Let’s start with Buster Posey, who I wrote about today for FanHouse. Some of my Twitter followers have been relentlessly harassing me about  something I tweeted the day Bengie Molina was traded.

Reality check: Buster Posey is in a 7-for-48 (.146) slump, and that was without thinking about catching every day. Just sayin. #sfgiants

It seems people have translated that into “Buster Posey stinks and he’s not going to hit.” Really, my only point in that tweet was that people should be careful in just assuming that Posey would immediately be better than Bengie. Posey was in a slump. That’s a fact. And he was just about to take on a huge defensive responsibility that very well might have affected his offense. I think there’s nothing at all illogical about my suggestion. I keep going back to Matt Wieters, who dominated offensively in the minors, but since he’s been in the majors, he’s been a nondescript hitter. Baseball people still believe Wieters is going to be a very good player, but they accept that it takes time to develop as a major league hitter, especially while catching every day.

Of course, Posey has had no trouble at all. In fact, he’s been not only better than anyone could have expected for a rookie catcher, he’s had one of the best offensive months of any Giants’ hitter in decades.

I still maintain that what he’s doing is exceptional, and you are nuts to say “told ya so,” as if this was at all expected. It’s like a guy playing blackjack who hits on 18 and gets a 3 and then says: “See, I knew it was the right play.” (Actually, the decision to go with Posey is more like hitting on 13 with the dealer showing an 8. You know it’s the right move, but you have to be prepared for the fact that it won’t work a large percentage of the time.)

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Reports came from three independent sources last night that the Giants were among the teams interested in the Royals’ Scott Podsednik (this and this and this). Although I couldn’t get confirmation from the Giants source I tried, I absolutely believe the reports. Those are three very reputable reporters.

Besides, Podsednik seems to the perfect fit for the Giants, considering what we know.

The Giants were close to acquiring David DeJesus from KC before he hurt his wrist, if Henry Schulman is to be believed (and I believe he is), so that tells you the Royals had already identified a couple Giants prospects who Brian Sabean was willing to move. That’s a big part of the battle.

Podsednik is a poor man’s version of DeJesus. He’s a left-handed hitting outfielder who hits for a good average and gets on base, but doesn’t have much power. Podsednik has a .308 average and .352 OBP today, and he was .304/.353 last year, so he’s no fluke.

He’d also come relatively cheaply, because he’s not a premium difference maker. He’s one of those “incremental improvements” you hear GMs talk about when they can’t get a star player. I’m guessing the Giants could get him for a Grade B and a Grade C prospect. No one the Giants will miss. The problem is that the Padres and Dodgers probably also want Podsednik, so there is some bidding going on.

If the Giants got Podsednik, he could play left field and bat leadoff every day (maybe getting an occasional day off against a lefty). Pat Burrell would go to the bench. If Travis Ishikawa slumps, then Huff could go to first, Burrell to left and Podsednik and Torres to center/right. (Not sure which alignment would be better defensively, but I don’t think you’d want Burrell in right in San Francisco.)

Podsednik is also relatively cheap. He’ll make about $600,000 the rest of this season. The down side is he can become a free agent at the end of the year. He has an option for $2 million, but he’ll be able to void that if he gets to 525 plate appearances, and he’s at 425 now.

Bottom line: This all looks perfectly reasonable from all sides, so I’m saying there’s a pretty good chance the Giants get him.

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Finally, my only A’s note of the day. Andrew Bailey has been out for a few days with back spasms, but a scout that I spoke to yesterday said he doesn’t believe that’s really what’s going on. He says he thinks Bailey has an arm problem, because back spasms wouldn’t normally sideline a guy for more than a day or two.

This guy also nailed Ben Sheets’ elbow injury, by the way. He called it just by watching him make his last start, despite Sheets’ denials that anything was wrong.

Stay tuned.

I came up with $20 million, and — get this — Beane conceded today that I was actually pretty close.

I came with that number this way. They had about $8 million in commitments for next year (although that number is now about $11 million with the Kurt Suzuki signing. After that I added on the the projected arbitration salaries of other guys who could be back — Kevin Kouzmanoff, Jack Cust, maybe Conor Jackson, etc. I threw in Mark Ellis, who has an option for $6 million. Ellis, plus the arb guys, plus the 0-3 guys (players with less than three years service time, who each make about $400K-$600K) adds up to maybe $30 million, at the most. So that’s about $40 million to bring back the current roster. This year’s payroll is about $60 million. Next year’s payroll could go up or down a little, but it’ll probably be in the same neighborhood.

Anyway, that leaves $20 million.

I listed a handful of free agent hitters (I assume the A’s won’t be spending on pitching) in the post the other day…

Adam Dunn, Paul Konerko, David Ortiz (maybe, he has an option), Derrek Lee, Carlos Pena, Alex Gonzalez, Jorge Cantu, Brandon Inge, Ty Wigginton, Carl Crawford, Magglio Ordonez and Jayson Werth.

