Giants Sign Freddy Sanchez: 2 years, $12M

Announced late Friday, the Giants signed Freddy Sanchez to a reported (Chron's Schulman then Merc, based on what sfgiants.com's Haft wrote), 2 years, $12M contract. Reports from sfgiants.com, Chronicle, and Merc. As a side note, Noah Lowry (unsurprisingly), Justin Miller, and Kelvin Pichardo have been released, freeing 3 spots on the 40 man roster. Baggarly also noted that the following players are eligible for arbitration: Tim Lincecum, Brian Wilson, Jonathan Sanchez, Brandon Medders and Ryan Garko. Plus, the Giants are having conversations with all their free agents, but only about what the Giants are thinking, not that the Giants necessarily want them back.

Sanchez could have had an $8.1M contract for 2010 if he really wanted to, so in essence he is being paid $3.9M for 2011. Given that Hudson, a comparable 2B, last season only got $3M plus incentives (which eventually got him a total about $8M, if I recall right), Sanchez was trading off the risks that 1) he could be in Type A free agent hell for two years, not knowing who he would be playing for, and getting stuck with which ever team happens to be looking for a cheap 2B, and accepting whatever contract they offer, particularly considering his injury problems this season, and 2) he could be injured again, you never know considering he's entered his 30's, look at what happened to Ray Durham, healthy all his 20's then every, s-i-n-g-l-e season he's injured.

For that, he knows he's playing for a good rising team that was in the playoff hunt in 2009 and possibly the next two years plus don't have to worry about where he's going to be for the next two years nor what contract he might end up with. And there's the injury thing.

Also, for what it's worth, he felt bad that he was not able to contribute to the pennant run, as was intended by the trade, and that the Giants traded a "pretty high prospect" for him.

Giants Thoughts

Not surprised about a deal, I expected a deal to happen. But 2 years at $12M was an unexpected and nice surprise. I thought that perhaps the 3 year $20M offer that Sanchez gave Pittsburgh might be resurrected, but this is even better. Perhaps he wanted security for now but wanted to test free agency with a healthy body next time. Taking one year at lower pay when there is an $8.1M option doesn't make sense, but a 2 year at these terms does.

That's why all the hand-wringing a lot of Giants fans (i.e. the section of Sabean Naysayers out there) did, worrying about what might happen, was all for naught. They just automatically think that Sabean is going to screw it up in some way, but as I noted, it made sense for both sides to work out a deal for a reasonable amount of money. So we did end up with somebody good for Alderson, and given how poorly he was doing in AA for the Pirates, it looks like we sold high, and all the angst over Franchez was much ado over nothing.

Not surprised that Lowry was released (technically, his option was turned down and then he was outrighted, so as to avoid arbitration, and now he has the right to turn down the assignment and become a free agent, which will happen). His agent accused the Giants staff of incompetance, which is pretty silly because Lowry had problems that had never been seen in baseball before, they had to go to another sport to find such an instance. The Giants said that they are still open, but there is no way they can come back to the Giants and not look bad for the lawsuit that appears to be percolating on Lowry's end. Good luck with your career Noah, thanks for all the good pitching.

I was a little surprised by Miller being outrighted until I found out that he's up for arbitration. With so many players up for arbitration, they probably thought that they could outright him and then try to keep him as an option for next year, since he was signed to a minor contract last year and had his arm surgery. Medders, however, would have been a hot item on the free agent market. I think Miller will stick around and the Giants are talking with him.

Kelvin Pichardo's release possibly ends the Michael Tucker saga in SF. Pichardo was who we got in the trade for Tucker and for a number of years, it looked like he might make the team as a reliever, but despite good numbers in the minors, he never got the call up to the majors, even when basically every pitcher on the 40 man got called up and got at least a cup of coffee in the majors, in 2008. He's probably gone, probably will sign up with someone else since it doesn't look like it's going to happen here.

I am good with the deal for Sanchez. Forget his great season, that's ain't happening again. Still, if you average what he did in his other four seasons, that's a .326 OBP and .407 SLG for a .733 OPS. Plug that into the lineup calculator, compare batting 2nd (which is where the Giants envision him hitting, though apparently 3rd is an option too; .250/.299/.332/.632) with what we got from batting 2nd last season (guys hitting 2nd in lineup didn't do much better than the 2B too; .236/.281/.329/.611), and we add roughly 0.15 to 0.2 runs to the lineup, just with that one move. That would move us from 4.06 runs per game to at least 4.2 runs per game, maybe 4.25 runs scored per game, which, if our pitching holds up, would add two wins to our team.

