Other ways we could have spent $126 million

Barry Zito had a decent Tuesday as he went 8 strong innings and only gave up only 2 runs. However, those 2 runs came on home runs and his ERA of 4.61 isn't exactly #1 starter material. He's still 6-8. We spent $126 million on this guy, and while we realize the Giants can't hit at all, we thought we'd take a look at what we could have gotten for $126 million instead of Barry Zito. Here are some possibilities:

1. The island of Niihau, Hawaii.

2. Three F-14 fighter jets.

3. Eight Bugatti Type 41 Royale Cars. Unfortunately only 6 are in existence.

4. Almost 100 Honus Wagner baseball cards.

5. Two and a half Bombardier Global Express XRS Executive jets.

6. We could have transferred one and a half Zinedine Zidane's to the team.

7. 31,500 pairs of APO Jeans.

8. 252 Action Comics #1 comic books.

9. More than 180,000 of Cuba's best cigars.

10. More than 5,000 18 carat gold Gameboys.


I think I would have preferred to see the Giants with two F-14's and a slightly less expensive pitcher. But that's just me.

-WCK

Maybe Barry Zito was worth all that money

From the moment the Giants signed Zito to that absurd $126 million contract, most of us in the Bay Area thought the Giants had gone nuts. Here was a guy that really didn't seem to be a No. 1 starter anymore and who hadn't really regained his Cy Young form from 2002 when he went 23-5.

While definitely a valuable pitcher - his career ERA is 3.55 and he's got a very good win percentage - he just didn't seem to be worth what the Giants gave him.

Until this stat popped up.

According to a final game note in a recap from Zito's recent victory over the Phillies, Zito is an unreal 89-4 in his career when the team he pitches for scores at least 4 runs. Although we're not sure how many no decisions are in there, we know that if you get Zito 4 runs he's nearly unbeatable. Considering how many games I've seen where starting pitchers blow 4-run leads (thanks to Andy Pettitte, although he didn't get the loss Sunday night), this seems like an incredibly impressive stat.

But the problem is that while this stat obviously came from somewhere, there's hardly any quantified data that we can find on how well a pitcher performs given a certain amount of run support. Supposedly MLB has a data set of every box score in its history that can calculate something like this. This would seem like a decent stat in determining how dominant a pitcher is. We'd love to see the win-loss total for guys like Bob Gibson, Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens when they've gotten a 4-run or greater lead. I can't think any of them could have much better numbers than Zito.

We all know that people talk about how run support can have an impact on a starter's record, but we rarely look at how dominant a pitcher is when he gets a certain minimum amount of run support.

Although we can't tell if 89-4 is out of this world or not, because again we're not sure how many no decisions are in there, we'll take it. And while Zito's contract is still without question absolutely crazy (seeing as he's 6-5 currently), it seems a bit less crazy now.

-WCK

Giants Report: They were Barry, Barry good today

Barry Bonds went yard today for the 739th time today as the Giants got their 4th straight win, beating the Diamondbacks 1-0. Barry Zito also finally looked like he might be worth at least a fraction of his insane $126 million contract, throwing 7 and 1/3 innings of scoreless ball. While A-Rod is definitely hot right now, so is Bonds. So far in April, Bonds is hitting .349 with 5 home runs and 11 RBIs. Unless lightning strikes him, he's going to break Aaron's record by mid-summer. As a Giants fan, I'm super excited, because let's be honest, we're not exactly going to win the World Series this year. Bonds breaking the record and us defending him will be our highlight this year.

-WCK