A : They’d really like Denny Neagle to fix him up with someone.   In all seriousness, Barry Zito’s 6 year, $125 million deal is destined to go down in history as one of the biggest free agency busts of all time, and in the wake of a rather ineffective outing Monday afternoon, the SF Chronicle’s Bruce Jenkins suggests the Giants, “will take a close look at 16-year veteran Jeff Suppan (three shutout innings against Milwaukee on Monday),Class AA left-hander Clayton Tanner and other options for the No. 5 slot”

There is concern that Zito hasn’t been properly diligent in maintaining his physical conditioning, and that Monday’s performance (five walks in 13 batters) was all too reminiscent of Oct. 2, when he walked home two runs in the first inning against San Diego and took the loss at AT&T Park

Bank on this: There’s no way Zito will be wearing a Giants uniform in 2013. At some point, the team has to cut the cord. That time might come sooner than expected.

McCovey Chronicles’ Grant considers Jenkins’ prediction (“I hope that the source that Jenkins named was either drunk or an usher,”) and ultimately concludes there are worse options than Zito in the SF rotation.

A sample of one regular season game and spring game. Well, I don’t think the Giants have a choice. If the Giants are worried about missing the playoffs by a single game, they have to replace Barry Zito with a pitcher who pitched like Barry Zito without a strikeout pitch in the Eastern League, and they should eat $60M+ to do so. Got it.

Now Suppan pitched so poorly, the team that gave up him last year actually did eat several million dollars to make him go away. It was the last year of his contract, and the Brewers told him to take the rest of his $12.5M and walk away. The last time he had a year as good as Zito’s 2010 was four seasons ago. He is not a good reason to pay another team scores of millions of dollars to absorb Zito’s contract in a trade.

Three tips:

a. Zito is an average pitcher.

b. After Zito and the rest of the pitchers already in the rotation, there aren’t any more average pitchers in the organization.

c. Please refer to a.