The full list of free agents is here. There will also be some guys available who become free agents after they are non-tendered.

Of course, the A’s don’t have to simply use that money on free agents. They could make a trade and use some of that money to pay whoever they acquire.

I’ll give you the highlights here. Suzuki is very happy. The A’s are happy.

There.

Seriously, the most interesting thing out of all this to me was that Beane said he thinks Suzuki has a chance to be a guy who hits 20-plus homers a year. I know it’s not a big stretch, since he’s on pace for about 17 or 18 this year, but still. Beane also said that he thinks Suzuki is the second- or third-best catcher in the AL. Joe Mauer is obviously No. 1, and Beane said that Jorge Posada still deserves some consideration, too.

Whenever a deal like this is signed, people go a little crazy talking about how it makes for stability and shows that the team wants to keep a player around for the long-term. I always find that amusing, because the player was going to be under control anyway. All this does is set his salary so they don’t have to go to arbitration. It could be a good deal for the team if the player becomes a star (Adrian Gonzalez), or it could be a deal for the player if he gets hurt or doesn’t meet expectations (Bobby Crosby). It doesn’t really change the likelihood of the player staying around, though.

(b) A second trip to the same pitcher in the same inning will cause this pitcher’s automatic removal;

(c) The manager or coach is prohibited from making a second visit to the mound while the same batter is at bat,

snip

In a case where a manager has made his first trip to the mound and then returns the second time to the mound in the same inning with the same pitcher in the game and the same batter at bat, after being warned by the umpire that he cannot return to the mound, the manager shall be removed from the game and the pitcher required to pitch to the batter until he is retired or gets on base. After the batter is retired, or becomes a base runner, then this pitcher must be removed from the game. The manager should be notified that his pitcher will be removed from the game after he pitches to one hitter, so he can have a substitute pitcher warmed up.

The substitute pitcher will be allowed eight preparatory pitches or more if in the umpire’s judgment circumstances justify.

So what’s all that mean? If you look at the difference between parts b and c, it doesn’t say what happens if you make two visits with the same hitter up — it says you can’t. And in the explanation that follows, it clearly says what happens if you do. The manager should be tossed and the pitcher should face that hitter and then be removed from the game. So Don Mattingly should have been ejected and then Jonathan Broxton forced to leave after facing Andres Torres.

But Mattingly is also to blame here, because he blew it twice. Not only did he make that second visit, but then he was unaware of this part of the rule, or else he’d have made a bigger stink and protested the game right there. That’s the type of protest that could be upheld. You never know. It’s worth a shot.

So I’ve been mulling over a few different paths the A’s could take to fix their lineup. I think there are pretty much three ways to do it, although it’s possible they’d do a combination of the three.

• Trade away some of the pitching surplus to get a hitter or two. This is highly risky, because you can never have too much pitching, as they say. If you have young, affordable, pitching, that’s like gold. Thing is, the A’s seem to have been able to develop some young pitchers lately, but they haven’t been able to develop any hitters, so maybe they have to bite the bullet. I’m talking about trading a guy like Vin Mazzaro for the equivalent offensive player. Someone like Ike Davis.
• Go shopping over the winter. The A’s have a ridiculously cheap roster for next season, right now. They’ve got $8 million committed. Guys like Jack Cust, Kevin Kouzmanoff and Conor Jackson will each be due arbitration salaries of $4 million to $6 million. If Mark Ellis’ option is picked up, he’d make $6 million. Otherwise, everyone is cheap. So the A’s could theoretically spend $20 million or so on free agents and still have a payroll of about what this year’s is. The list of free agent bats will include Adam Dunn, Paul Konerko, David Ortiz (maybe, he has an option), Derrek Lee, Carlos Pena, Alex Gonzalez, Jorge Cantu, Brandon Inge, Ty Wigginton, Carl Crawford, Magglio Ordonez and Jayson Werth. (That’s not the whole list, just the guys who would conceivably be significant upgrades to the offense.)
• Just keep running prospects through. The A’s could trade Ben Sheets, Craig Breslow and Michael Wuertz and try to get some more prospects. They won’t get blue-chippers for any of the guys on their roster, but the more players they get, the more chance they have of uncovering someone else’s diamond in the rough. They can keep hoping that guys a few of the guys in their system — Chris Carter, Michael Taylor, Jemile Weeks, Adrian Cardenas, etc. — will get to the big leagues and really have an impact. Over the past five years the only guy the A’s have developed who would be a starter on a good team is Kurt Suzuki.

Frankly, I don’t think any of those would work all that well. The problem with the first one is that they’d be giving up pitching, which is generally not a good thing. The problem with the second is that they may not be able to convince a legit free agent to come to Oakland without overpaying, and most free agents tend to be a bad deal because you’re paying for what they’ve already done at a time when their production is due to go down. The problem with the third one is that the A’s have been doing it and it hasn’t worked.

