A (self-promoting) reminder: Only does Driveline have it's own Twitter feed, but you can also follow me, devil_fingers, on Twitter as well for additional cleverness. For example, check this recent awesome tweet from me. That's the kind of exclusive brilliance you'll get pretty much every day if you follow me.

Help me, Giants fans and followers! I'm working on batting order optimization stuff for the Giants, but I'm a bit flummoxed about what the starting outfield is when everyone is healthy. I know that managers don't always put the best players out there, but I want to use the guys who are the nominal starters and optimize that group rather than argue about who "should" be starting. The outfield  I have at the moment is Fred Lewis (LF), Aaron Rowand (CF), and Randy Winn (RF). But these guys haven't played much together recently. What's gong on?  What's up with Eugenio Velez getting so many starts recently? What is Nate Schierholtz's role? Are the other guys hurt, just getting more rest? Is it okay if I assume that Lewis-Rowand-Winn is the primary starting OF down the stretch. If not, who should it be? Yes, I've looked around the internet, and just can't figure it out. I guess I'm too dumb. I'd really like it to be Lewis-Rowand-Winn given the time and effort I've spend estimating their baserunning and GDP skills ( also happen to believe this gives the Giants the best chance ot win), but if I have to make changes for Schierholtz and/or (shudder) Velez, I will. To repeat, I want to know who likely will play, not who should play.

After the jump: notes on some (somewhat) recent notes from Jayson Stark (Strasburg-free content!).

Rios the Underachiever: Sorry come back to Alex Rios after the topic's been beat into the ground on the internet the last week or so, but I when I read Stark's column, I couldn't help myself. It seems like there's a higher than usual amount of quotes about player "attitude" in quotes from (predictably) anonymous players, executives, and scouts in this Stark column. I'm not going after Stark on this one. It's his job to report this stuff. Without going through all of it (predictable "John Smoltz would be a great veteran influence on a young team!" and "Vincente Padilla is a loose cannon!" stuff), what caught my eye were the quotes on the recently-waived-and-claimed Alex Rios. Here are three quotes from ex-teammates from Stark's column followed by one from a scout:

• "He's not a winning-type player. He's a guy who just doesn't have that burning desire to win, or be great."

• "He was a guy who just didn't go after it. He'd be sleeping in his locker 10 minutes before he had to go out on the field. And not just once."

• "He wasn't the same player after he got that [seven-year] contract. It sure seemed like he was a lot more motivated when he was looking for a contract than he was since he got the contract."

Meanwhile, scouts we surveyed seemed dubious, too.

"This guy should be a perennial 30-30 [HR-SB] guy," said one. "But to me, he's a classic underachiever. If Ozzie takes the wrong approach, he's going to lose him. He's a guy you've got to go real slow with. But whether Ozzie has that kind of patience, boy, I don't know."

As tired as the "the guy just doesn't care" stuff is, the saber-backlash against it is also a bit played out. I don't want to totally dismiss the personal accounts of people in the game. Still, I'm curious. Who are the ex-teammates? Are they still with the Blue Jays? Maybe it's guys who played with him on Toronto but aren't there any more (Scott Rolen, Internet Sensation Gregg Zaun (a d_f favorite for a long time)? Former Locker Room Leader and Dry Erase Board Poet Shea Hillenbrand? When I hear phrases like "winning-type player" the first thing I think of is Willie Bloomquist's signing with the Royals... but that's another dead horse. Maybe Rios is sleeping in his locker because of "flu-like symptoms" (ahem). But the best one is the ex-teammates who said Rios wasn't the same after the new contract. The contract was signed in April 2008 (the beginning of the season). Here are Rios' seasonal WAR values from 2006 through 2008: 3.3. in 2006, 4.6 in 2007, and 5.5 in 2008. So after he "wasn't the same guy," he was among the best outfielders in baseball.

I remember hearing a lot of the same things about Robinson Cano who, after a 5 win 2007, got an extension before the 2008 season, then had a down season. Everyone said it was because they gave him the extension too early and that he backed off. Well, what do you know, still living off the guaranteed money, Cano has bounced back big time this season.

Maybe these guys got complacent or maybe they didn't. It will be interesting to watch. To me, it seems like Rios is just having a down year, and that the best bet is that he's around a 3.5 WAR player going forward (with the "normal " 0.5 WAR a year decline). I guess we'll see. Maybe he'll return to 2008 form, and we'll get a string of "change of scenery" or "Ozzie's a motivational genius!" stories. You know, because it couldn't just be that he was that good all along and 2009 was a deviation...

Thome (and friend): To end on a more positive note Stark notes that despite his age, Jim Thome still looks to be one of the better free agent DH options out there in free agency. And, hey, when I was doing some early projections for 2009-10 free agency, guess what? Thome was tied for the best 1B/DH out there at about 2.4 WAR.

Who was Thome tied with? You guessed it, your hero and mine

Russ F---ing Branyan