Posted By Jeff Fletcher on May 21, 2010 4:33 pm

Don’t get excited. I’m not about to say that I have any information that the Giants are going to be in on Roy Oswalt, who has requested a trade from the Astros. I just wanted to use this opportunity to write about what I think is a common misconception.

“My team doesn’t need Oswalt. The pitching is fine. The hitting is the problem.”

Frankly, every team needs Oswalt. As long as a team has a starter who is significantly worse than Oswalt — and they all do — that team can get significantly better by adding Oswalt. Period.

If a team can allow, say, 30 fewer runs over the rest of the year by having Oswalt in the rotation, isn’t that the same as scoring 30 more runs by adding a hitter?

Does this apply to the Giants? Not quite, and only because I think that Madison Bumgarner is going to emerge from that No. 5 starter mess within a month, and he’ll do an acceptable job, such that Oswalt wouldn’t be enough of an upgrade for what they’d have to give up, especially because of the opportunity cost. Whatever players and money they used for Oswalt would be unavailable to help them get a hitter who would have a bigger impact.

This point of this discussion is not the Giants anyway. It’s just that you shouldn’t focus narrowly on the perceived weakness is of your team. All that matters is making the team better, and sometimes you do that by improving your strength.