Giant Sign Pagan: 4 years, $40M

Reports from Baggarly, Pavlovic, and Shea.  As usual, won't be official until the physical is done, but that is generally a formality.

Baggarly claims CSNBA first call on reporting the year-by-year breakdown (Shea nor Pavlovic did not acknowledge this though):  four years, $5M bonus, $7M in 2013, $9M in 2014, $9M in 2015, and $10M in 2016.  Apparently his lack of prior full-season experience scared off some teams, leaving just the rumored Phillies and Giants making offers to Angel Pagan, and when the Phillies would not commit to a fifth year, he accepted the Giants offer (no word on any salary difference between the two teams, but the Sporting News stated that they gave the Giants a small discount).

Reportedly, there were a number of factors in this decision.  Part of the factors influencing the Giants decision to go to four years (it had been thought that the Giants would only go three years) was that CF Gary Brown was no longer considered on the fast track to reach the majors.  Another part was the Giants preference to keep the cohesion and chemistry that led the Giants to set history with winning six playoff elimination games to reach the World Series, then sweeping to win the Championship.  The Giants also wanted a full-time starting OF, as Blanco is viewed as a platoon type player.

Pavlovic warned that the "timing of this is a bit of a surprise, so we'll see if anything else comes down the pipe later tonight."

Next up:  signing Marco Scutaro.

ogc thoughts

He said he loved playing for the Giants and he ended up staying (perhaps for a little less), despite his wife warning on Twitter that this would be a business decision, so don't hate on them.  This is a good price for Pagan, one year more than I was hoping for, but this keeps a key contributor in Pagan around for 2013 and I think it allows the Giants to let Blanco, Kieschnick, and Peguero (and perhaps Brown despite the concern above) battle for an OF spot.

I would not be surprised if the Giants also sign a right-handed LF like Hairston or even Cody Ross, to compete and most probably end in a platoon with Blanco in LF.   Reportedly, the Giants are interested in Hairston, but so are a lot of other teams.  He only got $1.1M last season, but I can see him getting more than that and for multiple years given how well he has hit the past two seasons, particularly for power.  The Giants also might pay more just to get him away from an NL West team, as he has killed the team in the past, though it should be noted that he has not hit well in AT&T in his career.

He has also played CF OK defensively, so he could see some time there and in LF where he has played well defensively there.  He probably is the ideal guy to platoon with Blanco, as Ross would probably still want more money as well as more playing time.  But he grew up in Arizona, so he might not want to join the Giants - if the offers were basically even - given that he probably grew up a D-backs fan.

And the funny thing is that Pagan was viewed as the one harder to sign and yet he ended up signing first between him and Scutaro.  Most whispers have said that Scutaro is expected to end up with the Giants, whereas Pagan was reportedly pursued by many teams.

I have to think that Pagan and/or his agent knew that Sabean do not like waiting so long with uncertainty in their lineup, given how quickly this deal went down after Sabean on Friday stating how the two sides were still far apart.  He appeared to know that if he wanted to stay with the Giants, they would need to wrap it up by the Winter Meetings.  Given how quickly he signed after Sabean reported on Friday that while the Giants felt good about their negotiations with Pagan and Scutaro, they were not close and thus the Giants had made backup plans to move forward without either of them, I have to think that got Pagan to move faster to sign.   He didn't want his deal with the Giants suddenly disappearing, like LaRoche found in 2010 when his 3 year, $21M deal that he thought he was negotiating with the Giants was taken off the table once they signed Huff.

That is how one should negotiate:  be aware of everything that you want to get out of your negotiations and be sure to move quickly when you could lose a deal that you are satisfied with.  After all this, I think it is clear that Pagan did truly value playing on the Giants, as he stated frequently during the 2012 season, it was not B.S., like it was with, say, David Bell, who told Giants fans not to worry about opting out of his contract and then took a reportedly lesser contract to sign with the Phillies.  He did appear to leverage out one more year out of the Giants but that's free agency for you, with supply and demand driving the process.

