Your 2013 Giants: Torres Returns Home for $2M, One Year

Reports on Torres returning:  Schulman was first, Pavlovic, Haft.  One year contract for $2M.  Snippet from Schulman:

Instead, manager Bruce Bochy said Thursday, Blanco and the switch-hitting Torres will compete for playing time in left field. Bochy said it will not necessarily be a left-right platoon, even though Torres hit much better against left-handers for the Mets in 2012.

The Giants looked into more seasoned right-handed-hitting outfielders such as Cody Ross, Reed Johnson and Scott Hairston, but they either were not willing to take a part-timer's salary or not what the Giants wanted defensively.

Torres, who turns 35 next month, is attractive because he can play all three outfield positions, including center if Pagan needs a day off or gets hurt.

Giants executive Bobby Evans said the team is not necessarily done shopping, as Sabean wants to keep looking for ways to improve the club and add depth. That includes the bullpen, which could gain former A's and Cubs right-hander Chad Gaudin, whom the Giants signed to a minor-league contract with a spring-training invitation. Gaudin turns 30 in March. He can start or relieve and could fill the Guillermo Mota swingman role.

Another interesting datapoint is that the Giants payroll is projected to reach $145M for the 2013 season, about $15M more than last season, as the team pushed to keep the team mostly together. 

Plus a good quote from Baer about the Giants strategy:

"Our strategy is just different, developing guys and bringing them through the system and sprinkling in free agents and trades when it makes sense," Giants President Larry Baer said Thursday. "We've done free agents before, but we're trying to do more of a homegrown thing."

Baer, when asked about another major acquisition this winter, said, "Anything is possible," but made it clear the Giants would not do so in reaction to the Dodgers.

"You can't let what any other team does alter your strategy. That would be a mistake," Baer said. "If we're going to look at the Dodgers spending all this money and say we're going to be free-agent-centric, we don't think that would be smart."

Andres was his usual bubbly self:

"I cannot stop laughing," Torres said, articulating his joy. "It's such a great feeling."

"I just want to be there," he said. "[Manager Bruce] Bochy knows that I'm going to be ready to play. They know what I'm about."


Torres, who became a free agent when the Mets declined to tender him a contract on Nov. 30, drew interest from a handful of teams.

"No disrespect to them, but I told my agents that I wanted to play for the Giants," said Torres, whose deal is worth a reported $2 million. "My heart was there. The Giants were the team that gave me an opportunity."

Pavlovic has a nice quote from Evans and thoughts on Belt:

President of baseball operations Bobby Evans said at the winter meetings that the Giants were hopeful to give some younger players a long look, so this could also open the door for the likes of Francisco Peguero or Roger Kieschnick to contribute at some point. We’re talking about a player that’s going to hit seventh or eighth in the lineup, so the Giants can afford to mix and match a little. I do also suspect that — despite what they’re saying now — the Giants will give Brandon Belt some time in left field next spring. If he turns into a consistent hitter, they’ll need to find a way to keep him in there on days when Buster Posey needs to play first base.

ogc thoughts
Welcome back, Mr. Torres!  At $2M and one year, he could make a good platoon with Blanco, as he hit well vs. LHP in 2012, though currently that is not the scenario the Giants are looking at.  Instead, as they have in seasons past, they have made an effort to leave at least one spot open for some of the young prospects to compete for playing time.  With much of the lineup looking set, LF look to be that position in 2013, though apparently the Giants have not shut the door quite yet on finding a Huff-like deal, like the one we got him on in January 2010 (my speculation on this, given how high payroll is already). 

As I have been suspecting in posts previously, Peguero and Kieschnick will get a chance to compete for playing time in the Giants outfield, at minimum as one of the bench players.  Given the grooming of Noonan for utility duty, I would not be surprised to see him playing LF during the spring, Arias too, as many people will be battling for probably 2-4 bench spots. 

And if there is no clear starter in LF, that would open up four spots for competition, 2-3 utility OF or perhaps a third utility MI.  I am assuming that Theriot will be resigned - he must be looking for a better team for starting playing time, else why hasn't he signed yet given his interest in returning and the Giants interest in signing him, but if he don't got a spot yet, have to think he'll be baaack, with the other two MIs being Arias and Noonan, should the Giants go there, as Blanco and Torres could share LF, Peguero or Kieschnick could be the third utility OF or since Belt can and should be playing some LF, they could go with Noonan instead.

For Belt will clearly be in the mix as well.  Posey being used at 1B in conjunction with giving Hanchez a good number of starts to develop him (as well as rest Posey), would obviously push Belt out of the starting lineup if he didn't play LF during those games.  Belt had a nice season, which is amazing given his struggles with avoiding the strikeout and with hitting homers, so I'm really looking forward to him putting together the lessons from the 2012 season with his latent power, and give us an even nicer season in 2013.  That would go a long way towards a repeat Division title.  And so I don't see Belt sitting down as much in 2013 as he did in 2012, and that means starting him in LF when Posey moves to 1B, instead of resting, when Hanchez starts at C. 

