Molina is their cleanup hitter. He’s horribly miscast in the role, but he’s the best they’ve got. At best it would probably be a lateral move that would eat up service time when the team isn’t going to contend.

but I’m basing that off of Sabean’s “clock is winding down” comment, when he was talking about Bengie.

With Tim Alderson, the plan was to promote him to AA Connecticut as soon as the weather warmed. Tim had the lowest ERA in the California League last season, so there was no need for him to repeat. Madison Bumgarner has been lights out in his three starts for San Jose, allowing only one earned run, so it would seem he would either join Alderson in moving on up to the East side or soon follow.

The Giants promoted Steve Decker as manager of Class A San Jose to AA Connecticut. Last year the Giants kept Pablo Sandoval in San Jose well after it was obvious Pablo had solved Cal League pitching, so that he could continue to develop his defense behind the plate with Decker. One would think the plan would be to promote Posey to AA soon.

Buster should be ready to replace Bengie Molina behind the plate in 2010. As has been noted here already, Bengie will become a free agent at the end of the season. He has stated that he would like to remain with the Giants, but unfortunately they wouldn’t seem to need him after this season, particularly with their youth movement firmly in place.

It is conceivable the Giants would trade Bengie at the trade deadline if they could get value for him. They could give added experience to Posey and/or Pablo Sanoval behind the dish. But more likely may be that the Giants will hold on to Bengie and hope to get compensation if he leaves as a free agent. As possible protection for Posey, they could offer Bengie arbitration, knowing he would likely prefer a contract beyond one year and that the Giants would likely prefer to have one or both of their young catchers behind the plate.

If Buster plays as well as I think he will, I have to believe the Giants will wind up trading Sandoval. Left-handed hitting catchers are a scarce luxury, and Pablo is even a switch hitter (as well as a switch-thrower, since he first threw left-handed before switching to his right hand so he could play more positions). Even though he can play both corners and is actually a pretty decent first baseman (who could switch to playing left-handed if he injured his right arm :), it would seem that Pablo’s greatest value would be behind the plate.

Amazingly for a guy who is throwing with his “off” hand, Pablo finished fourth and third the past two seasons among all minor league catchers in percentage of attempting base stealers thrown out.

An intriguing story about Pablo which was told on the Giants telecast the other night involved the play in which while playing his original (and present) position of third base, Pablo had his glove knocked off by a sharply hit ball that bounded away from him. He raced after the ball, picked it up barehanded with his left hand, and threw the batter/runner out at first base.

Back to Posey, Buster has hit quite well for San Jose. He shows fine plate judgment and discipline and goes well with the pitch, having decent power even to his off field. But one small note of caution. (See, I DO point out the negatives as well as the positives, although I haven’t yet mentioned that Pablo swings at as many balls out of the strike zone as he takes, and can’t hit left-handed pitching.) After striking out only twice in his first 26 at bats this season, Buster has fanned in 9 of his last 28 trips.