Giants News of the Day

Besides the Rule 5 Draft today where we picked up fireballing reliever Luis Perdomo, we have some other Giants news to report:

• One reason Perdomo was selected was because Merkin Valdez is going to have surgery again (see report on sfgiants.com). Wow, he's 27 now and felt tightness in his forearm (not similar to Lowry's ailment but it sounds like similar stuff) while pitching in winter league. He's going under the knife on Monday, with rehab to last 6-8 weeks (Baggarly had reported 4-6 weeks), allowing him to be on the mound and "somewhat" competitive when spring training starts. It is a "pain issue as opposed to compressed nerves," which was Lowry's problem.
• Wow, the Cards got Perdomo and cash for former phenom pitching prospect Anthony Reyes, so now the Cards end up with nothing for him. I wonder why they left him unprotected, given how good his stats were. Reyes was the Card's Matt Cain, but while Cain has gone well, Reyes could never figure it out.
• Info on Perdomo from Tidrow, as reported in the link above: "Perdomo possesses two above-average pitches -- a fastball that ranges between 93-95 mph and a slider. Perdomo's currently trying to refine his changeup while pitching for Aguilas in the Dominican Winter League...the reports are [good]"
• Giants have offered Jack Taschner a contract, which is part of the process of keeping the arbitration-eligible lefty reliever. Sabean recognizes Tasch's value: "He just needs to pitch in a spot in the pecking order where he can relax and have some success. He's been overexposed a little bit. And to have three lefties, including him, really helps. Not many teams can do that."
• The Giants are one of the teams that Randy Johnson is particularly interested in joining, according to a report by the Chron's John Shea. As Sabean noted, "He can still pitch. He's an intimidating force." The Big Unit is favoring teams that train in Arizona, where he lives, NL teams, competitive teams. Barry Meister, one of his agents, noted: "Randy's really interested... We made a check list of everything that's important, and San Francisco checks off on every box.... San Francisco has a lot of appeal." As for the A's, "We're just trying to keep our options open." Ouch! Apparently, the Rangers are interested and wooing him with Nolan Ryan, an old buddy. Unless Ryan is going to room with him, I don't see how friendship is going to lure Johnson to Texas.
• Haven't reported it yet, but the Giants have decided that they now again considering re-signing Rich Aurilia, after first saying they might later, then no, and now thinking about it again. It makes sense: at first, they wanted to take care of other things first before thinking about Aurilia, then they thought they were getting close to getting a corner infielder (probably 3B since they originally said Sandoval was at 1B) so they thought they didn't need him, then once that died, that's when they made the recent announcement (which I also didn't report) that they would be happy with starting 2009 with Ishikawa at 1B and Sandoval at 3B (which set off a firestorm among Giants fans). This way, should either falter or need a "break", or either case, need a platoon buddy (this way, for example, he could alternate between 1B and 3B when there is a lefty starter, giving Sandoval and Ishikawa, who both don't hit LHP well, some AB, but not a lot of AB, against LHP.
• Ugh, super agent Scott Boras said his client 3B Joe Crede, who has a history of back problems, including one that ended his 2008 season early, could be an option, saying he's healthy (what else is he going to say?) and even sending Crede's medical records to teh Giants. Luckily, the rumor doesn't say that the Giants are interested, just that Boras is, in Sabean-speak, kicking the tires and doing his due diligence.
• And if you live under a rock, CC Sabathia was so important that Brian Cashman flew to negotiate personally with CC in Vallejo during the important Winter Meetings, and came away with a new ace starter for a 7 year, $161M contract (that works out to $23M per year, which is greater than the $22.9M that Santana got).
• And Sabean ripped the local media a new one for making it seem like the Giants were heavily into Sabathia when there was actually very little happening. While the media was at fault for that, and I sympathize with Sabean, this is the 21st Century and Neukom set Sabean and the Giants up for that by not committing publicly to a payroll figure, which would stop Giants fans from dreaming about getting, say, a Teixeira, with the "money" the Giants would have used on Sabathia.
• Neukom will have to learn about the consequences of dealing with the media, and speak more strategically to let the fans know enough but not everything, and Sabean will have to get used to the 21st Century. For example, in this case, say the budget is around $85M again, and if you do expand the budget, as Neukom has said he would for the right player, you just say that you couldn't pass him up. People would be just happy the payroll was expanded and not ask "hey, but you went over the budget!"

Giants Lineup

I took the ZIP projections for the Giants, that's available off of Dan Szymborski's website, Baseball Think Factory, and calculated what the projected lineup and pitching staff would do based on his projections. He's actually quite complementary of the Giants and Sabean (for once).

The lineup, as Bochy had expounded, with Burriss would score 4.01 runs per game, while with Frandsen, it would score 4.10 runs per game. The pitching staff would have an ERA of 3.97 overall, though that is without Perdomo's stats in there, I assumed that Misch is the #5 starter (obviously big improvement if we do sign Johnson) and the bullpen is composed of Wilson, Howry, Affeldt, Romo, Taschner, and Matos (the best ERAs projected).

That works out to 82 wins with Burriss starting, 84 wins with Frandsen starting (don't have true RS and RA; but lineup forecast should not be including error related runs and neither does the pitching ERA since, well, it's the ERA. Based on the projections for the pitching staff, the ZIP projection was for 85 wins (using winning percentage for 162 games). In 2008, the D-gers won with only 84 wins, and that was only after making the big trade to get Manny; they were scuffling at .500 before that. In addition, they have lost much of their rotation to free agency, plus one to injury, as well as possibly losing Manny. And the rest of the division is retrenching and selling off their best players (Colorado and Padres) or letting them go for nothing in return, which should hurt them too (D-backs and Dunn). The Giants, as is, looks like a division winner based on the numbers from the ZIPS projections, which I've always considered to be very conservative (that is, too low).

FYI: substituting in Johnson for Misch, it works out to 3.90 ERA, 83 wins, 85 wins, and 87 wins.

Fangraphs have both Marcel and Bill James projections up, so I will compile those as well and see what the win totals are using those stats. But I thought this would be good, one, because the data is all in one place (almost), and two, since I consider them conservative, this would be, at least theoretically, the worse case scenario.