Will the Giants Take a Bath with Sabathia?

A discussion of the Giants pursuing Sabathia broke out in the comment section for the post on Lincecum's long-term contract. A couple of good sources of info on this is El Lefty Malo and, of course, Extra Baggs. I'll try to capture most of the good points from what I've written there.

Yes! We're In the Money

This is exciting news if the Giants are serious about pursuing Sabathia. This could be a sign of what Neukom announced as his "give me a winning strategy, I'll figure out the money" strategy. I have been hoping that he dips into his rolodex of hi-tech multimillionaires who might want to become part owners of the Giants and fund additional player acquisitions.

The key is to add new investors who can help pay for additional players. That is the model that got the D-backs their World Series championship, that is the model that brings them back to competitiveness after nearly going bankrupt with their original financing plan (they basically bought their title). I want someone to buy the Giants a title.

In addition, as noted in Extra Baggs, the Giants have money from a new Comcast contract that has not been spent yet. Also, I believe that they also own a portion of the sports network that broadcasts their games, so that gives them either an asset to sell or an asset to borrow against if necessary. All these would add money into the player payroll budget.

Trading to Save Money

There is also the possibility that Sabean could help pay for some of the additional salary by trading off either Winn or Rowand (whose name has floated in rumors). I still think Rowand was a good acquisition, as long as he is healthy. There's no way a hitter goes from slugging 900+ OPS for two months then become stone cold the rest of the season without an injury involved. Plus, given his poor play overall and larger contract, the Giants would get a lot less for Rowand than we would if we traded Winn.

It's like I had noted way back in 2003, when trying to get the Giants interested in signing Vlad: do the Giants go for quality, go for the gusto, or do they go safe and mediocre. Keeping Winn and trading Rowand would be going safe and mediocre. Winn is what he is, a nice steady player; Rowand at his best can be a plus hitter and defender. Go for the ring!

No Trading of Lincecum or Cain

However, if the plan is to sign Sabathia and then trade off Lincecum or Cain to obtain a hitter, then I am not for this move. Lincecum and Cain should be our core and while I don't believe that Sabean is looking to trading either, many fans have actively talked about trading Cain. There is no way the Giants should trade Cain, think of how good the rotation would be after signing Sabathia.

Removing the #5 starters and adding Sabathia's 2007 stats results in a team ERA of 3.82 for the Giants (obviously better if you use his 2008 stats). Add on about 0.2 for unearned runs brings us to 4.0 runs per game. The team scored 4.0 runs per game in Aug/Sept and adding Furcal (as other rumors note) would push us above that. That's an above .500 team.

It could also lead the Giants to move Bumgarner and Alderson slowly up the system, and by the time they are ready to join the team, the team could have moved both Sanchez and Zito (or even Sabathia) by then, opening two spots for a rotation of Sabathia, Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner, and Alderson.

For example, Bumgarner moving up one level per year would mean reaching the majors in 2011-2, when Zito only has 2-3 years on his contract, which would be much easier to move at that point.

I think the Giants realize what they got in Lincecum and Cain PLUS realize that many fans have bonded with the two as Giants players, that they are fan favorites, and thus if they are serious about signing Sabathia, then they are going for creating a monster starting rotation and not, as some fans had speculated, to enable trading of a starting pitcher.

How Much?

That is the $$$ question. One thing that caught my attention was CC’s interest in getting more than Santana annually, who got $22.9M per. CC will only be 28 next season. Thus, a shorter contract but higher annual could work: 5 years plus option, maybe two, vesting based on IP over the previous 3 years, at say $26M would be $130M plus maybe a $8M buyout for a total of $138M, which would be larger than Santana's deal. He would still be only 32 his last season with us, with options for 33 and 34.

A fear of mine is also that signing Sabathia would make the Giants incapable of signing Matt Cain and/or Tim Lincecum to long term deals beyond arbitration. If that is the case, then I am not for signing Sabathia. The Giants long-term future right now revolves around Lincecum and Cain and I would protect that zealously.

