The dust has settled and the 2012 San Francisco Giants are the world champions of baseball. This is great news for the residents of the San Francisco area, but for the rest of us it means that the long dark winter has begun. No more baseball until March 31st, 2013! What will all of us baseball fans do in the meantime? Speculate wildly about every topic imaginable of course!

In honor of the Giants championship I’d like to discuss what the Giants will do about the Brian Wilson/Sergio Romo controversy for 2013. If you remember correctly Brian Wilson has a beard and a won a World Series championship with the Giants in 2010. He used a deadly fastball slider combination en route to a 0.00 ERA in 11.2 innings of postseason relief. Hmm, that sounds almost exactly like what Sergio Romo did this postseason! Here is a helpful table to compare the two pitchers performances during their respective postseason runs as the Giants closer. I have also included a beard comparison just for good measure.

Nice!

So we know now that both pitchers had fantastic runs to help lead their team to a World Series title and are both very handsome, beard toting fellows. However, this chart does not show that Brian Wilson underwent Tommy John surgery on April 19th, 2012. The prognosis for players undergoing Tommy John is very good, but we can’t discount the fact that Wilson has missed a large chunk of time. Nobody knows for sure what he will be like when he returns. Sergio Romo struck out 10.25 batters per 9 innings in the 2012 regular season with a 2.7 FIP and 1.2 WAR. Those are all undoubtedly impressive numbers for a reliever and pale in comparison to his 2011 campaign.

It seems clear to me that Romo should enter 2013 as the Giants closer, but what should the Giants do about Wilson? It seems unlikely that he would take kindly to being demoted to setup role. That sort of demotion can’t be good for his relationship with his sponsors. We all know that Taco Bell is too protective of its brand to have a setup man as a spokesperson. Considering Wilson’s performance and Romo’s emergence I think the best course of action would be to trade Wilson. He is already making $8.5 million in 2012 and would have one more year of arbitration in 2013 before hitting the free agent market in 2014. Romo, in contrast, made only $1.6 million in 2012. Granted, he would be due for a decent raise in arbitration, but he’s not eligible for free agency until 2015. The Giants could keep Romo under contract at a reduced rate and trade Wilson to a relief hungry team for some valuable assets. A team like the Yankees would have some interest if they’re unable to resign Soriano and Rivera opts to retire. Something like the haul the Athletics received for Andrew Bailey (Josh Reddick, 20-year-old third baseman Miles Head, and 19-year-old righty Raul Alcantara) might suffice.

Fortunately for the Giants there are still some teams out there that haven’t recognized that closers grow on trees. A guy with the “established closer” title still holds some weight in some cities. The Giants need to take advantage of their opportunity now and trade Wilson while they can still get a decent return for him. The Giants have indicated that Melky Cabrera will not be welcomed back next season. They were able to replace him in the playoffs using “team unity” and Brian Sabean’s magnetic wrist bracelet (they must work!), but they likely would not have even made the playoffs without him. They have a redundant asset in Brian Wilson and should flip it now so that they can help ensure a successful title defense.

-Chris Rice