Giants Bring Back Whiteside

It's not the sexiest of moves by any stretch of the imagination, but the Giants made a play over the weekend, bringing backup catcher Eli Whiteside back to the roster on a one-year deal.

Whiteside was non-tendered last week when the Giants extended a deal to Mike Fontenot and it seemed like the team would move forward with Chris Stewart and Hector Sanchez as backups to a (pretty please be) healthy Buster Posey.

Instead, Whiteside will battle to backup Buster.

"It's a battle between him and Stewart for the backup role," Giants VP of Baseball Operations Bobby Evans said, per Chris Haft of MLB.com.

What actually happened, per Evans, is that the team did extend Whiteside an offer before he actually became a free agent.

Whiteside was the primary backup for Posey last season, but after batting .197 with four homers, 17 RBI and 59 strikeouts in 82 games, he didn't end up that way, as Stewart passed him on the depth chart.

So there's three schools of thought here.

One, Whiteside has pictures of someone in the Giants front office. Two, the front office is concerned with Posey's health and realized that the idea of having Pablo Sandoval behind the plate is just too zany; Whiteside and Stewart could combine to give him plenty of relief.

Or three: Whiteside's a veteran and a leader and the team really likes his presence in the locker room.

That makes the most sense, I suppose, although it's probably not doing much to assuage the nerves of Giants fans who expected to see big splashes on the offensive end of free agency this year.

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