How it Should Work

I think the only way this would work is to NOT trade any of the pitchers this off-season but do trade either Winn or Rowand. I still say Lincecum and Cain are untouchable. With a rotation of Sabathia, Lincecum, Cain, Zito, Sanchez, when they are all on the top of their game, we will be winning a lot of 3-2, 4-3 games, even with our offense, which was averaging 4.0 runs at year end. 2009 should still be a rebuilding year even with Sabathia, unless the young guys come through.

The hope then for 2009 is that we learn which young guys are keepers/contributors for 2010 and beyond. In particular, hopefully Sanchez can put together a full season of his roughly first half of 2008 when he was as dominating as Lincecum or Cain, and that would be a trading chip that would get us the middle of lineup hitter we need after the 2009 season ends. Sanchez should have three years of arbitration control, or even better maybe the Giants could even sign him now to a $9M contract to cover the next 4 seasons, to make him low cost too. Think something like the Volquez trade.

In addition, losing Molina, Roberts, Winn off the roster would open up more cash for signing another veteran hitter next off-season to go with this hitter we get for Sanchez. That would be another piece to the puzzle, plus hopefully other prospects would have come to the fore in 2009. Furthermore, Posey should be ready in the 2010-11 timeframe, as well as Villalona in the 2011-12 timeframe.

Playoff Success

With a rotation of Sabathia, Lincecum, Cain, Zito, and Sanchez (then Alderson, then Bumgarner), our rotation would be a juggernaut for the next 5-8 seasons, per my hypothesis that having a dominating rotation is the way to playoff success (my examples being Unit/Schilling for D-backs, Koufax/Drysdale for Dodgers).

Or for an olden day example applicable for the Giants, there was Christy Mathewson single-handedly winning the Giants the 1905 World Series. While those days of single pitcher taking over are over, if we can have two aces, that could duplicate it. We should have it with Lincecum and Cain.

Adding a third ace in Sabathia would push that up exponentially, I believe. And if Sanchez can pitch like an ace over a full season, the more the merrier for us in the playoffs. Lastly, if Zito has finally figured it out - and based on how his ability to strike out batters improved greatly at the end of the 2008 season, he has - then we could have a rotation full of very good to great pitchers, each and every time they take the ball.

Offense is Not the Only Way to Improve Winning

People cry about offense, but it goes both ways. If we have a rotation which can keep the opposition scoring under 4.0 runs per game (ERA without #5 in 2008 was 4.00 basically; with Sabathia's 2007, around 3.82 ERA), then our offense in 2008, even with all the experimentation, scored 4.0 runs per game and that's over .500 right there.

Our offense should be even better in 2009 because Burriss or SS FA would beat Bocock/Vizquel, our 1B couldn't get worse, OF should be same or better if Rowand hits like he can, and Sandoval could not be worse than Castillo at 3B, and should be better. Plus, imagine how well Lewis could play with a healthy bunion!

And as I noted here in my post on Affeldt, Lincecum and Cain probably lost at least 10 wins that they had left to the bullpen to save. Saving just 6 of those 10 lost wins would bring us close to .500 right there, with 78 wins. Thus, the team was very close to .500 in 2008, just by tweaking the bullpen. So, even without Sabathia, the team is already around .500 right now, with the addition of Affeldt, Romo, and Hinshaw in the bullpen, perhaps slightly above, depending on how well Sandoval and Burriss, and perhaps Frandsen (with a dark horse of Ishikawa and Schierholtz), produces for us in the lineup.

In all, given the lack of plus hitters likely to join us, getting Sabathia would still improve the team's RA greatly and people forget that the two ways to win is to either improve RS or to reduce RA. Getting CC would reduce RA significantly.

As I noted, 2009 is a transition year still, getting CC won't help us win right now, at least not the division, but by the end of the season, we should have a better idea what our other young prospects are capable of and whether they are a part of the team going forward plus others would have played well enough that we could trade them away to get a hitter who could bat in the middle for us, the Padres got Kouzmanov from the Indians, and the Rangers got Hamilton from the Reds, we should be able to get someone similar if Sanchez can pitch well. Plus money should be freed up enough to get a free agent hitter. And hopefully Sandoval or another prospect can show that they can be a long-term power source in the middle of the lineup for the future.