I spend a lot of my time talking about the decisions that get made in front offices and the signals they send to the fans. Henry Schulman touches on the PR issues surrounding tough decision making with your most expensive player when he writes about Barry Zito and a conversation that must be happening in the Giants front office.

“Do the Giants continue to let Barry Zito get his brains beaten every time he takes the mound, or do they take what certainly will be an embarrassing public-relations hit and remove their $126 million pitcher from the rotation and try to get him right?”

That’s the question. The message they would be sending to fans is a good one, that winning, or at least giving your team a chance to win in more important than a contract.  The message they send to Zito though could be mind-shattering, though.  Schulman points out that Zito is always miserable in April, and that there is also a clear issues with defense with the Giants, nonetheless, he is not the Zito that the Giants thought they were getting.  Zito also did have one start where he went 6 innings and only gave up one run, but that was still enough to lose.  If the Giants are willing to move him to the bullpen I will be shocked, more then likely he skips a start and they bring some pitching guru in to work with him and pitching coach Dave Righetti to figure out what the problem is.