I still feel the same way I did before. Just based on performance and projection, even if JoGui was an angel in the clubhouse and a good example, I’d want him salary dumped ASAP so that his salary could be used for a player who was at least average, for example. Just to beat it into the ground — every metric I’ve seen has his defense almost as bad as Dunn/Burrell/Ibanez, so why not exchange that bad defense for a guy equally bad in the field who can actually hit? Failing that, perhaps use it to bribe Paul DePodesta to come in as a “Consultant.”

Mr. Barnett, what exactly is it that you would say you do here?

It’s about performance for me. However, while I agree that a guy’s personality/clubhouse issues are almost always overblown, I don’t think they should be dismissed as just “stupid stuff only fans care about.” Let me see if I can put it in a way that will make this point.

In this case, the other players see a guy who management makes the highest-salaried player on the team and even the mouthpieces for the franchise at the Star say that he has a separate set of rules. Hey, that’s not great, but it’s not the end of the world. People have to live with that at work every day.

The problem is that JoGui, I think we can all agree, hasn’t quite performed on the Bonds/Manny/Clemens “we can put up with this crap” level. Maybe I’m wrong, but bear with me. The other players see that. They probably don’t look at VORP and Dewan’s, and so on. But I’m pretty sure Zack Greinke, to take a very pertinent example, recognizes that he’s been significantly better for the team than Jose Guillen this year. I know that the org was good to him before (of course, that was the previous admin). I don’t know what Zack thinks, but I wouldn’t blame him for wondering why this dude, who’s getting more money than everyone else, who comes to camp overweight, who bitches and moans about everything, who throws his teammates under the bus, who gets special rules, who lets singles fall in front of him that Emil Brown might have at least gotten close enough to to make an error, who leads the team in GiDPs, gets all the special treatment. I carried that out to far, but I can’t help but think that isn’t going to make re-signing Zack any easier this offseason. That’s the most obvious case. And, look, I dunno, maybe other guys get that special treatment as well — but remember, we’ve all been told how the Star doesn’t print anything that the org doesn’t want to get out, and wouldn’t they want to make their signing of Guillen look good?

There have been people on this very board who talk about how the younger players need to be held to accountable for their play and to know their jobs are in danger. How are they supposed to feel that when the highest payed guy on the team, who isn’t one of the five best hitters, and barely one of the 10 best players (best on this year’s numbers) never gets benched, misses stuff others would get fined for, or whatever is going on? How do you think they feel when they watch Guillen talk trash to the fans, get to DH against lefties (with Butler on the bench) so that he can pad his stats, and so on, then hear organzation mouthpiece George Brett go on the radio and intimate that Billy Butler got sent to Omaha for maturity issues?

Maybe fans shouldn’t care how they fell as long as they are performing — that’s fine. But I think it would be understandable if it makes it more difficult and/or more expensive to resign some of the younger guys because of it. And fans should care about that.

Anyway, I’ve made a mountain out of a molehill. Again, I don’t hate Guillen, and my lack of confidence in his future performance is the reason to try to trade him. Rany’s right, though, the best hope for getting rid of him is that he comes out firing on all cylinders in the spring. I hope he does.

My point is simply that, at least in one area — giving