The report I can find on this right now is Pavlovic's blog post and Baggarly's blurb which reports on a Ken Rosenthal tweet.. Not too much details, a reported three years for $20M for the Giants to keep Marco Scutaro. Also, Baggarly tweeted that the Cards never went to three years for Scutaro, but apparently was offering 2 years in the $8M per range, which led the Giants to move to guarantee the third year, giving Scutaro an extra $4M for that third year over the Cards.
ogc thoughts
Mission Accomplished: Giants wanted to sign Affledt, Pagan, and Scutaro, and they just did. All the deals reflect the higher salaries being paid this off-season, which is most likely related to the $15-20M boost in revenues that they get from ESPN starting next season with their shiny new contract.
Yet still, the contracts were all relatively reasonable. Affeldt got $6M per year, and given that League had already gotten $7M per year from LA, that was a fair price. Pagan got $10M per year, which was the upper range of what I was hoping for (I was thinking $8-9M per, Randy Winn range, if I remember right), but many people were predicting 3 years at $10M, so 4 years at that rate is not outrageous. And he doesn't even need to duplicate his 2012 season each season to pay off on the deal. Plus, Victorino's deal for 3 years at $39M ($13M per) make the Giants deal look great, though I would note that one thing most people neglect to mention is that Victorino has many more years of good offensive production than Pagan, and that is the difference there (for Upton, it was his age and potential improvement). And Scutaro, I thought, should get around the $6M per year that he got in his previous contract that he signed, given inflation and two more years on him, and he probably got $6M/$7M/$7M, which is close enough for me. As Evans joked at one point, if he can survive that slide by Holliday and still play great baseball, he's going to be fine.
I see some people upset that Gregor Blanco is now the starting LF. These are the people who are never satisfied unless every starter on the team is some sort of star player capable of great deeds. Most lineups have a Blanco (actually, they have worse) somewhere in their lineup, and a Crawford, if not more. These people never look at reality, at the actual teams making up the league and seeing what it takes to build an above average lineup. And you don't need above average players at every position to do that, you need some really good players in the top half of the lineup - like Pagan, Sandoval, Posey, Pence, even Scutaro and Belt - because most teams cannot afford to have a better lineup than that, and if they do have it better, typically that means that they scrimped on their starting or relief pitching, and then the Giants got them where they want them.
Things left to do are few. The Giants are interested in bringing back Theriot and I loved having him around too, he is a great backup in case either MI needs a rest or, god forbid, out for some reason. Those complaining about Blanco don't realize that the Giants is looking for a right-handed complement to Blanco in the OF - ahem, Andres Torres is a free agent - and Nady wasn't so bad last season either. Plus Peguerao was pretty interesting last season, great defense and speed, could be a Hanchez redux. They are probably going to look into former starters on the fringe for AAA, just in case, though they did sign Hacker the other day and Heston, Kickham, and Surkamp should be in AAA as well (where's Petit?). They are probably going to give some vet a minor league invite to compete for the bullpen, though if they prove good to form, they are hoping that Hembree steps up and take that last spot. And, of course, Brian Wilson is still out there, hopefully he understands why the Giants did what they did and re-join us, this is the best place for someone special like him. Otherwise, things are looking good for a defense of their championship in the 2013 season.
Go Giants!
Showing posts with label Free agent signings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Free agent signings. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 04, 2012
Monday, December 03, 2012
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.
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.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Your 2013 Giants: Affeldt Signs 3 Years, $18M
As reported by the media for a while now, Jeremy Affeldt has re-signed with the Giants. As reported by Chris Haft (and in other sources as well), it was for 3 years, $18M. Presumably, it is for $6M per year, but given that last year he got $5M and the Giants budget is already being stretched for 2013, it could be for $5M, $6M, $7M, which Sabean has done before for some contracts. There was no mention of a signing bonus, nor boosts in contract value for awards that might be won, the details on this contract has been particularly sparse relative to before.
He said he did it for his family, to get financial security. That refers more to the length of the contract, than the size, as he's already pulled in a lot of money in prior contracts. He is a West Coast guy, having grown in the Northwest region (Washington), citing that as one of his factors as well. He also is happy to be returning to his "Giants Family," which is what Pence was talking about in all his sermonizing. And his actual family gets to continue to live and grow up in the San Francisco Bay Area, it sounds like, which I think is up there in his thinking as well.
ogc thoughts
I think this move had to be done and done first among the Giants free agents. The Giants bullpen was a great asset last year, but that was in spite of the fact that we lost Brian Wilson for the season and potentially (probably, if we are being realistic, the Beard has been saying you can bet on it that he'll be there opening day) early 2013 too. Casilla's issues also put a damper on things too, he looked like he would be the new closer after his 2011 season, but his blister (and probable mental issues) took him out of the job and pushed Bochy to go with the committee method until Romo took control by late season.
In addition, as we all know, pitchers are just more fragile in general. And Romo, as we also all know, has not been a horse before, he has had elbow issues before. And I was getting worried about him near the end of the season because his quotes were laced with comments about pitching until his arm falls off and how he'll answer the call no matter what. That was similar to what Wilson was saying in 2010 and 2011, and we subsequently learned that his body was already starting to give out in 2010.
Given any team's need for a shutdown bullpen and Romo's history of questionable health, plus if Affeldt and Romo were gone, that means that we need to rely on Casilla solely as our closer, with only Lopez, Kontos, and Mijares as our set-up men in that case, the Giants had no real choice but to sign Affeldt to the contract terms that Affeldt wanted, which was 3 years (which, to be fair, is what relievers of his ilk has been getting, like League). We need the redundancy as well as just for the overall quality of the bullpen. He's a proven reliever, to get someone similar - and I mean similarly accomplished, not a reliever who did well in 2012 - would have cost us the same money.
I don't understand why Giants fans didn't get that last year or this year. Especially after how 2012 unfolded, I could at least see their argument from last off-season (though I would still pick up his option), but after Wilson went down and Casilla proved not to be the long-term answer, and particularly after how well Affeldt did in the playoffs, I just don't see how anyone cannot see why we had to sign Affeldt.
I think the question boils down to this: do you want to win another championship or do you want to save money? I want another championship.
And it is not like the Giants don't have money to spend on him. A lot of contracts are going off the books. And while raises take up a lot of that, there is still money to get everything done, that is why Sabean was able to say at the time of Pence's trade that they were planning on signing both he and Melky to long-term deals. Given the baseball rationale for needing Affeldt, I don't see why the budget could not also handle Affeldt.
Next up is Scutaro, according to media reports. They are reporting that the Giants are optimistic (Chron), but if Scutaro were close, I would think the Giants would have waited to get him done before announcing Affeldt's deal. According to the Haft account, Sabean characterized negotiations as "ongoing and upbeat" regarding Scutaro and Pagan.
Unfortunately, I think that this means that Scutaro is listening hard to other offers for the best offer, whereas Affeldt had an idea of what he wanted, and Sabean was willing to meet it. Jeremy noted (good comment on Sabean's methodology, which I had guessed at before, good to see pointed out here by player):
Alternatives to Scutaro
Not that I think that he is totally critical to the Giants success in 2013. He was certainly the catalyst for our offense in the second half after he joined the team, but expecting him to hit .362/.385/.473/.859 again is not a reasonable expectation. Much more reasonable was his batting line from the past four seasons playing mostly full-time: .290/.354/.404/.758. Theriot hit this after he returned to action after his DL got him healthy and when he got replaced: .287/.345/.345/.679. Which is basically his career line: .281/.341/.350/..691. And both are roughly equal in defensive ability at 2B and SS. While he is not as good a hitter as Scutaro, is Scutaro worth $5, 6, or 7M more than Theriot?
On top of that, the Giants have two MI who could be pushing for the starting spot starting in spring training 2013. Nick Noonan had a nice but not breakout season in AAA, but a vast improvement on his 2011 season in AA Richmond. His batting line was not impressive - .296/.347/.416/.763 - but it is that bad either considering he was only 23 YO for the season and the average age there was 26.7 years for pitchers, meaning they had roughly 3-4 more years of experience over him. The good news for him is that his contract rate was a nice 83% (85% is what good hitters do, but again, note the age disadvantage for him) and his BB/K ratio was an OK 0.48 (usually want at least 0.50). If he can further develop in 2013, he could be ready for the majors by mid-season.
Of course, the main person on the radar for 2B is Joe Panik. He has had a down year both in the Cal League, a hitter's league, as well as the AFL, so far. Still, he hit a nice .297/.368/.402/.770 for San Jose, and more importantly only had 54 K's in 535 AB (roughly 90% contact rate, great) and had the excellent ratio of 58 BB/54 K, 1.07 BB/K ratio, as only the best hitters can get their BB/K ratio above 1.00, and he has done it two seasons in a row.
If he can maintain that in the majors, he'll be an elite hitter. In the majors, hitters who can maintain a BB/K ratio of over 1.00 are more likely to hit .300 than not (51% of hitters with BB/K from 1.00 to 1.50 had over .300 BA, only 9% of them had less than .250). Guys with contact rates of 90%+ averaged .290 in 2011 season. So far, so good.
He should be in AA for the 2013 season, maybe AAA for 2014, assuming he continues to climb. With some good hitting, he could be in the majors by mid-season 2014, age 23, or by 2015 season at age 24. That's still pretty young age to be making the majors.
Between Theriot and the young prospects, the Giants should be covered adequately at 2B for the next couple of years (assuming the Giants are able to re-sign Theriot.
Alternatives to Pagan
Pagan is even easier to replace. Blanco, while not as good offensively, should be as good or better defensively in CF. Meanwhile, Pagan had a very nice 2012, but his three year record as a starting OF is .281/.334/.415/.749, which is nice but not $13.8M nice. Blanco's stats, again like above with Theriot, might not be as good, but is Pagan worth $10M+ more than Blanco? Blanco's stats in 2012 was very close to his MLB stats: .244/.333/.344/.676 vs. .253/.349/.331/.680. At leadoff, the most important factor there is the hitter's OBP, and both of their OBP are virtually the same.
