Hot Stove Update: Giants Claim Poor Man's Billy Hamilton

While the Astros and Dodgers continue their nationally televised home run derby, the Giants kept pace by adding yet another guy with some speed and no power to their 40 man roster.  Micah Johnson whose name has appeared on fantasy baseball sleeper lists with some regularity over the past several seasons was DFA'd by the Cincinnati Reds and the Giants grabbed him to placed him on their 40 man roster while dropping 3'rd string catcher, Tim Federowicz.

Johnson, who came up through the White Sox farm system, has produced an intriguing combination of on-base skills and SB's in the minors(he one time stole 61 bases) but has failed to break through at the MLB level despite several small sample tries and in recent years, the SB's have fallen off to single digits.

Fedex was an obvious candidate to be dropped because he was in line to earn a projected $1.3 M in arbitration and no way were the Giants paying him that.  It's a little less clear what value Johnson brings to the roster and BTW, if you can figure out what Engelb Vielma is doing on the 40 man roster, you are a better analyst than I.

So, the Giants answer so far to MLB's dinger surge is to add weak bats with declining speed.