’s solution is to hand Aurilia his walking papers and I kind of understand why the Giants front office would have such a hard time doing this.   But if you watch Richie bat, and look at his stats, it should be very apparent to everyone he is TOAST!  The problem is he is also a long time fan favorite (one of my favorite Giants of all time), and you just don't kick those type of players to the curb the second month of the season.  I'm sure Bochy also believes that he is still in a pennant race and he needs all the veteran savvy, gamerness, fake bunting, and all the intangibles that Aurilia brings.

I would love to see Guzman get an extended chance to at least platoon with Ishi to see exactly what we have before the trade deadline.  And it seems to me there is a solution that could make both sides happy.  Couldn't they just put Richie on the DL, send him down to Scottsdale, and give him a little break to work on his hitting.  If Guzman falls flat on his face we could always bring Aurilia back up, or if one of the two youngsters grabs the job and runs with it then Richie can come up when we expand the rosters in the fall and have a couple games in front of the home crowd and retire a Giant.  We could even promise him a front office/coaching position if he does this.

I guess my question is, is there some rule that would keep the Giants and Aurilia from doing this?  He would still get paid, right?  And, why don't you see the DL being used more like this in baseball?  It seems to work ok in the NBA and NFL.  It just seems like an easy way to see what some other players have to offer without cutting ties permanently with players who are struggling like Aurilia