Meanwhile, we can go in a number of different directions for LF. First off is internally from our own roster. As much as I like Brandon Belt at 1B, I assume that Posey and Sanchez will be sharing the catcher's duties again and likely push Belt off 1B starts anywhere from 30 to 50 games. If he is hitting as well as he did last season, the Giants would play him in LF for that many games. If he's playing in LF that much, maybe it would be better for him to start in LF instead. In which case, the Giants could look for a free agent 1B, perhaps just a platoon hitting 1B, instead of a LF or CF.
There are other options in the Giants farm system as well. Had he not gotten injured last season, Roger Kieschnick probably would have gotten a chance to play in the Giants OF last season, after hitting .295/.361/.581/.942 up to his season-ending injury. Particularly with Schierholtz not doing that well before the Pence trade, and after Melky got suspended. And he started most of the 2012 season in LF. He strikes out way, way too much and likely would be even harder to get going in the majors than Belt, but he brings a lot of HR power, plus walks a lot as well.
Another potential option is Francisco Peguero. While he only hit .272/.297/.394/.691 in AAA, he started the season injured and took a while to get into baseball shape, it appears. From June on, he hit .308/.327/.411/.738, which better shows his hit tool, and he was only 24 YO in AAA. Also showing that he might have been struggling all season with leg problems, he only had 1 SB attempt all season in AAA, but in the majors, in his September call-up, where he basically was Huff's pinch-runner, he stole 3 bases with no CS.
None of these options are necessarily better than Pagan, but at $10M or more in extra cost, is he going to produce that much more value? That is at least debatable. In addition, there is a multitude of players the Giants can sign to play LF (if Blanco plays CF), starting with their former LF, Melky Cabrera, who should be cheap and the Giants, according to rumors, are open to him returning (I'm OK either way, it is what it is, though I would prefer to move on). Other names include Scott Hairston (Giants killer previously), Jonny Gomes (grew up in Bay Area, I believe he's a Giants fan), Reed Johnson (Sabean loves flexibility and he plays all three OF positions). Also, MLBTR has mentioned that the Giants kicked the tires on Torii Hunter (who just signed for 2 years, $26M with Tigers) and Shane Victorino (Flying Hawaiian; love that nickname).
Victorino might be a nice addition at a lower price point given his poor 2012 season, but still strong SB skill. He did not strike out that much, it was in line with prior seasons, plus his walk rate was still within his career range, he might have just had a bad season at age 31. Previously, as a full-time starter for 6 seasons, he hit .282/.348/.443/.791, and averaged around 32 SB in the past 6 seasons. And he has been the equal of Pagan and Blanco in defense in CF, and great on the corners. I think if we can get him for one season at half the money that Pagan is asking for, I would rather have Victorino for a season than Pagan for 2-3 seasons. He would be a nice bridge to get us to Brown starting in 2014, assuming he does well in Fresno in 2013.
Then, there is 1B (if Belt plays LF) free agents. I've always like Kila Ka'aihue bat, maybe we can give him a chance to figure it out in the majors. Carlos Pena has been an OK defensive 1B himself, and provides a lot of HR power and walks. He probably don't want to split time at 1B though. Kevin Youkilis would be an intriguing choice, he provides HR power and walks as well, and has never really played a full season and been very part time in recent years, and plays great defense there, plus can play 3B occasionally too.
There are a lot of options other than Pagan.
He said he did it for his family, to get financial security. That refers more to the length of the contract, than the size, as he's already pulled in a lot of money in prior contracts. He is a West Coast guy, having grown in the Northwest region (Washington), citing that as one of his factors as well. He also is happy to be returning to his "Giants Family," which is what Pence was talking about in all his sermonizing. And his actual family gets to continue to live and grow up in the San Francisco Bay Area, it sounds like, which I think is up there in his thinking as well.
ogc thoughts
I think this move had to be done and done first among the Giants free agents. The Giants bullpen was a great asset last year, but that was in spite of the fact that we lost Brian Wilson for the season and potentially (probably, if we are being realistic, the Beard has been saying you can bet on it that he'll be there opening day) early 2013 too. Casilla's issues also put a damper on things too, he looked like he would be the new closer after his 2011 season, but his blister (and probable mental issues) took him out of the job and pushed Bochy to go with the committee method until Romo took control by late season.
In addition, as we all know, pitchers are just more fragile in general. And Romo, as we also all know, has not been a horse before, he has had elbow issues before. And I was getting worried about him near the end of the season because his quotes were laced with comments about pitching until his arm falls off and how he'll answer the call no matter what. That was similar to what Wilson was saying in 2010 and 2011, and we subsequently learned that his body was already starting to give out in 2010.
Given any team's need for a shutdown bullpen and Romo's history of questionable health, plus if Affeldt and Romo were gone, that means that we need to rely on Casilla solely as our closer, with only Lopez, Kontos, and Mijares as our set-up men in that case, the Giants had no real choice but to sign Affeldt to the contract terms that Affeldt wanted, which was 3 years (which, to be fair, is what relievers of his ilk has been getting, like League). We need the redundancy as well as just for the overall quality of the bullpen. He's a proven reliever, to get someone similar - and I mean similarly accomplished, not a reliever who did well in 2012 - would have cost us the same money.
I don't understand why Giants fans didn't get that last year or this year. Especially after how 2012 unfolded, I could at least see their argument from last off-season (though I would still pick up his option), but after Wilson went down and Casilla proved not to be the long-term answer, and particularly after how well Affeldt did in the playoffs, I just don't see how anyone cannot see why we had to sign Affeldt.
I think the question boils down to this: do you want to win another championship or do you want to save money? I want another championship.
And it is not like the Giants don't have money to spend on him. A lot of contracts are going off the books. And while raises take up a lot of that, there is still money to get everything done, that is why Sabean was able to say at the time of Pence's trade that they were planning on signing both he and Melky to long-term deals. Given the baseball rationale for needing Affeldt, I don't see why the budget could not also handle Affeldt.
Next up is Scutaro, according to media reports. They are reporting that the Giants are optimistic (Chron), but if Scutaro were close, I would think the Giants would have waited to get him done before announcing Affeldt's deal. According to the Haft account, Sabean characterized negotiations as "ongoing and upbeat" regarding Scutaro and Pagan.
Unfortunately, I think that this means that Scutaro is listening hard to other offers for the best offer, whereas Affeldt had an idea of what he wanted, and Sabean was willing to meet it. Jeremy noted (good comment on Sabean's methodology, which I had guessed at before, good to see pointed out here by player):
Once the Giants proved willing to give Affeldt a three-year package, as they demonstrated shortly after the World Series ended, the bargaining essentially ended.
"The Giants are aggressive," Affeldt said. "They don't sit there and try to lowball and figure out where to get to, if they have an idea of where [your salary] should be. I don't think Sabean messes around a whole lot."
Affeldt indicated that he could have listened seriously to proposals from other teams. But, as he stated, he didn't have a reason to leave, especially since he and his family like the city, the Bay Area and the ballclub.Nothing wrong with Scutaro kicking the tires with other teams - it is his right - but it just dampens my hopes of getting him re-signed.
Alternatives to Scutaro
Not that I think that he is totally critical to the Giants success in 2013. He was certainly the catalyst for our offense in the second half after he joined the team, but expecting him to hit .362/.385/.473/.859 again is not a reasonable expectation. Much more reasonable was his batting line from the past four seasons playing mostly full-time: .290/.354/.404/.758. Theriot hit this after he returned to action after his DL got him healthy and when he got replaced: .287/.345/.345/.679. Which is basically his career line: .281/.341/.350/..691. And both are roughly equal in defensive ability at 2B and SS. While he is not as good a hitter as Scutaro, is Scutaro worth $5, 6, or 7M more than Theriot?
On top of that, the Giants have two MI who could be pushing for the starting spot starting in spring training 2013. Nick Noonan had a nice but not breakout season in AAA, but a vast improvement on his 2011 season in AA Richmond. His batting line was not impressive - .296/.347/.416/.763 - but it is that bad either considering he was only 23 YO for the season and the average age there was 26.7 years for pitchers, meaning they had roughly 3-4 more years of experience over him. The good news for him is that his contract rate was a nice 83% (85% is what good hitters do, but again, note the age disadvantage for him) and his BB/K ratio was an OK 0.48 (usually want at least 0.50). If he can further develop in 2013, he could be ready for the majors by mid-season.
Of course, the main person on the radar for 2B is Joe Panik. He has had a down year both in the Cal League, a hitter's league, as well as the AFL, so far. Still, he hit a nice .297/.368/.402/.770 for San Jose, and more importantly only had 54 K's in 535 AB (roughly 90% contact rate, great) and had the excellent ratio of 58 BB/54 K, 1.07 BB/K ratio, as only the best hitters can get their BB/K ratio above 1.00, and he has done it two seasons in a row.
If he can maintain that in the majors, he'll be an elite hitter. In the majors, hitters who can maintain a BB/K ratio of over 1.00 are more likely to hit .300 than not (51% of hitters with BB/K from 1.00 to 1.50 had over .300 BA, only 9% of them had less than .250). Guys with contact rates of 90%+ averaged .290 in 2011 season. So far, so good.
He should be in AA for the 2013 season, maybe AAA for 2014, assuming he continues to climb. With some good hitting, he could be in the majors by mid-season 2014, age 23, or by 2015 season at age 24. That's still pretty young age to be making the majors.
Between Theriot and the young prospects, the Giants should be covered adequately at 2B for the next couple of years (assuming the Giants are able to re-sign Theriot.
Alternatives to Pagan
Pagan is even easier to replace. Blanco, while not as good offensively, should be as good or better defensively in CF. Meanwhile, Pagan had a very nice 2012, but his three year record as a starting OF is .281/.334/.415/.749, which is nice but not $13.8M nice. Blanco's stats, again like above with Theriot, might not be as good, but is Pagan worth $10M+ more than Blanco? Blanco's stats in 2012 was very close to his MLB stats: .244/.333/.344/.676 vs. .253/.349/.331/.680. At leadoff, the most important factor there is the hitter's OBP, and both of their OBP are virtually the same.
