just to be clear (hopefully) about what’s at stake with the Belt decision – it’s not necessarily JUST about dollars.
– if Belt starts the season on the major league roster and stays there the whole season he’d be credited with a ‘year of service time’, which would make him eligible for free agency a year sooner
– to delay his FA clock the Giants need to start him in the minors and call up him no earlier than some time in mid/late April (not sure of the exact date) … and then it becomes largely about dollars because
– to also delay his arbitration clock (i.e. not make him a super-two), the Giants would need to wait until some time in mid/late May
From here we can argue till the cows come home whether another year of control is worth 3 weeks of Belt over Burrell/Nate/Rowand, and whether say $15m of 2017 payroll is worth another 3-4 weeks of that. It’s a question that has a right answer only in retrospect. In my book, starting him in the minors is the safe play … because I bet for every Buster who gets called up just in the nick of time to turn around a magical Giants season, there are a dozen Lincecums who will end up costing their team $18m (whether Timmy deserves it or not is beside the point) more than if they had been called up a week or two later. There are shades of gray of course – while the 2007 Giants ended up in last place in the West, this year’s bunch should contend and it’s not like they left much of a margin for error last year … I get the ‘1 game could make the difference and they will wish they had him’ argument … but I wonder how many Braves fans (beat SD by a game for the wild-card) will think back to the fond memories of their gut-wrenching 2010 NLDS exit if they end up having to watch Jason Heyward trot out in a Mets uni on opening day 2016 cause they wouldn’t send him to the minors for a couple of weeks.