We should also have improvements at 1B (Ishi-Garko platoon) and SS (Renteria healthy and back to normal offense), plus possibly 3B (Sandoval produce over full season) and RF (someone got to do better than what Winn provided, either Schierholtz or Bowker), leaving LF for a possible free agent or trade acquisition for an upgrade.

Plus, over the last two months of the 2009 season, after the acquisitions for the offense, the team averaged 4.24 runs per game. Obviously, a big chunk of that was from Uribe (who according to the press conference is looking to go free agent, not surprising), but what I wanted to show is that improvements we already have now at 2B, 1B, and SS (relative to 2009), should be at least equivalent to that uptick in offense, meaning that is not a pipe dream that the offense could be improved over last year's 4.06 runs scored without any new additions.

Still, hopefully the Giants can take a calculated risk in the free agent market and improve the team to get us to the 90+ win range. And not just by adding a power hitter but also by adding a #5 starter who can do better than what we got from our #5 starters, Randy Johnson, Ryan Sadowski, and Joe Martinez (obviously, Brad Penny did pretty well). Plus, if Sanchez can continue to improve, that would also help too. Same with Zito.

As I've been noting, I'm happy with how the Giants are set up for 2010. We have clear areas of possible improvements in both our offense and pitching that look like we have a pretty good chance of improving on the number of wins we get in 2010 over 2009. Still, enough could go wrong that we could take a step back in 2010 too.

As much as I would like to see Posey starting, I think the Giants are going to follow the Orioles/Weiters route and acquire a catcher to be the starter holding the seat warm for Posey in 2010. Given that Weiters is considered a better hitter than Posey and yet did not do that well in the majors until his last month, it might behoove the Giants to keep Posey in AAA for most of 2010, and just get him ready for the starting job in 2011. Research by Baseball Foreaster showed that it is usually better to keep the prospects in AAA for a whole year in order to have a better feel for the prospect's true abilities and have a better chance that he succeeds when he does make the majors, than to assume his good hitting over a partial season will hold up on the majors.

According to the news from the press conference announcing Sanchez's deal, Sabean "sees a late-developing free-agent market, particularly for the Giants, because he feels no desperation to sign players." That does not preclude the Giants from pursuing one of the bigger names (Holliday and Bay) as they are usually late developing too, particularly Boras clients. But it probably does mean that it will be a relatively slow off-season for Giants news, as the Giants will not be actively pursuing many (if any) free agents for a quick signing. That probably means no quick signing of a reliever, like we did last year with Affeldt and Howry, or a LF, at least initially. And that could have been predicted once the season ended, not a lot of spots open on the team, as much as people want wholesale changes on offense.

Late (meaning Jan/Feb 2010) signings for LF, RF, 1B, and 3B (and I suppose C) are possible as the Giants take a chance on somebody and giving them a chance to win a starting spot or a vet is unsigned and looking for a spot. That's also when teams have released arbitration eligible players in December and they could be available in that time frame and desperate for a shot somewhere, anywhere. I would also throw out Dallas McPherson's name out there, if he's healthy and hitting in spring, he could push Sandoval to 1B and get a semi-starting job at 3B.

Sabean also noted that he's working on stabilizing the top of the order (1-4), and the only way we can stabilize leadoff is via signing a free agent leadoff hitter. The premier free agent there would be Chone Figgins, who could play 3B or LF for us full-time, or move around as needed, though he would probably prefer to be in one spot, and as a free agent, that could become something that he is looking for in a team. If they got him, the Giants would be set at three of those spots: Figgins, Sanchez, and, of course, Sandoval, and might leave batting 3rd open for Schierholtz or Bowker to try to win.

Also, since they are looking at Franchez batting 3rd, I have to assume that could mean Renteria 2nd, Franchez 3rd, and Sandoval 4th. The news keep on focusing on getting a cleanup hitter, but Sandoval is that already, in my opinion, so they could go this route during the season. And that would work if Renteria was back to his normal self (heck, if he's back to his normal self, he would probably be better off hitting 3rd).