Meanwhile, we can go in a number of different directions for LF. First off is internally from our own roster. As much as I like Brandon Belt at 1B, I assume that Posey and Sanchez will be sharing the catcher's duties again and likely push Belt off 1B starts anywhere from 30 to 50 games. If he is hitting as well as he did last season, the Giants would play him in LF for that many games. If he's playing in LF that much, maybe it would be better for him to start in LF instead. In which case, the Giants could look for a free agent 1B, perhaps just a platoon hitting 1B, instead of a LF or CF.
There are other options in the Giants farm system as well. Had he not gotten injured last season, Roger Kieschnick probably would have gotten a chance to play in the Giants OF last season, after hitting .295/.361/.581/.942 up to his season-ending injury. Particularly with Schierholtz not doing that well before the Pence trade, and after Melky got suspended. And he started most of the 2012 season in LF. He strikes out way, way too much and likely would be even harder to get going in the majors than Belt, but he brings a lot of HR power, plus walks a lot as well.
Another potential option is Francisco Peguero. While he only hit .272/.297/.394/.691 in AAA, he started the season injured and took a while to get into baseball shape, it appears. From June on, he hit .308/.327/.411/.738, which better shows his hit tool, and he was only 24 YO in AAA. Also showing that he might have been struggling all season with leg problems, he only had 1 SB attempt all season in AAA, but in the majors, in his September call-up, where he basically was Huff's pinch-runner, he stole 3 bases with no CS.
None of these options are necessarily better than Pagan, but at $10M or more in extra cost, is he going to produce that much more value? That is at least debatable. In addition, there is a multitude of players the Giants can sign to play LF (if Blanco plays CF), starting with their former LF, Melky Cabrera, who should be cheap and the Giants, according to rumors, are open to him returning (I'm OK either way, it is what it is, though I would prefer to move on). Other names include Scott Hairston (Giants killer previously), Jonny Gomes (grew up in Bay Area, I believe he's a Giants fan), Reed Johnson (Sabean loves flexibility and he plays all three OF positions). Also, MLBTR has mentioned that the Giants kicked the tires on Torii Hunter (who just signed for 2 years, $26M with Tigers) and Shane Victorino (Flying Hawaiian; love that nickname).
Victorino might be a nice addition at a lower price point given his poor 2012 season, but still strong SB skill. He did not strike out that much, it was in line with prior seasons, plus his walk rate was still within his career range, he might have just had a bad season at age 31. Previously, as a full-time starter for 6 seasons, he hit .282/.348/.443/.791, and averaged around 32 SB in the past 6 seasons. And he has been the equal of Pagan and Blanco in defense in CF, and great on the corners. I think if we can get him for one season at half the money that Pagan is asking for, I would rather have Victorino for a season than Pagan for 2-3 seasons. He would be a nice bridge to get us to Brown starting in 2014, assuming he does well in Fresno in 2013.
Then, there is 1B (if Belt plays LF) free agents. I've always like Kila Ka'aihue bat, maybe we can give him a chance to figure it out in the majors. Carlos Pena has been an OK defensive 1B himself, and provides a lot of HR power and walks. He probably don't want to split time at 1B though. Kevin Youkilis would be an intriguing choice, he provides HR power and walks as well, and has never really played a full season and been very part time in recent years, and plays great defense there, plus can play 3B occasionally too.
There are a lot of options other than Pagan.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Filling out the Roster: Giants Sign Henley and The Riot
The Giants in the past two days have signed two more players, Clay Hensley and Ryan "The Riot" Theriot, both to non-guaranteed major league contracts (Baggs: both will go on the 40-man once they pass their physicals, says that there are two openings; obviously, non-guaranteed means they can be DFAed for much less than their contracts; Schulman added that Fontenot's contract is also non-guaranteed, meaning if he's odd man out, he can be let go too without paying the full contract).
So these are basically "pay to play" contracts, if they can perform well enough in spring training to win a job, they get paid for 2012. And Clay basically needs to show Bochy that he's still close to the same guy who did so well for him in SD and not the guy who did not do well in Florida last season.
Clay Hensley (Hank) is a former Giants farm hand who was traded to the Padres for Matt Herges, probably one of the few trades that has ended up with the Giants net losing, though Herges was very helpful in his time with the Giants when they needed relief help, so there is that. Bochy loved using him in SD too, he did very well for them.
The right-hander reliever will apparently battle for the final spot in the bullpen that was opened by the trade of Ramirez (and Torres) for Angel Pagan. He will get $750K for 2012 if he makes the team, plus $300K in incentives and awards (mostly probably based on games pitched in). It was noted that Mota still hasn't officially signed "pending contract language", so perhaps that is an additional factor for doing this signing, not just the opening of Ramirez. Mota, once signed, will probably be on a minor league contract so that he won't take up a spot on the 40 man yet and it does still seems like it is a fait accompli and not something that may or may not happen.
Ryan Theriot (Baggs, Hank) won a World Series ring with the Cards last season, which makes up for the one he could have gotten had he been traded to the Giants instead of Mike Fontenot in 2010. Forgot what got in the way of that one, other than I think the Cubs got more from the D-gers for Theriot than the Giants gave up to get Fontenot, DeWitt is not someone the Giants could have matched, I don't think.
A right-handed hitter who hits better against LHP, but doesn't mash them, makes him a perfect platoon partner with Fontenot, who is an old buddy of his from their Chicago Cubs days, though that is a little surprising as they were essentially competing for the same starting role. But their ties were forged, from what I understand, in college for LSU so those friendship ties have lasted a long time. If he makes the team, he gets $1.25M with $750K in potential bonuses, probably mostly based on playing time in terms of PA.
Schulman:
Giants Thoughts
It is like I thought, Crawford is the incumbent starting shortstop, with Theriot and Fontenot as the probable backups, and not as many feared, that Theriot is here to take the job away. Barring a huge meltdown on Crawford's part, as long as he's flashing the leather and still taking walks while avoiding strikeouts, the Giants should be relatively patient with him and make him the starter. He would have to cede the job for Theriot/Fontenot to take over. More on that later.
Barring some big injury or huge decrease in ability to hit or field, I think they will beat out Burriss for the two MI spots, as he has not really shown much in recent trials in the majors, and if he does lose, we would have to DFA him. But I would bet we would likely retain him, much like Ishikawa, because he would probably be cut at the end of spring training, at which point other teams would have their 25-man pretty much set and I doubt any team would risk losing that 25th man in order to take a flier on Burriss. I assume the Giants will try to retain him after he passes through waivers, but the Nats might want to sign him since he's a local guy, they might like the history of that. Not sure on the rules, but I think that is the right sequence of potential events. I have to think if the Nats come calling, he will give them a shot and take a fresh start with them.
But should he falter, I can see Bochy basically moving to a platoon situation by mid-to-late May. Plus, in any case, in key batting situations late in the game, Bochy could substitute for Crawford with Theriot if a LHP is inserted to face Crawford. I think the Giants will test Crawford periodically still against LHP, depending on the situation, partly because his defense is THAT good, partly because Theriot is THAT bad defensively, partly because Theriot does have problems with certain LHP.
Another reason for keeping Theriot and Fontenot is that they make good platoon buddies, Theriot hits well against LHP, Fontenot hits well against RHP, plus Fontenot was very good defensively at SS last season. And that works for either SS, should Crawford flame out for any reason, or 2B, should any body part of Freddy Sanchez flame out for any reason.
Lastly, another good reason to keep Theriot is that Burriss has not shown much ability in the majors in recent years. No walks, no power, his only ability is to avoid the strikeout and that does give him a better batting average, but not enough to make up for few walks and few extra-base hits. He apparently is the hitter who drove Carney Lansford away, as he reportedly have strong arms, strong forearms, that with improve batting technique, he could start driving balls with authority. However, he has refused to change, preferring to stick with the "slap the pitch" technique that he was taught to take advantage of his speed.
Burriss is basically around the same stage as Andres Torres was a few years back. Andres stubbornly stuck to the slap until he realized that unless he changed, he'll never stick in the majors. That's when he sought out someone to teach him to swing the bat like Pujols. Basically, he was taught the principles that Ted Williams taught in his book, the Science of Hitting, and you saw what happened in 2009 and 2010 with his change.
Too bad Torres never tried to inspire Burriss to try his way, I think the transformation could be just a stark, and that Burriss could be a starter if he ever learned to hit properly and truly take advantage of his speed, because he has show a good eye all his career, it is just his lack of power that kills his chances of making the majors regularly. As he probably could bat near .300 each year, and with even a modicum of power, would make a good starting option at 2B.
That changes the dynamics of the bench as well. One spot is taken by the reserve catcher, Stewart or Hanchez. Two spots are probably TheRiot and Fontenot. Schierholtz has the fourth spot, assuming Belt wins the position in spring training. That would mean that Brett Pill and Burriss would be battling for the last spot on the roster. And given that Theriot provides some speed, Pill most probably gets that last spot as the only power off the bench (though Schierholtz provides some as well).
Looking at Hensley's stats, I realize that I had a more positive view of his career than warranted. He did have a nice season starting for the 'Dres in 2006, but he didn't do well at all in 2007, moved to the bullpen in 2008, where he didn't do well either, but that might be because he had some sort of injury (he had injury reports for a strained right shoulder for 68 games in 2009, strained left neck muscle for 20 games in 2010), didn't pitch at all in the majors in 2009, but then did great for Florida in 2010 (perhaps he didn't make the mental transition, Todd Worrell when he was with the Giants said that he didn't start doing well as a reliever until he gave up thoughts of being a starter and accepted being a reliever), before having a bad year in 2011.
However, in 2011, his bad season was due solely to his poor stats as a starter, as the Marlins pushed him back into the rotation. He had a 6.21 ERA as a starter, but a pretty good 3.51 ERA as a reliever, with 20 K's in 25.2 IP (7.0 K/9) and K/BB of 1.67, which is not great, just OK, and he held hitters down to a .226/.331/.333/.645 batting line as a reliever. Schulman also noted some arm problems, so that contributed to his down season most probably, as well. And he had a great 2.16 ERA in 2010 in 68 games, finishing 23 games and saving 7 games. He kept his walks down and had a great strikeout rate, resulting in a great 2.66 K/BB (good closers have K/BB > 2.4 according to Shandler).
