He wasn't given more than a handful of ABs since improving his plate discipline and was never given a chance to get comfortable by Bochy. I don't think he's going to be a star, but I think he had a decent shot of being a league average hitter with good pop and mediocre defense. Again, not a star, but league average hitters end up costing a lot and we don't have many of them in the system. You don't build around pieces like Bowker, but they're the type of cheap players that let you go out and spend $20 million/year on a star.

So, again, I'm not going to slit my wrists, but the people thinking we didn't give up something in value are wrong. Neal hasn't looked like a world beater this year, and even if he makes the team next year, you can't assume he'll be productive. Belt has looked great, but he'll probably stay at 1b. Burrell has looked like crap lately and isn't getting any younger, Schierholtz has no bat, Rowand sucks... Huff is going to cost a lot more and I'm not sure that he's going to be able to sustain his production from this year anyway. Hopefully Derosa can heal up and be productive, but that is also far from guaranteed... so, basically, you have Torres for next year, and even for him there are some concerns because of his lack of a track record and the lack of precedent for a guy blooming like this at such a late age (don't get me wrong; I love Torres and think he will continue to do well).

So, I don't know... looking at that situation, even though Bowker was likely never going to be a star, I really liked having him around as a back up plan for next year. Of course, I'm also one of the people who thinks that there isn't really necessarily any magic to the switch from AAA to the majors and that guys who hit really well in AAA will likely be serviceable in the bigs.