By Jim Callis
March 24, 2003

The Giants had little use for Livan Hernandez. He wasn't particularly effective last year, and his two awful World Series starts (0-2, 14.29) helped cost them the championship. In January, he was arrested and charged with felony aggravated assault and battery on the elderly after a dispute with the 65-year-old landlord of a warehouse that Hernandez rents. And most important, with Kurt Ainsworth ready to pitch in the majors and two more highly touted pitching prospects, Jesse Foppert and Jerome Williams, coming up right behind him, Hernandez was taking up space in the San Francisco rotation.

But with Hernandez earning $3.5 million and in line to vest a $6 million option for 2004 if he pitches 217 innings this year, trading him wasn't going to be easy. The Giants found a way on Monday with some financial creativity. San Francisco sent him and minor league catcher Edwards Guzman to Montreal for Jim Brower and a player to be named later. The Giants also will pay $3.2 million of Hernandez' salary this season.

Hernandez, a 28-year-old righthander, and his half-brother Orlando Hernandez are two of the most famous Cuban defectors in recent years, and they're now reunited with the Expos. Livan was considered one of the game's top pitching prospects when he signed with the Marlins in 1996 and he was a World Series hero in 1997. But he never has taken his conditioning seriously and his stuff has fallen off to the point where he's little more than an innings eater. He went 12-16, 4.38 in 2002—somehow tying for the National League lead in losses while pitching for a World Series club—with 233 hits, 71 walks and 134 strikeouts in 216 innings. His fastball mainly sat in the high 80s, and there isn't an out pitch among his secondary offerings, which include a curveball, slider and changeup. In 181 major league games, he has gone 69-69, 4.42. Hernandez is one of baseball's top hitting pitchers, with a .242 average and four homers in 409 career at-bats. He'll miss working at Pacific Bell Park, the best pitcher's park in the NL. Since it opened in 2001, Hernandez has a 4.56 ERA at Pac Bell and 5.14 elsewhere.

Brower, a 30-year-old righty, has been an effective swingman the last two seasons for the Reds and Expos, who acquired him in a trade for Bruce Chen last June. He went 7-10, 3.97 in 2001 and 3-2, 4.37 in 2002. He has average stuff, relying on sinkers, sliders and cut fastballs. In 124 big league games, he has gone 15-16, 4.60 with a 201-133 strikeout-walk ratio in 297 innings.

Guzman, 26, was a 50th-round pick out of Puerto Rico in 1995. He spent most of 2001 in San Francisco as a backup catcher, but didn't get called up at all in 2002, when he hit .297-5-55 in 112 games at Triple-A Fresno. He has a career .287 average in the minors, but it's a soft .287 because he doesn't have much in the way of on-base skills (.333 on-base percentage) or power (.387 slugging percentage). Guzman is a decent defender who threw out 30 percent of Pacific Coast League basestealers last season. In 130 big league at-bats, he has hit .215-3-7.

April 30 update: The Expos completed the trade by sending finesse lefthander Matt Blank to the Giants. An 11th-round pick out of Texas A&M in 1997, the 26-year-old Blank has gone 53-30, 3.09 during seven years in the minors. He had a 1-1, 4.26 record in five starts at Triple-A Edmonton this year, with a 22-9 strikeout-walk ratio and a .293 opponent average in 25 innings. He appeared in 18 games (four starts) with Montreal in 2000-01, going 2-3, 5.15.