And with a career .279 BABIP and with one season out of 6 (but not all full seasons) of BABIP under .300, that suggest that he is possibly capable of keeping his BABIP down, which mitigates the issue about too many walks and resulting low K/BB. Bringing up his BABIP to .300 results in 0.56 more H/9, which if you then drop his career BB/9 to 3.44 for a 1.85 K/BB, which is close to being the good 2.0 we want to see from pitchers and much better than the 1.57 mark he has for his career. And a walk is worth less than the extra hits that would have been given up, which would edge that ratio up even higher.
So it looks like he has accepted the reliever role, but because the Marlins did not use him properly in 2011, many teams passed on checking him out, so the Giants could pick him up on the cheap. He is also in his second year of arbitration, had the Marlins kept him, so that is another reason for them to drop him. Should the Giants keep him past this season, he would be arbitration eligible for 2013 before becoming a free agent for the 2014 season. He will be 32 for the 2012 season and won't reach free agency until he is 34, assuming he can hold a job for the next two seasons (which should not be hard if he pitches like he did as a reliever in 2010 and 2011).
I like the move. As nicely as Mota has performed for us, he wasn't that good when he pitched for us plus he's very old now, so Hensley could end up replacing Ramirez, while a prospect replaces Mota, taking the long spot. Heath Hembree was great last season in AA, so he potentially could win a spot in the bullpen. In addition, Dan Otero has done very well in the minors with one projection saying he could deliver an ERA below 3 in 2012, which would be great.
So most likely Hensley, Mota, Hembree, and Otero are battling for two spots in the rotation, barring any injury to Romo. Dan Runzler is probably in the mix for one of the two open spots as well, else I would guess that he would go back to AAA and start in order to be an option for the Giants should they need to replace any starter, due to the sparcity of MLB capable starting pitching in AAA.
Both moves were good moves, filling areas of potential weakness for the Giants in terms of depth in 2012, with two major league vets who should win a job in spring training by doing as well as they had done in prior seasons. They probably cost two minor leaguers a chance at the majors, Burriss most probably, but maybe Pill instead, and one of the right-handers I listed above as battling for a job. It was much more likely the Giants would have filled Ramirez's position internally had they not signed Hensley. Good risk mitigation moves on the part of Sabean, on the cheap too, and it keeps the Giants under the $130M cap figure. I don't envision any other move than a starting pitcher getting a minor league invite to battle for a spot.
I'm not sure if he is still available, but the D-backs non-tendered Micah Owings and he appears to be a free agent. And while he has been a so-so pitcher, he has been a pretty good hitter. At 29 YO for the 2012 season, he might be ready to accept a reliever role, heck, he might have already accepted it, as he was mostly a reliever last season and did well in that role.
Furthermore, he has also been OK as a reliever, 4.40 ERA in two home hitter's parks in AZ and Cincy, so he's probably close to 4 overall otherwise. And he was good relieving last season. Maybe bring him in as competition with Mota for the long-relief spot, and if he wins it, he also becomes our #1 option in case we need a MLB arm for the rotation, plus he would become a great pinch-hitter option for us off the bench, much like Brooks Kieschnick (Giants prospect Roger Kieschnick's uncle). That is a much better option than having Mota. Who knows, maybe he can be competition for the #5 starting spot with Zito as well.
The D-backs apparently non-tendered him in order to not pay him $1M in arbitration. How cheap of the team, particularly since he did well for them last season. Much unlike the Arizona of the past: when a player lost to the team in arbitration, they ripped up the contract and signed him to more money. The non-tender just to save maybe $250-500K won't sit well with him nor any buddies he may have on the team, it is like a slap in the face given what he did for them in helping them win the pennant last season. Even any vets have to be perturbed by this strange move. Hopefully it will place a seed of dissension and unrest in their clubhouse and lead to lesser performances in 2012 for them under Gibson.
So these are basically "pay to play" contracts, if they can perform well enough in spring training to win a job, they get paid for 2012. And Clay basically needs to show Bochy that he's still close to the same guy who did so well for him in SD and not the guy who did not do well in Florida last season.
Clay Hensley (Hank) is a former Giants farm hand who was traded to the Padres for Matt Herges, probably one of the few trades that has ended up with the Giants net losing, though Herges was very helpful in his time with the Giants when they needed relief help, so there is that. Bochy loved using him in SD too, he did very well for them.
The right-hander reliever will apparently battle for the final spot in the bullpen that was opened by the trade of Ramirez (and Torres) for Angel Pagan. He will get $750K for 2012 if he makes the team, plus $300K in incentives and awards (mostly probably based on games pitched in). It was noted that Mota still hasn't officially signed "pending contract language", so perhaps that is an additional factor for doing this signing, not just the opening of Ramirez. Mota, once signed, will probably be on a minor league contract so that he won't take up a spot on the 40 man yet and it does still seems like it is a fait accompli and not something that may or may not happen.
Ryan Theriot (Baggs, Hank) won a World Series ring with the Cards last season, which makes up for the one he could have gotten had he been traded to the Giants instead of Mike Fontenot in 2010. Forgot what got in the way of that one, other than I think the Cubs got more from the D-gers for Theriot than the Giants gave up to get Fontenot, DeWitt is not someone the Giants could have matched, I don't think.
A right-handed hitter who hits better against LHP, but doesn't mash them, makes him a perfect platoon partner with Fontenot, who is an old buddy of his from their Chicago Cubs days, though that is a little surprising as they were essentially competing for the same starting role. But their ties were forged, from what I understand, in college for LSU so those friendship ties have lasted a long time. If he makes the team, he gets $1.25M with $750K in potential bonuses, probably mostly based on playing time in terms of PA.
Schulman:
Theriot’s deal is pending a physical and not guaranteed, which means the Giants could cut Theriot by March 18 and pay him $208,333, or $312,500 between March 18 and the start of the season.For those worrying (crying) more Schulman about The Riot deal:
So here’s the upshot, as it was explained to me. Crawford, entering his second year in the bigs, is going into camp as the starting shortstop, as the Giants said he would. Fontenot, Theriot and Emmanuel Burriss provide the depth in the middle infield and will compete in spring training for reserve roles. Thus, Fontenot and Theriot, old friends from their LSU days and former keystone mates with the Cubs, likely will compete for the same job.Schulman has been hot lately with his inside info lately, Baggerly had been better in seasons' past, but I would rate them about equal this off-season, at worse.
Giants Thoughts
It is like I thought, Crawford is the incumbent starting shortstop, with Theriot and Fontenot as the probable backups, and not as many feared, that Theriot is here to take the job away. Barring a huge meltdown on Crawford's part, as long as he's flashing the leather and still taking walks while avoiding strikeouts, the Giants should be relatively patient with him and make him the starter. He would have to cede the job for Theriot/Fontenot to take over. More on that later.
Barring some big injury or huge decrease in ability to hit or field, I think they will beat out Burriss for the two MI spots, as he has not really shown much in recent trials in the majors, and if he does lose, we would have to DFA him. But I would bet we would likely retain him, much like Ishikawa, because he would probably be cut at the end of spring training, at which point other teams would have their 25-man pretty much set and I doubt any team would risk losing that 25th man in order to take a flier on Burriss. I assume the Giants will try to retain him after he passes through waivers, but the Nats might want to sign him since he's a local guy, they might like the history of that. Not sure on the rules, but I think that is the right sequence of potential events. I have to think if the Nats come calling, he will give them a shot and take a fresh start with them.
Schulman: Theriot (.271/.321/.342 with St. Louis last year) is not going to set the world on fire with his bat, but that’s not why the Giants wanted him. They want to ensure they have a proper alternative to Crawford against left-handed pitching. And, I’m sure, have another shortstop option, period, if Crawford has a really bad spring and the brass feels he should go to Triple-A.That is one of the things I like about how Sabean has been constructing the roster in the past few years, how he practices risk mitigation in his roster construction. He generally tries to have a viable backup should plans do not work out the way that they envisioned (and nobody's plans go perfectly). Unless Brandon Crawford totally sucks in spring training (much like Brian Wilson did his first spring training when he had the job in his pocket to lose and he just didn't do well), he most likely will be the full-time starter. Bochy will give him a chance to show what he can do against both LHP and RHP.
But should he falter, I can see Bochy basically moving to a platoon situation by mid-to-late May. Plus, in any case, in key batting situations late in the game, Bochy could substitute for Crawford with Theriot if a LHP is inserted to face Crawford. I think the Giants will test Crawford periodically still against LHP, depending on the situation, partly because his defense is THAT good, partly because Theriot is THAT bad defensively, partly because Theriot does have problems with certain LHP.
Another reason for keeping Theriot and Fontenot is that they make good platoon buddies, Theriot hits well against LHP, Fontenot hits well against RHP, plus Fontenot was very good defensively at SS last season. And that works for either SS, should Crawford flame out for any reason, or 2B, should any body part of Freddy Sanchez flame out for any reason.
Lastly, another good reason to keep Theriot is that Burriss has not shown much ability in the majors in recent years. No walks, no power, his only ability is to avoid the strikeout and that does give him a better batting average, but not enough to make up for few walks and few extra-base hits. He apparently is the hitter who drove Carney Lansford away, as he reportedly have strong arms, strong forearms, that with improve batting technique, he could start driving balls with authority. However, he has refused to change, preferring to stick with the "slap the pitch" technique that he was taught to take advantage of his speed.
Burriss is basically around the same stage as Andres Torres was a few years back. Andres stubbornly stuck to the slap until he realized that unless he changed, he'll never stick in the majors. That's when he sought out someone to teach him to swing the bat like Pujols. Basically, he was taught the principles that Ted Williams taught in his book, the Science of Hitting, and you saw what happened in 2009 and 2010 with his change.
Too bad Torres never tried to inspire Burriss to try his way, I think the transformation could be just a stark, and that Burriss could be a starter if he ever learned to hit properly and truly take advantage of his speed, because he has show a good eye all his career, it is just his lack of power that kills his chances of making the majors regularly. As he probably could bat near .300 each year, and with even a modicum of power, would make a good starting option at 2B.