So, my answer is I have no answers. What do you think?

That means there is less incentive for the A’s to keep him — although they may keep him anyway — and it also means that teams will be willing to give up less to get him. He has less value because he is not attached to two draft picks, as a potential Type A free agent (like Ted Lilly) would be.

Personally, I think they are going to trade him.

Billy Beane has said that he doesn’t need to trade Sheets and he doesn’t want to trade Sheets, because he’s given them good innings and he’s been a good influence on the other young pitchers. While I believe he’s done that, I don’t think they need him to do that for the last two months of a season in which the A’s aren’t contenders. The young guys aren’t going to forget whatever Sheets taught them in the past four months.

If you look at the starting pitcher market, there are basically two guys — Roy Oswalt and Dan Haren — and everyone else. And Sheets, in my opinion, is the best of the rest. Haren is going to be very difficult to pry away from the Diamondbacks because he’s got a pretty affordable contract, relative to how good he is. Oswalt is also very good, but the Astros won’t have an easy time trading him because he’s got a no-trade clause and because he’s due at least $23 million through 2011 (including a buyout of his 2012 option).

Any team that needs a starter, but doesn’t have the three top prospects to give up for Haren, and doesn’t have the top prospects or the money to get Oswalt, is going to be shopping in the Plan B bin, where there’s Sheets, Ted Lilly, Jeremy Guthrie, Jake Westbrook.

Sheets, who has a 3.64 ERA over his past 14 starts, is the best of that group. Besides, the A’s can offer something else. They can pay Sheets’ salary. The A’s have a pretty low payroll and next year’s payroll (without Sheets or Eric Chavez) looks to be even lower. If they can get a blue-chip prospect by paying Sheets salary, they should do it. Remember, the Mariners got the Rangers to part with Justin Smoak because they paid some of Cliff Lee’s salary for Texas, which has no money to spend because of the muddled ownership situation.

Also, the A’s are getting close to having six starters, assuming that Dallas Braden (who returns on Tuesday) and Brett Anderson (who could be back as soon as next week) can stay healthy. That’s even more reason to move Sheets now.

Finally, there is the question of draft pick compensation, which I have to check on. Because Sheets missed all of last season, I don’t believe he’d be a Type A free agent this winter, which means the A’s won’t get any (significant) compensation if they keep him and let him walk. Their best chance to get some long-term value out of him is to trade him in the next two weeks.

By my estimate, the Giants, Padres and White Sox are the contenders who really need a bat, and the Angels need one, but only a very specific kind. They need one who can play first base for the rest of this year, and move somewhere else next year (since Kendry Morales will be back).

All of that leads me to believe that it is very likely that the Giants will get someone, simply because there are more offensive players on the market than there are teams to bid for them. Now, all of these guys have some warts, so it’s possible that whoever they get won’t be enough to put them over the top, but I’d say their chances of getting someone that will make them at least a little better are good.

Fielder is obviously the best, and the Brewers are going to trade him because they can’t re-sign him. However, he’s too good for them to just dump him for anything this July. Fielder has 1 1/2 seasons left before he’s a free agent, which is where Mark Teixeira was when the Rangers traded him to Atlanta for Neftali Feliz, Elvis Andrus, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Matt Harrison and Beau Jones. Now, Teixeira is better than Fielder. And the Braves still managed to overpay for him, by quite a bit. But the Brewers can look at that deal and say: “This is the starting point.” They can certainly ask for three good young players, including one who is  in the majors now. Given that, and the fact that there aren’t that many teams who need Fielder now, my guess is he doesn’t get traded.

So that brings us to guys like Hart, Weeks, DeJesus, Uggla and Willingham. Hart and Weeks both had inconsistent careers, and are currently at the top of their value. That makes dealing for them risky. Still, they could work. Giants Nation hasn’t really talked about Weeks, but he could play second, Freddy Sanchez could play third and Pablo Sandoval could play first. Uggla is a very good, consistent, offensive player, but he’s not that cheap $3.5 mil the rest of this year plus an arbitration salary of $9Mish for next year, and he’s not good defensively. The good news is he can be not-good defensively at first, second or third.

David DeJesus bats left-handed, which the Giants said they want. He doesn’t hit for power, but he’s got a .331 average. He’s affordable, at about $2.2M for the rest of this year and a $6 million option for next year.

Willingham would be my choice. He’s been a late bloomer — didn’t get to the big leagues till 25, and he’s 31 now — but he’s gotten better each of the past few years. Right now he’s got a .916 OPS and 15 homers. He’ll make about $2.2 million the rest of this year, and he’s arbitration-eligible for next year, so that’ll be about $7 million.