- The biggest was Conor Gillaspie was brought up to the majors, mainly because he's a 3B and we really have no 3B other than Sandoval who is ready (apparently Rohlinger has not impressed enough in his time up here thus far). However, this does not mean that Posey will be up, as Sabean noted that we are full up there already with Molina, Sandoval and Holm. Some have noted that this starts up his clock on the 40 man roster, limiting him to getting up to the majors in the next three seasons. Frankly, if he isn't up by then for good, then he's probably not going to be that significant a contributor anyhow, he would be reaching the age (26 in his fourth year) where you become a non-prospect and given that he is considered to have advanced batting skills but is poor defensively, they should be able to figure out whether he's ready by then or not.
- Posey on the other hand, with a $6.2M bonus, is going to be given every chance to stick and make it, so there really is no use to adding him to the 40 man now and bring him up to the majors. Since he's in the neighborhood anyhow, he can come up and soak in some of the atmosphere when he has the chance. Meanwhile, his clock don't start up and he can make the majors on his own time. Yes, I understand the concept of sunk costs but that doesn't happen in baseball, if you spent the money, you try to get some value out of it.
- Nate Schierholtz hit his first major league homerun. He is like the 10th Giants rookie to do that this season, which must be some kind of record, I would imagine. I think it is a good sign that he's ready to do some damage up here, but we will have to see if he can continue it. But he's at least getting a hit each day, so I don't think Bochy will take him out of the lineup as long as he's doing that. As I've been saying for over a year now, we need to trade Winn and allow Schierholtz to take over as starting RF. I like Winn and he would be a good complementary player on a competing team but he'll probably be retired by the time we are competitive again, in probably 2-3 seasons (I think we have a chance in 2009 but it would take a lot of our young players delivering - Burriss, Sandoval, Ishikawa, Schierholtz, Lewis, Sanchez, Hinshaw, Romo, Wilson - for us to do that, which is not likely)
- Scott McClain had his second HR and he enjoyed it more, since it was in SF and helped to put us ahead. I should also note that he got his first HR ball back with no problem as the fan who caught it on the road immediately tossed it back on the field. I was deathly afraid that he would not get his, like Bowker whose first HR ball could not be bribed away from the fan even though he follows another NL team and couldn't care less about a no-name Giants rookie.
- Wow, I knew the offense could be good, but the Giants, led by their rookies, scored 10 runs in one inning in Sunday's game. Last time was like in 1997. As I said, if they produce as they appear capable of doing, then the offense should be good in 2009 but they would all have to consistently perform and right now that is a huge question mark. But dang, that felt good listening to them run around the bases and scoring at will!
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Giants News of the Weekend
Just wanted to note some accomplishments:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Here are the rules on options (from Wikipedia):
ReplyDeleteOptions
If a player is on the 40-man roster but not on the active major league roster, he is said to be on optional assignment—his organization may freely move him between the major league club and the minor league club. If a player is on the 40-man roster and not the active 25 man roster for any part of more than three seasons, he is out of options and may not be assigned to the minors without first clearing waivers. However, if a player has less than 5 years of professional experience, he may be optioned to the minors in a fourth season without being subject to waivers. If a major league player is ineligible for free agency and “has options” remaining, his team may option him to a minor league team without consequence. This is usually what is meant when players are “sent down” to the minors. Likewise, when a player on the 40-man roster is added to the active major league roster, he is “called up” to the majors.
Thus, according to this, Gillaspie should have a fourth option. Now whether, he burned an option by being added this year is another question that I haven’t seen answered. I think it would be stupid then to add a player to the 40 man in September if that costs him a full season, just for a month of active time, so I would hope that the rule is that he gets four options starting next season, meaning that he’s controlled by the Giants up to his 25 year old season (2012) where he turns 26 mid-season, thus he has to prove he is MLB worthy by 2013 or risk being released.
That seems to be more than enough time to figure out whether he’s a keeper or not, plus you could keep him on the roster for 2013 while the staff figures out whether he’s worth keeping or not (like we did with Feliz).
While this reduces flexibility with him in the future, I don’t think that it’s that onerous enough to make a big deal about it, like a lot of commenters have.
If he hasn’t made his case yet by 2013, he is a marginal prospect at best by that point, a Lance Niekro question mark, so what’s the big deal then?
And while bonuses shouldn't matter and are sunk costs, the Giants are going to be that much more careful with Posey because they invested $6.2M in him, and will want that flexibility.
Besides, I think the evaluation of Gillaspie will be mostly done by Carney Lansford, and it won't be for starting 3B in 2009, though if he does hit well enough to do that, they will certainly give him the chance, I think that they are trying to evaulate whether he needs 1-2 years or 3+ years to come up to the show.
That will determine what type of player they might sign as a free agent or trade for to play 3B, as they go shopping this off-season.