That changes the dynamics of the bench as well. One spot is taken by the reserve catcher, Stewart or Hanchez. Two spots are probably TheRiot and Fontenot. Schierholtz has the fourth spot, assuming Belt wins the position in spring training. That would mean that Brett Pill and Burriss would be battling for the last spot on the roster. And given that Theriot provides some speed, Pill most probably gets that last spot as the only power off the bench (though Schierholtz provides some as well).
Looking at Hensley's stats, I realize that I had a more positive view of his career than warranted. He did have a nice season starting for the 'Dres in 2006, but he didn't do well at all in 2007, moved to the bullpen in 2008, where he didn't do well either, but that might be because he had some sort of injury (he had injury reports for a strained right shoulder for 68 games in 2009, strained left neck muscle for 20 games in 2010), didn't pitch at all in the majors in 2009, but then did great for Florida in 2010 (perhaps he didn't make the mental transition, Todd Worrell when he was with the Giants said that he didn't start doing well as a reliever until he gave up thoughts of being a starter and accepted being a reliever), before having a bad year in 2011.
However, in 2011, his bad season was due solely to his poor stats as a starter, as the Marlins pushed him back into the rotation. He had a 6.21 ERA as a starter, but a pretty good 3.51 ERA as a reliever, with 20 K's in 25.2 IP (7.0 K/9) and K/BB of 1.67, which is not great, just OK, and he held hitters down to a .226/.331/.333/.645 batting line as a reliever. Schulman also noted some arm problems, so that contributed to his down season most probably, as well. And he had a great 2.16 ERA in 2010 in 68 games, finishing 23 games and saving 7 games. He kept his walks down and had a great strikeout rate, resulting in a great 2.66 K/BB (good closers have K/BB > 2.4 according to Shandler).
And with a career .279 BABIP and with one season out of 6 (but not all full seasons) of BABIP under .300, that suggest that he is possibly capable of keeping his BABIP down, which mitigates the issue about too many walks and resulting low K/BB. Bringing up his BABIP to .300 results in 0.56 more H/9, which if you then drop his career BB/9 to 3.44 for a 1.85 K/BB, which is close to being the good 2.0 we want to see from pitchers and much better than the 1.57 mark he has for his career. And a walk is worth less than the extra hits that would have been given up, which would edge that ratio up even higher.
So it looks like he has accepted the reliever role, but because the Marlins did not use him properly in 2011, many teams passed on checking him out, so the Giants could pick him up on the cheap. He is also in his second year of arbitration, had the Marlins kept him, so that is another reason for them to drop him. Should the Giants keep him past this season, he would be arbitration eligible for 2013 before becoming a free agent for the 2014 season. He will be 32 for the 2012 season and won't reach free agency until he is 34, assuming he can hold a job for the next two seasons (which should not be hard if he pitches like he did as a reliever in 2010 and 2011).
I like the move. As nicely as Mota has performed for us, he wasn't that good when he pitched for us plus he's very old now, so Hensley could end up replacing Ramirez, while a prospect replaces Mota, taking the long spot. Heath Hembree was great last season in AA, so he potentially could win a spot in the bullpen. In addition, Dan Otero has done very well in the minors with one projection saying he could deliver an ERA below 3 in 2012, which would be great.
So most likely Hensley, Mota, Hembree, and Otero are battling for two spots in the rotation, barring any injury to Romo. Dan Runzler is probably in the mix for one of the two open spots as well, else I would guess that he would go back to AAA and start in order to be an option for the Giants should they need to replace any starter, due to the sparcity of MLB capable starting pitching in AAA.
Both moves were good moves, filling areas of potential weakness for the Giants in terms of depth in 2012, with two major league vets who should win a job in spring training by doing as well as they had done in prior seasons. They probably cost two minor leaguers a chance at the majors, Burriss most probably, but maybe Pill instead, and one of the right-handers I listed above as battling for a job. It was much more likely the Giants would have filled Ramirez's position internally had they not signed Hensley. Good risk mitigation moves on the part of Sabean, on the cheap too, and it keeps the Giants under the $130M cap figure. I don't envision any other move than a starting pitcher getting a minor league invite to battle for a spot.
I'm not sure if he is still available, but the D-backs non-tendered Micah Owings and he appears to be a free agent. And while he has been a so-so pitcher, he has been a pretty good hitter. At 29 YO for the 2012 season, he might be ready to accept a reliever role, heck, he might have already accepted it, as he was mostly a reliever last season and did well in that role.
Furthermore, he has also been OK as a reliever, 4.40 ERA in two home hitter's parks in AZ and Cincy, so he's probably close to 4 overall otherwise. And he was good relieving last season. Maybe bring him in as competition with Mota for the long-relief spot, and if he wins it, he also becomes our #1 option in case we need a MLB arm for the rotation, plus he would become a great pinch-hitter option for us off the bench, much like Brooks Kieschnick (Giants prospect Roger Kieschnick's uncle). That is a much better option than having Mota. Who knows, maybe he can be competition for the #5 starting spot with Zito as well.
The D-backs apparently non-tendered him in order to not pay him $1M in arbitration. How cheap of the team, particularly since he did well for them last season. Much unlike the Arizona of the past: when a player lost to the team in arbitration, they ripped up the contract and signed him to more money. The non-tender just to save maybe $250-500K won't sit well with him nor any buddies he may have on the team, it is like a slap in the face given what he did for them in helping them win the pennant last season. Even any vets have to be perturbed by this strange move. Hopefully it will place a seed of dissension and unrest in their clubhouse and lead to lesser performances in 2012 for them under Gibson.
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Burrell Back for 2011
As reported (Baggarly and Schulman) Pat Burrell returned to the Giants today by signing a contract with them. The amount was not immediately known, but I would guess that it is probably in the $2-3M range, as it was made clear that he was returning in a reduced bench role.
Mychal Urban tweeted that there were significant incentives. Basically, this allows the Giants to sign Burrell to a relatively cheap contract, but should he end up playing significant time on the field, he'll be justly rewarded for being a significant contributor. I wonder if such a contract with Uribe would have saved the relationship and mitigate the hard feelings that Uribe apparently harbored against Giants management when he ditched the Giants.
Giants Thoughts
Glad that I could believe his words! He said he wanted to come back late in the season as a bench player, and now it has come to pass. His role will be like in 2010: he'll get some regular ABs off the bench, and if any of the regulars are struggling or injured, he's our ace in the hole to start and hopefully bring up production.
Meanwhile, he and his buddy Aubrey Huff can enjoy another season together on the same team, as they dreamed about long ago when they were in college together (or perhaps it was after both made the majors), but in any case, it was a shared wish on the part of both to spend some time together on the same team before they retire. And how better now that they won a World Series championship together on Burrell's childhood team that hadn't won in, like, forever, and Huff had a great time?
Looks like the 25-man roster is relatively complete now. The question is whether they will keep all their arb players or not, with Chris Ray and Mike Fontenot the two possible non-tenders, as speculated by the local reporters. Ray was put on the bubble because he was not on the playoff roster, but I think that was more because he was out on the DL for a while, and the bullpen was pretty set and functioning well in September. I think they will keep him.
Fontenot, however, I would bet on being gone because the Giants need a MI utility guy who can play SS competently should anything happen to Tejada. Burriss is probably up for that job and Sabean likes his vets (now maybe people can appreciate the vets more) and will probably get one to compete with Burriss. They will probably keep an eye out on the non-tenders of the other teams as well. They did contact his agent, so perhaps they were kicking the tires to see if he would be willing to accept a certain amount, which they would be willing to carry, knowing they might have to drop it at some point.
Mychal Urban tweeted that there were significant incentives. Basically, this allows the Giants to sign Burrell to a relatively cheap contract, but should he end up playing significant time on the field, he'll be justly rewarded for being a significant contributor. I wonder if such a contract with Uribe would have saved the relationship and mitigate the hard feelings that Uribe apparently harbored against Giants management when he ditched the Giants.
Giants Thoughts
Glad that I could believe his words! He said he wanted to come back late in the season as a bench player, and now it has come to pass. His role will be like in 2010: he'll get some regular ABs off the bench, and if any of the regulars are struggling or injured, he's our ace in the hole to start and hopefully bring up production.
Meanwhile, he and his buddy Aubrey Huff can enjoy another season together on the same team, as they dreamed about long ago when they were in college together (or perhaps it was after both made the majors), but in any case, it was a shared wish on the part of both to spend some time together on the same team before they retire. And how better now that they won a World Series championship together on Burrell's childhood team that hadn't won in, like, forever, and Huff had a great time?
Looks like the 25-man roster is relatively complete now. The question is whether they will keep all their arb players or not, with Chris Ray and Mike Fontenot the two possible non-tenders, as speculated by the local reporters. Ray was put on the bubble because he was not on the playoff roster, but I think that was more because he was out on the DL for a while, and the bullpen was pretty set and functioning well in September. I think they will keep him.
Fontenot, however, I would bet on being gone because the Giants need a MI utility guy who can play SS competently should anything happen to Tejada. Burriss is probably up for that job and Sabean likes his vets (now maybe people can appreciate the vets more) and will probably get one to compete with Burriss. They will probably keep an eye out on the non-tenders of the other teams as well. They did contact his agent, so perhaps they were kicking the tires to see if he would be willing to accept a certain amount, which they would be willing to carry, knowing they might have to drop it at some point.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Uribe Signing with D-gers: 3 years, $21M pending physical
The bad news is that the D-gers signed Juan Uribe to a reported/tweeted 3 year, $21M contract (see details at ExtraBaggs). It is pending him passing the physical, so unless there is some bad news there, he should be bleeding D-ger blue next season. I can't wish well to anyone who is a D-ger, though Juan is certainly a strong test case. I don't blame him for going though, that's a lot of money and who knows whether he'll get another chance at such a contract. He "only" made $4.25M with the Giants the past two seasons. That's 21 million different ways of happy.
