Pat the Bat, Handed on a Plate

The Merc had big news for Giants fans last Friday: Pat Burrell, maligned and unwanted hitter of the Phillies, whom the team has been trying to unload because of his contract since the summer, was reported by his agent to be not only be willing to waive his no-trade clause to be traded to the Giants, but would be willing to play 1B for the Giants as well, which was his position when he was coming up the Phillies farm system. He currently only had the Yankees and Red Sox on the OK to trade list but both teams apparently are full up with 1B/LF/DH that they were not interested at all in Pat the Bat (here's a nice biography of him, he's played baseball in a local SF Bay Area high school).

What more do the Giants need to know? Hopefully Sabean and gang are talking with the Phillies as we speak and working out the details of the trade. The Phillies really need to free up salary to enable them to get into the Alfonzo Soriano bidding and unless they want to be "stuck" with Burrell and his salary, they need to trade him post-haste so that they can make plans. In addition, with their surplus of OF that they currently have, they have an acceptable backup plan if Burrell is traded and Soriano is not signed.

And lucky for the Phillies, the Giants have plenty of payroll space. The talk has been of dumping Benitez to the Phils for Burrell, but that only frees up $5.4M of salary for the Phillies in 2007. In lieu of giving up additional good prospects to the Phils, the Giants could also send, say, $4.6M so that it frees $10M for the Phillies in 2007, with the Phillies returning the favor in 2008 back to the Giants to even out the money paid, but shifting the payroll from 2007 to 2008. And that works for the Giants too because the free agent crop right now is pretty sparse in talent, but the next offseason could see Vernon Wells, Andruw Jones, and others up for grab, so they could use additional money to bid on players in the next offseason, instead of spending it all in 2007 on multi-year contracts and not be able to bid on these superstars.

The Giants would probably still have to give up a minor prospect, but I would rather shift funds in the deal than have to give up any good prospects for him, though if pushed I would. In discussions on McCovey Chronicles, people have mentioned Linden, Anderson, among others as possible tradeable chips. I don't feel up enough on the farm system this season to speculate, other than I would try as heck to avoid giving up any of our top prospects. Linden I think should be given a chance to start with us at some point given the power he has shown. Anderson has been a great reliever in the minors, though some posters thought that trading him now would be at his highest value, as he's not a pitcher with a lot of stuff.

So with Pat Burrell handed on a golden plate like this, hopefully the Giants won't look the gift horse in the mouth too long and pick him up. The window of opportunity is open now but it will close fast once the Phillies don't need to unload salary as much as now, before the free agents can discuss salary with prospective bidders. It's the biggest nobrainer in the history of mankind. :^)