Good Deal, Could be Great

I'm happy with the deal, it was a fair annual salary, and while I worry a little about the four year, I think that he'll be a fair deal over the life of the contract, as he averaged 3.4 WAR over the past three seasons and the going rate for free agents per WAR is roughly $4.5-5.0M, so the Giants are paying him at a 2.0 WAR production rate, if you are into such calculations (I'm still uneasy with such analysis, because of the uncertainty regarding defensive value metrics, but wanted to cover this angle for another perspective on the deal).

I feel pretty confident that he will produce somewhere around the .281/.334/.415/.749 batting line he has produced over the past three seasons.  That is a .317 BABIP, which he has easily beaten in three of the past four seasons.  He has also averaged 33 SB per season and a 81% SB success rate is very good, hopefully he can teach Brown a thing or two in spring training, and pass some tips to Blanco as well.

As much as people might complain about that batting line, that was actually great for a leadoff hitter in the NL in 2012:  the average batting line was .257/.319/.382/.700.  And the Giants, with roughly that batting line for 2012 (.263/.335/.424/.758) was second in the NL in OPS and clearly much higher in OPS.  They were also 5th in OBP (out of 16 teams, so in the top third).   And our hitters drove in the leadoff guy a lot, as the Giants led the NL with 120 runs from that position, and second was Arizona with 108, third Brewers with 104.

He's also OK for NL CF, where the average was .264/.332/.408/.741.  The Giants overall had a .277/.333/.423/.756 from CF, which was good for 6th in the NL in OPS and 8th in OBP, smack in the middle.  While I like looking at positional comparisons like this, I think the more important point is how well that hitter fits into your team's batting order.  And at leadoff, Pagan was great in 2012 and if he just continues his average from the prior three seasons (which was hurt by his poor season in 2011, which he feels was a fluke because he was out of shape) he should be great for us at leadoff as long as he hits at least that much, which is a lower threshold than what he hit in 2012 or 2010.

Defensively, he wasn't that great in CF, according to DRS he was a -6 for the season.  That was better than 2011 but much worse than 2010 when he was very positive.  His UZR was basically average for 2012, though, but still a sharp drop over his 2010 season while a huge improvement over his 2011.  If he just can be average defensively or just under, he'll be fine hitting what he has hit over the past three seasons.  If he can return to the defensive goodness he was before 2011, he would be a great bargain in production.  If he returns to how badly he defended in 2011, when he was admittedly out of shape, then his hitting would not cover his poor defense at all.

Overall, he's a good deal even for what he produced on average between 2010 and 2012.  Those three seasons were pretty good for a leadoff hitter, balanced by relatively poor defense.  If his 2010 and 2012 seasons is the range that he can produce going forward, that's a pretty good deal for the Giants.  If he can return to his great defense prior to 2011, that's a pretty good deal for the Giants.  As long as he's not extremely bad defensively for the Giants, he's a pretty good deal for the Giants, even if he ends up having to move to LF to make space for Brown in CF, where he has played GREAT defense there previously, RF too.

Pence and Posey

Speaking of RF, I should note that in previous Sabean interview last week, when he was asked if the Giants had discussed a long-term deal with Hunter Pence this off-season, he said "not necessarily."  I guess that they want to see more out of him in 2013 before committing to him long-term.  Or perhaps they are waiting to see how the budget looks after signing other players.

However, Sabean did say that the Giants have been talking about a long-term deal with Buster Posey and are "open to the idea."  Which is great news heading into their first arbitration session with Posey, who is a Super-Two eligible.  After recent big long-term deals with Wright and Longoria, that should set a precedence for Posey's signing.  Maybe something like $6M for 2013, $8M for 2014, $12M for 2015, $15M for 2016, and something in the $15-20M range for his free agent years, that's $41M to cover his arbitration years, then let's say, $16/$17/$18, for a 7 year contract for $92M.  Add an $8M buyout for an 8th season, or $20M salary, and that gives him a 7 year contract for $100M.

Last notes:  Lincecum is reportedly working with the trainers on a fitness plan for this off-season that will be the happy medium between his too much lost in the last off-season and his too much gained in the prior off-season.  Also, the Giants are open to signing Casilla to a multi-year extension.