Still, this is probably up there with Johnny Damon going from the Red Sox to the Yankees, though worse because of the long history of the Uribe name in Giants history (Jose Uribe will always be THE Uribe for the Giants, unlike what AJ Pierzitski thought, that SF stole that from Chicago, what a historian he is; ironically, Jose is truly the player to be named later, as his name was Jose Gonzalez when we got him in trade for Jack Clark, the only player to have any eventual significance for us from the trade, but he decided to go with his mother's maiden name because there were so many Jose Gonzalezs already in pro baseball. So it is only befitting because Jose Uribe is so unique, a one of a kind guy).
Giants Thoughts
The good news it that the Giants did not match the offer. That's just too much for him for what the Giants need. Juan's OK as a shortstop, but 2 years at $6M per at best, as reward for the 2010 season. The extra year is just too rich for my blood and then you top it off by going to $7M. No thank you, but thanks for a great 2010 season. And I think D-ger fans will start "Boo"-ribaying him at some point because right-handed hitters do poorer HR-wise in D-ger Stadium, it is just harder for them to hit homers there (while easier for lefties).
I think the Giants offense will be fine without Uribe in 2010. The "Someone new everyday" offense will continue to function fine, in fact, it should even be better because 1) Bumgarner pitches full season (meaning even less offense needed to win), 2) Posey plays full season, 3) Ross here all season (meaning less Rowand), 4) Torres starts full season (meaning less Rowand), 5) Sandoval should return to Panda-mojo status, and 6) we already signed Huff back. Torres, Franchez, Huff, Posey, Ross, Sandoval, plus OF and SS is a pretty good top of lineup, better if Burrell comes back as starting LF and hit as well, outstanding if Sandoval can reach 2010 levels of production.
And the pitching, which was basically MLB best (I think we ended up 2nd by barest of margins), should duplicate its 2010 season (or better). Cain and Sanchez had great seasons, but any downside for them are balanced by Lincecum looking so dominant with his new slider and having Bumgarner instead of Wellemeyer for half a season; Zito has pitched about the same the past two seasons, probably do about as well again.
Plus, the bullpen should be even better, the Giants spent the first half of the season trying to find relievers who could deliver and only Casilla delivered outside of regulars Wilson and Romo, plus Affeldt was struggling. Then Moto did OK, then Ray, and lastly Lopez and Ramirez were acquired, before Affeldt finally returned to 2009 goodness, and now the bullpen looks stellar with Wilson, Romo, Affeldt, Lopez, Casilla, and presumably Ray (former closer getting over surgery; could finally be healthy in 2011) and Ramirez (some speculate that one or the other might be non-tendered but I don't see that happening).
For SS, I've seen many names mentioned as possibilities, either signing or trading for, most noted in Baggerly: Derek Jeter, Orlando Hudson, Miguel Tejada, Cesar Izturiz, JJ Hardy, Jason Barlett, others I've seen include Marco Scutaro and Jose Reyes. Not that I think Crawford will ever be that great a shortstop, but I would rather not get anyone with big money attached, particularly in trade, because that would probably require the Giants giving up some talent, particularly pitching talent.
The Giants are nicely loaded in pitching but it takes only one or two injuries or poor performances, particularly after pitching more innings than ever before in 2010 by going deep into the playoffs, to make the Giants scramble to replace pieces. A trade of significant prospects would steal our depth, which is shallow right now (only Runzler is a possible backup starter for 2011 season right now) and would only get worse. If we can get away with lesser prospects, though, I would be OK with that.
Therefore, I would prefer to sign a free agent SS (and some might be non-tendered, like Hardy and Barlett, and become free agents) on the low side, who can play good defense (like Barlett or Izturiz). Hardy would be OK since he's like Uribe providing power from SS. Luckily, in the lineup I described above, we don't need to get offense from the SS position as he would probably bat 8th and for most 8th place hitters, any offense is a plus, just not expected.
And that is particularly so if Sandoval delivers as I expect him to, meaning a return to 2009 levels, and force his way up to the middle of the lineup (probably 5th), or if Belt delivers as I expect him to eventually, meaning something along the lines of Sandoval's 2008 or, dare we dream, 2009, which I think he's capable of, and which would push him also into consideration for middle of lineup duties. Our lineup can be monster if Sandoval and Belt hits as I expect along with Huff and Posey in the middle, plus Torres up top.
Side Note: Posey Awarded Again
Also today, Buster Posey was named to the 52nd Annual Topps Major League Rookie All-Star Team, after being named NL Rookie of the Year two weeks ago (which I forgot to note with a post). He beat out Atlanta's Jason Heyward easily for the ROY award, gaining 20 first place votes to only 9 for Heyward, despite "only" playing for about 4 months of the season. Buster was "humbled" by the recognition, befitting his modest and humble manner. Makes you want to just give him a big hug and say "you big lug!"
He was on every ballot (each voters only gets to vote 1-2-3) except for one, who left him off because he did not play the full season (the guy actually voted for Gaby Sanchez for 1st; he even shafted Jason Heyward too). Even if he weren't a Giants rookie, I don't see how one could do that, that's like saying quantity matters more than quality. Luckily, that was just his personal code of conduct, the rules are actually quite vague about what to consider when awarding ROY.
Posey joins a list of Giants greats and very goods: Willie Mays (1951), Orlando Cepeda (1958), Willie McCovey (1959), Juan Marichial (1962), John "the Count" Montefusco (1975), and Gary Mathews (1976). He also became the first catcher to win a ROY award and a World Series championship in the same season.
I loved this column by Gary Peterson of the Mercury (his column has been a welcome addition in the past year, I like his writing and this thoughts), here is an excerpt:
Still, this is probably up there with Johnny Damon going from the Red Sox to the Yankees, though worse because of the long history of the Uribe name in Giants history (Jose Uribe will always be THE Uribe for the Giants, unlike what AJ Pierzitski thought, that SF stole that from Chicago, what a historian he is; ironically, Jose is truly the player to be named later, as his name was Jose Gonzalez when we got him in trade for Jack Clark, the only player to have any eventual significance for us from the trade, but he decided to go with his mother's maiden name because there were so many Jose Gonzalezs already in pro baseball. So it is only befitting because Jose Uribe is so unique, a one of a kind guy).
Giants Thoughts
The good news it that the Giants did not match the offer. That's just too much for him for what the Giants need. Juan's OK as a shortstop, but 2 years at $6M per at best, as reward for the 2010 season. The extra year is just too rich for my blood and then you top it off by going to $7M. No thank you, but thanks for a great 2010 season. And I think D-ger fans will start "Boo"-ribaying him at some point because right-handed hitters do poorer HR-wise in D-ger Stadium, it is just harder for them to hit homers there (while easier for lefties).
I think the Giants offense will be fine without Uribe in 2010. The "Someone new everyday" offense will continue to function fine, in fact, it should even be better because 1) Bumgarner pitches full season (meaning even less offense needed to win), 2) Posey plays full season, 3) Ross here all season (meaning less Rowand), 4) Torres starts full season (meaning less Rowand), 5) Sandoval should return to Panda-mojo status, and 6) we already signed Huff back. Torres, Franchez, Huff, Posey, Ross, Sandoval, plus OF and SS is a pretty good top of lineup, better if Burrell comes back as starting LF and hit as well, outstanding if Sandoval can reach 2010 levels of production.
And the pitching, which was basically MLB best (I think we ended up 2nd by barest of margins), should duplicate its 2010 season (or better). Cain and Sanchez had great seasons, but any downside for them are balanced by Lincecum looking so dominant with his new slider and having Bumgarner instead of Wellemeyer for half a season; Zito has pitched about the same the past two seasons, probably do about as well again.
Plus, the bullpen should be even better, the Giants spent the first half of the season trying to find relievers who could deliver and only Casilla delivered outside of regulars Wilson and Romo, plus Affeldt was struggling. Then Moto did OK, then Ray, and lastly Lopez and Ramirez were acquired, before Affeldt finally returned to 2009 goodness, and now the bullpen looks stellar with Wilson, Romo, Affeldt, Lopez, Casilla, and presumably Ray (former closer getting over surgery; could finally be healthy in 2011) and Ramirez (some speculate that one or the other might be non-tendered but I don't see that happening).
For SS, I've seen many names mentioned as possibilities, either signing or trading for, most noted in Baggerly: Derek Jeter, Orlando Hudson, Miguel Tejada, Cesar Izturiz, JJ Hardy, Jason Barlett, others I've seen include Marco Scutaro and Jose Reyes. Not that I think Crawford will ever be that great a shortstop, but I would rather not get anyone with big money attached, particularly in trade, because that would probably require the Giants giving up some talent, particularly pitching talent.
The Giants are nicely loaded in pitching but it takes only one or two injuries or poor performances, particularly after pitching more innings than ever before in 2010 by going deep into the playoffs, to make the Giants scramble to replace pieces. A trade of significant prospects would steal our depth, which is shallow right now (only Runzler is a possible backup starter for 2011 season right now) and would only get worse. If we can get away with lesser prospects, though, I would be OK with that.
Therefore, I would prefer to sign a free agent SS (and some might be non-tendered, like Hardy and Barlett, and become free agents) on the low side, who can play good defense (like Barlett or Izturiz). Hardy would be OK since he's like Uribe providing power from SS. Luckily, in the lineup I described above, we don't need to get offense from the SS position as he would probably bat 8th and for most 8th place hitters, any offense is a plus, just not expected.
And that is particularly so if Sandoval delivers as I expect him to, meaning a return to 2009 levels, and force his way up to the middle of the lineup (probably 5th), or if Belt delivers as I expect him to eventually, meaning something along the lines of Sandoval's 2008 or, dare we dream, 2009, which I think he's capable of, and which would push him also into consideration for middle of lineup duties. Our lineup can be monster if Sandoval and Belt hits as I expect along with Huff and Posey in the middle, plus Torres up top.
Side Note: Posey Awarded Again
Also today, Buster Posey was named to the 52nd Annual Topps Major League Rookie All-Star Team, after being named NL Rookie of the Year two weeks ago (which I forgot to note with a post). He beat out Atlanta's Jason Heyward easily for the ROY award, gaining 20 first place votes to only 9 for Heyward, despite "only" playing for about 4 months of the season. Buster was "humbled" by the recognition, befitting his modest and humble manner. Makes you want to just give him a big hug and say "you big lug!"