I assume Hanchez will again be the personal catcher with Zito again, plus take on Lincecum as well.  I was thinking about how much media questioning Posey had to put up with about him having to catch those pitchers in the playoffs, when I realized that perhaps Bochy was playing mind games with Buster.   He could have more forcefully let the media know in no uncertain terms how much he backs up his catcher, but maybe he did that in private so that the media questioning would put a fire under Posey to perform even better than he had before.  And looking at the World Series, if so, good plan.

Anyway, very happy that Torres is back, he's a good egg and hard worker, a good Giants.  Hope he finds again some of what he found in 2010, that would really give our team a boost that might put our offense over the edge and really kick butts regularly in 2013.  Even platooning with Blanco might do that, both are good at their respective platoon positions.  And both are excellent on defense, so I wonder if Pagan might find himself sitting sometimes late in the season, ostenibly for extra rest for the playoff contention, but also because Torres plays stellar defense in CF.

Giants trade for CF Angel Pagan for Torres and Ramirez

The Giants have traded Andres Torres and Ramon Ramirez to the Mets for CF Angel Pagan.  Reports from Baggerly and Shea.  The deal is not officially announced yet, there are physicals to do, and so it probably won't become official until later this week.

The Giants appear to be close to another deal with an AL club, possibly involving Jeff Keppinger, which makes sense since his value is really as a hitter, not a defensive fielder.

Giants Thoughts

First off, thank you to Andres Torres and Ramon Ramirez for their roles in helping us win our 2010 World Championship.

That said, Torres wasn't much use to us last season after May, he was pretty messed up because of he needed an adjustment of his medicine and they couldn't apparently get it right.  Meanwhile, Ramirez was of pretty good use to us, and is the value in this trade from the Mets perspective, because Pagan had a down year as well.

Thinking of this from a statistical standpoint, each team traded one type of risk for another, in order to lessen the risk of another kind.  Basically the standard deviation of what one can expect offensively is better for Pagan, I think, while for defense, Torres is better.

The Mets wanted a better defensive player, which Torres is, much better than Pagan, who was -1 Defensive Runs Saved in 2011 (Torres was +4 overall, +3 in CF in about 30% less innings than Pagan), plus there is the potential that Torres might return to his 2010 form, getting them a double boost, as then he would be a similar offensive player as Pagan plus provides good defense.  Plus they add a great reliever to boot.  Risk but reward too.

The Giants did not get that great a defensive player (but I think their defensive schemes that they do apparently help players at least a bit as Burrell somehow was a valuable defensive LF for the Giants in 2010) in Pagan, and offensively he is not as good as Torres was in 2010, but he is more likely to be a better hitter, having a better history plus his one down year, last year, was plagued by injuries from beginning to end, starting with oblique problems in the first month of the season, to back spasms mid-season, to a head injury that kept him out at the end of the season.  Plus he is two years younger than Torres.  And he is also a switch-hitter like Torres, and hits better against RHP and only OK against LHP.

Looks like they got another mix and match player in Pagan, who has played a lot of games at all three OF positions, and is especially valuable batting against RHP, and is about average defensively in CF (at least he was in 2011, and he was injured during parts of the season).  They save money in the deal, it is believed, plus can expect a certain level of offense from Pagan, whereas Torres, who knows when he'll be OK with his ADHD medicine dosage.

Pagan's main problem in 2011 appears to be two fold.  First his BABIP fell 50 points from the prior 3 seasons and was 30 points below his career average.  Second was his drop in ISO, about 30 points below average.  Together that took about 60-90 points off his OPS, which would have put him in the mid-to-high 700 OPS range.  Presuming that it was the injuries that caused a lot of that, plus I read a note somewhere that he's working hard on his conditioning during this off-season because he don't want a repeat of 2011, he looks like a good bet to rebound, especially since his contact rate is pretty good and his walk rate is OK, suggesting that 2011 was just a case of the BABIP ball bouncing into mitts more often than usual for Pagan.

It certainly solidifies our OF, now Bochy can mix and match Melky and Angel in CF, plus they will probably see time in the corner sometimes too, depending on who is hot or not, giving us insurance if Schierholtz does not perform as hoped in RF or if Belt or Huff does not perform as hoped in LF.  Speaking of Belt, this still keeps the door open for him to take LF or 1B starting if he comes out blazing, as then Melky, Angel, and Nate would probably be mixing and matching CF and RF, plus Belt will probably sit some games against LHP anyway, both to avoid since he has not figured them out plus to get other guys into games too.

This is a good move offensively, plus opens a spot in the bullpen to either acquire someone, as perhaps the Giants see another reclamation project out there (oh, this opens up a 40 man spot), like they did Santiago Casilla a couple of years ago, or maybe there is some prospects they want to look at in spring, not sure how guys did in AFL, or even one of the other winter leagues.  And there is the savings of probably $1-2M, and getting a younger player to boot.  All in all a nice move, which becomes great if Pagan is like he was in 2009-2010, and given that he's healthy and getting himself into shape, that's a good bet.