Jason Giambi, Meet Rock and Hard Place

Jason Giambi has one place to go to avoid heavy criticism all year long: the top.

If he’s not on the top of his game, Oakland A’s MVP-type numbers, all he’s going to hear are steroids jabs, and if he’s actually playing first at Yankee Stadium, it’ll be chants of “Tino, Tino…”

I was never a fan of the Yankees not re-signing Tino Martinez and paying a ton to bring in Giambi, but even I have to say: let’s give him some time.

We can argue all we want about how taking steroids is cheating and that Giambi is in a large circle of previous steroid users in baseball who deserve a lot of the condemnation they get, but Giambi is obviously in the group of people who have had steroids affect more than just their baseball game.  While there’s been no research done, I think it’s pretty safe to say taking steroids has not helped Giambi stay healthy.  He’s now another year older, and recovering from some pretty serious health issues last year.  Expectations cannot be high.  Without his grand jury testimony, he’d be just another “steroids suspect”, and we’d be focusing on his healthy.  Now, people are just saying “he can’t do it without the ‘roids”, and while that may be a fair statement, it’s not too fair to look at someone who’s turning 34, coming off of injury and illness, and expect him to reproduce career years at 29-30.

I happen to think if he’s given a shot, he may be able to put together a decent season.  .290s, 30HRs.  Not worth his salary, but not bad numbers.

Dayn Perry at Fox Sports thinks Giambi will be something in between the old and new.

Posted by David M Singer on Feb 21, 2005 at 12:13 AM

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