He was on every ballot (each voters only gets to vote 1-2-3) except for one, who left him off because he did not play the full season (the guy actually voted for Gaby Sanchez for 1st; he even shafted Jason Heyward too). Even if he weren't a Giants rookie, I don't see how one could do that, that's like saying quantity matters more than quality. Luckily, that was just his personal code of conduct, the rules are actually quite vague about what to consider when awarding ROY.
Posey joins a list of Giants greats and very goods: Willie Mays (1951), Orlando Cepeda (1958), Willie McCovey (1959), Juan Marichial (1962), John "the Count" Montefusco (1975), and Gary Mathews (1976). He also became the first catcher to win a ROY award and a World Series championship in the same season.
I loved this column by Gary Peterson of the Mercury (his column has been a welcome addition in the past year, I like his writing and this thoughts), here is an excerpt:
Now, with the advantage of hindsight voters didn't have, it seems a no-brainer. Start with this: Posey became just the fifth National League Rookie of the Year to help his team win the World Series. And by help we mean:I couldn't agree more. Congrats to Buster Posey for his awards, clearly there will be many more in future seasons. Amazing what leadership he's already providing, he said this at the SF Giants 2010 World Series Championship Celebration Parade and he repeated it when he spoke on winning the ROY: “Let’s try to do it again next year.” We Giants fans are truly blessed to have him on our team, leading our team.
Leading the Giants in hits in the first-round win over Atlanta; tying for second on the team with three RBIs in the NLCS dethroning of Philadelphia; batting .300 with a homer in the World Series; blocking balls in the dirt; throwing out would-be base stealers; acting as a reassuring, mature-beyond-his-years presence for Giants pitchers.
Unprecedented contributions from a rookie? You could make that argument. Fernando Valenzuela won three postseason games (one in the World Series) for the Dodgers in 1981. Dustin Pedroia, Derek Jeter and Chuck Knoblauch were in the thick of championship postseasons for the Red Sox, Yankees and Twins in 2007, 1996 and 1991.
But none of the above consistently batted third or cleanup. None was so intimately involved with every pitch of every game. Posey played every inning of the postseason. If you don't believe us, ask backup catcher Eli Whiteside. The only time he made it off the bench was for the end-of-series pig pile at the pitcher's mound.
There's a reason there are only nine catchers among the 128 players who have been honored as Rookie of the Year since 1947. Catching is tough stuff. To ask a young player to catch at an elite level for a championship team is just begging for trouble.
It got the Giants a shiny gold trophy.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Your 2011 Giants: Huff Re-signs for 2 years, $22M, plus option
Well, it looks like Huff's children are covered now. :^)
I got this one totally wrong. Or at least, it was more than I thought the Giants had to pay and more than I would have paid given that we had Brandon Belt in the wings. But according to reports (Baggarly), the Giants matched an offer made by another team (that perhaps knew that the Giants had to match and thus made an offer that they figured the Giants would match).
What Huff got (Baggarly, Schulman, Haft) is a reported 2 years for $22M with a club option for a third year. He gets $10M per year plus $2M buyout, or the team would pick up another $10M contract for third year.
I have seen Brian Murphy of KNBR's morning team tweet that it basically replaces Renteria's contract. I proffered that if you include last year's $3M for him (a great bargain to be sure), it translates to a $23M contract for 3 years with a fourth year team option with $2M buyout, which is approximately what the Giants were going to pay Adam LaRoche (they offered 3 years at $21M) but that he turned down, thinking that they were going to negotiate further. Sidenote: I wonder if LaRoche would have accepted had he known that it was a take it or leave it deal? Given that he signed soon with Arizona for much less money, it suggested that he had no other real interest on the part of other teams but thought he (or at least his agent thought) could play the Giants for more money, but got burned in the end.
Sabean also noted in the press conference that the Giants might not be able to keep all their arbitration eligible players now because the Giants spent so much money on Huff. He noted the need to shuffle around money to be able to afford Huff (which is what he did in 2003 when he signed Michael Tucker to a contract early in order to lose a draft pick and not have to pay $1.5M in bonus). He also noted that Uribe is seeing a lot of interest because he is being viewed as a viable option at 3B as well as SS. Perhaps relatedly, he mentioned that he had spoken with the agent for a free agent SS. Sabean also affirmed that Cody Ross will be kept and will be starting in 2011.
Giants Thoughts
To be clear, I am not comfortable with deals with mid-30's players for many years or a lot of money, particularly ones coming off a bad season, but I can see why the Giants might do that with the players they have signed and can see how they might rationalize that. So don't kill the messenger.
That's why I thought the Giants deal for Huff was great last off-season, it was low cost, low risk, high reward and boy did he pay off big time.
This new contract was a fair contract, in line with what players of his performance level is getting, given the economic climate and all that. I really thought that he wouldn't get an offer this high given his age, his 2009 season, and his eccentric behavior and personality. And there is some risk given these factors.
However, if he can perform closer to his 2008 and 2010 seasons and not close to his 2009 season, this contract is fair for both sides. And I think that there is good odds that he can do this again, despite his age, and why 2010 was not as fluky as it might appear.
First, 2010 was the first season that Huff acknowledged Father Time and got into a fitness program to get into shape for the coming season. He apparently took it very seriously and got himself into great shape, according to a former coach who was interviewed about Huff in the pre-season. Hopefully this pays future dividends by convincing Rowand to step up from the lame mountain bike fitness program he got into last off-season and do something more serious.
Second, as I noted in a post about Huff last off-season, it was 2009 that was the fluky season, not 2008. His batting ratios (K%, K/BB, BB%) were all within the boundaries of his career norms but it was his BABIP that was horribly bad. In fact, his season with Baltimore, while bad for his career, wasn't horribly out of line for an off year, it was when he went to Detroit, where the park penalizes LH hitters a bit while Baltimore's Camden helps LH hitters. In addition, by then, he was very unhappy with the team, said some nasty burn the bridge comments about the town/fans on the radio, which probably scared some teams off of him, causing him to fall to the Giants, and that probably contributed to his down season. He should be still pretty happy in 2011 vs. 2009.
Third, his batting line for 2010 are not that out of line with his career either. He has had OPS in this range 4 times before, albeit 3 times was in his mid-20's when he was in much better shape. Still, he had a similarly good season in 2008, so two of his three last seasons have been very good (.912 and .891 OPS) and one was very bad (.694 OPS). He has had ISO's this large 4 times before as well. BABIP of .303 in 2010 vs. .293 for his career.
His Ratio Batting was in line with his career as well. HR% of 3.9% vs. 3.8% for his career. XBH% was right near his career average (9.9% vs. 9.5%). Good K% of 13.6% as usual (13.2% career). He did have his best year ever in BB% with 12.4% (10.0% prior high) so that was up there and probably drop. LD% of 20% vs. 19% career. HR/FB of 11.5% vs. career 10.2%, and he has been over 10.5% five times before.
So I'm OK with the deal, I think for marketing purposes, they had to sign him, as well as baseball reasons, as there were really no better alternatives for replacing his 2010's numbers other than getting him, because the alternatives would have costed just as much or more, and he has intangibles that the team saw in 2010 and values. I can live with the big contract, more than with other signings, as he is actually coming off a good year and getting a fair contract (though slightly overpriced rather than discounted as I had hoped).
What Happens Next
Now, I wonder how this move dominoes. First off, re-signing Uribe is probably unlikely right now. He would need to sign a similar contract to before in order for the Giants to sign him and he's not going to do that or get that type of offers. He should be getting numbers similar to Sanchez and DeRosa's 2 years for $12M. I think the Giants will offer him arbitration and pick up a draft pick that way should he sign away, and if not, they get him for one year at probably a fair salary for just 2011. But I don't see how he would accept arbitration, there should be better long-term offers on the table.
Second, this allows the Giants to give Belt more time to spend in the minors and hone his skills, something they were unable to do with Pablo in 2008-9 (not that he needed that, but perhaps he could have gotten on a better fitness plan in the meanwhile). He could then do the Posey plan and come up mid-season, which would then push Huff to LF.
Thirdly, speaking of the outfield, the Giants are not really that set out there. Torres appears to be a lock but he'll be 33 next season. He's only one year younger than Huff! So age could start to creep in, though I recall reading that players with his body type and skills tend to last longer and older. Ross is slated to be the starter, but he's in similar straits as Huff was, he had fine seasons previously, but had a down year in 2010, much like Huff did in 2009. Ross will be 30 in 2011. Perhaps the Marlins losing got to him, but maybe it was time for his body to fail him. So there is some question marks on him too.
The other potential starters are iffy too. DeRosa was the starting LF at the start of 2010 but at this point, I think the Giants are hoping he can be the emergency starter at a number of positions, much like Uribe was in 2008 and 2009. He can play 2B and 3B, as well as LF and RF, at high defensive value, probably could do it at 1B, and started out as a SS as a pro, so he could take a game or three there to rest the starter. Schierholtz has had chances, and probably will be given a chance again in 2011, but I just don't see it happening, as much as I've been rooting for him to. And Rowand I've written off as a bench player unless as I noted above, he takes his fitness seriously and earn CF back to start 2011 (with Ross in LF and Torres in RF).
Should there be too many performance failures in the OF in 2011, I can see the Giants moving Huff to LF and bringing up Belt at the first moment he appears ready to come up. I think if 2010 was 2008, Belt would have been brought up much like Sandoval and Ishikawa was in 2008, and would have had a strong shot at winning the starting spot the next season, like them too. I think he still has a shot, but he's going to have to prove that he belongs, rather than look pretty good, to win the 1B starting job.
Fourth, since Uribe is probably gone now for monetary reasons, the Giants are probably kicking the tires with free agent shortstops who are very good defensively but bad offensively in order to get a cheap starter for 2011. Players like Adam Everett or Cesar Izturis (his brother is in the Giants minors). They might also look into players they have been rumored to like, such as JJ Hardy (rumors is that he'll be non-tendered) and Jack Wilson (best bud with Franchez, but would have to be traded by Mariners). Baggarly also mentioned that players such as Jose Reyes of Mets and Rollins of Phillies might be traded away, though I cannot imagine getting either without giving up a good prospect like Belt or Wheeler.
Lastly, I think that this means that Burrell will eventually sign with the Giants. Sabean noted that he would talk with Burrell after he settles some other business first. That means that he hasn't been ruled out despite Huff signing and the current log-jam of OFs. I think them being such good buddies, I don't see how Burrell would make it hard for the Giants to sign him as he would like to play with Huff once more.
And he's already made it easy. Despite starting most of the 2010 season for the Giants, he already said late in the season that he's willing to come back to the Giants in 2011 as a bench player. That means he is saying he is willing to sign for low money just to play for the team, the Giants just need to ask. And right now, the Giants could use low-cost players who could pay off big, like Huff and Burrell did in 2010. Given the uncertainty in the OF, having Burrell around as backup, much like in 2010, he could step in should there be an injury or lack of performance, and it would be low risk since he won't be signing for much, if he is really a bench player.
Overall, as a fan, I'm happy about the move. I am not happy about the price but accept it as a price of keeping him around and improving our chances of repeating in 2011. Hopefully he can repeat similar hitting in 2011 and 2012. If he can, the Giants have a great chance of making it into the playoffs again, then see where our pitching leads us next time.
I got this one totally wrong. Or at least, it was more than I thought the Giants had to pay and more than I would have paid given that we had Brandon Belt in the wings. But according to reports (Baggarly), the Giants matched an offer made by another team (that perhaps knew that the Giants had to match and thus made an offer that they figured the Giants would match).
What Huff got (Baggarly, Schulman, Haft) is a reported 2 years for $22M with a club option for a third year. He gets $10M per year plus $2M buyout, or the team would pick up another $10M contract for third year.
I have seen Brian Murphy of KNBR's morning team tweet that it basically replaces Renteria's contract. I proffered that if you include last year's $3M for him (a great bargain to be sure), it translates to a $23M contract for 3 years with a fourth year team option with $2M buyout, which is approximately what the Giants were going to pay Adam LaRoche (they offered 3 years at $21M) but that he turned down, thinking that they were going to negotiate further. Sidenote: I wonder if LaRoche would have accepted had he known that it was a take it or leave it deal? Given that he signed soon with Arizona for much less money, it suggested that he had no other real interest on the part of other teams but thought he (or at least his agent thought) could play the Giants for more money, but got burned in the end.
Sabean also noted in the press conference that the Giants might not be able to keep all their arbitration eligible players now because the Giants spent so much money on Huff. He noted the need to shuffle around money to be able to afford Huff (which is what he did in 2003 when he signed Michael Tucker to a contract early in order to lose a draft pick and not have to pay $1.5M in bonus). He also noted that Uribe is seeing a lot of interest because he is being viewed as a viable option at 3B as well as SS. Perhaps relatedly, he mentioned that he had spoken with the agent for a free agent SS. Sabean also affirmed that Cody Ross will be kept and will be starting in 2011.
Giants Thoughts
To be clear, I am not comfortable with deals with mid-30's players for many years or a lot of money, particularly ones coming off a bad season, but I can see why the Giants might do that with the players they have signed and can see how they might rationalize that. So don't kill the messenger.
That's why I thought the Giants deal for Huff was great last off-season, it was low cost, low risk, high reward and boy did he pay off big time.
This new contract was a fair contract, in line with what players of his performance level is getting, given the economic climate and all that. I really thought that he wouldn't get an offer this high given his age, his 2009 season, and his eccentric behavior and personality. And there is some risk given these factors.
However, if he can perform closer to his 2008 and 2010 seasons and not close to his 2009 season, this contract is fair for both sides. And I think that there is good odds that he can do this again, despite his age, and why 2010 was not as fluky as it might appear.
First, 2010 was the first season that Huff acknowledged Father Time and got into a fitness program to get into shape for the coming season. He apparently took it very seriously and got himself into great shape, according to a former coach who was interviewed about Huff in the pre-season. Hopefully this pays future dividends by convincing Rowand to step up from the lame mountain bike fitness program he got into last off-season and do something more serious.
Second, as I noted in a post about Huff last off-season, it was 2009 that was the fluky season, not 2008. His batting ratios (K%, K/BB, BB%) were all within the boundaries of his career norms but it was his BABIP that was horribly bad. In fact, his season with Baltimore, while bad for his career, wasn't horribly out of line for an off year, it was when he went to Detroit, where the park penalizes LH hitters a bit while Baltimore's Camden helps LH hitters. In addition, by then, he was very unhappy with the team, said some nasty burn the bridge comments about the town/fans on the radio, which probably scared some teams off of him, causing him to fall to the Giants, and that probably contributed to his down season. He should be still pretty happy in 2011 vs. 2009.
Third, his batting line for 2010 are not that out of line with his career either. He has had OPS in this range 4 times before, albeit 3 times was in his mid-20's when he was in much better shape. Still, he had a similarly good season in 2008, so two of his three last seasons have been very good (.912 and .891 OPS) and one was very bad (.694 OPS). He has had ISO's this large 4 times before as well. BABIP of .303 in 2010 vs. .293 for his career.
His Ratio Batting was in line with his career as well. HR% of 3.9% vs. 3.8% for his career. XBH% was right near his career average (9.9% vs. 9.5%). Good K% of 13.6% as usual (13.2% career). He did have his best year ever in BB% with 12.4% (10.0% prior high) so that was up there and probably drop. LD% of 20% vs. 19% career. HR/FB of 11.5% vs. career 10.2%, and he has been over 10.5% five times before.
So I'm OK with the deal, I think for marketing purposes, they had to sign him, as well as baseball reasons, as there were really no better alternatives for replacing his 2010's numbers other than getting him, because the alternatives would have costed just as much or more, and he has intangibles that the team saw in 2010 and values. I can live with the big contract, more than with other signings, as he is actually coming off a good year and getting a fair contract (though slightly overpriced rather than discounted as I had hoped).
What Happens Next
Now, I wonder how this move dominoes. First off, re-signing Uribe is probably unlikely right now. He would need to sign a similar contract to before in order for the Giants to sign him and he's not going to do that or get that type of offers. He should be getting numbers similar to Sanchez and DeRosa's 2 years for $12M. I think the Giants will offer him arbitration and pick up a draft pick that way should he sign away, and if not, they get him for one year at probably a fair salary for just 2011. But I don't see how he would accept arbitration, there should be better long-term offers on the table.
Second, this allows the Giants to give Belt more time to spend in the minors and hone his skills, something they were unable to do with Pablo in 2008-9 (not that he needed that, but perhaps he could have gotten on a better fitness plan in the meanwhile). He could then do the Posey plan and come up mid-season, which would then push Huff to LF.
Thirdly, speaking of the outfield, the Giants are not really that set out there. Torres appears to be a lock but he'll be 33 next season. He's only one year younger than Huff! So age could start to creep in, though I recall reading that players with his body type and skills tend to last longer and older. Ross is slated to be the starter, but he's in similar straits as Huff was, he had fine seasons previously, but had a down year in 2010, much like Huff did in 2009. Ross will be 30 in 2011. Perhaps the Marlins losing got to him, but maybe it was time for his body to fail him. So there is some question marks on him too.
The other potential starters are iffy too. DeRosa was the starting LF at the start of 2010 but at this point, I think the Giants are hoping he can be the emergency starter at a number of positions, much like Uribe was in 2008 and 2009. He can play 2B and 3B, as well as LF and RF, at high defensive value, probably could do it at 1B, and started out as a SS as a pro, so he could take a game or three there to rest the starter. Schierholtz has had chances, and probably will be given a chance again in 2011, but I just don't see it happening, as much as I've been rooting for him to. And Rowand I've written off as a bench player unless as I noted above, he takes his fitness seriously and earn CF back to start 2011 (with Ross in LF and Torres in RF).
Should there be too many performance failures in the OF in 2011, I can see the Giants moving Huff to LF and bringing up Belt at the first moment he appears ready to come up. I think if 2010 was 2008, Belt would have been brought up much like Sandoval and Ishikawa was in 2008, and would have had a strong shot at winning the starting spot the next season, like them too. I think he still has a shot, but he's going to have to prove that he belongs, rather than look pretty good, to win the 1B starting job.
Fourth, since Uribe is probably gone now for monetary reasons, the Giants are probably kicking the tires with free agent shortstops who are very good defensively but bad offensively in order to get a cheap starter for 2011. Players like Adam Everett or Cesar Izturis (his brother is in the Giants minors). They might also look into players they have been rumored to like, such as JJ Hardy (rumors is that he'll be non-tendered) and Jack Wilson (best bud with Franchez, but would have to be traded by Mariners). Baggarly also mentioned that players such as Jose Reyes of Mets and Rollins of Phillies might be traded away, though I cannot imagine getting either without giving up a good prospect like Belt or Wheeler.
Lastly, I think that this means that Burrell will eventually sign with the Giants. Sabean noted that he would talk with Burrell after he settles some other business first. That means that he hasn't been ruled out despite Huff signing and the current log-jam of OFs. I think them being such good buddies, I don't see how Burrell would make it hard for the Giants to sign him as he would like to play with Huff once more.
And he's already made it easy. Despite starting most of the 2010 season for the Giants, he already said late in the season that he's willing to come back to the Giants in 2011 as a bench player. That means he is saying he is willing to sign for low money just to play for the team, the Giants just need to ask. And right now, the Giants could use low-cost players who could pay off big, like Huff and Burrell did in 2010. Given the uncertainty in the OF, having Burrell around as backup, much like in 2010, he could step in should there be an injury or lack of performance, and it would be low risk since he won't be signing for much, if he is really a bench player.
Overall, as a fan, I'm happy about the move. I am not happy about the price but accept it as a price of keeping him around and improving our chances of repeating in 2011. Hopefully he can repeat similar hitting in 2011 and 2012. If he can, the Giants have a great chance of making it into the playoffs again, then see where our pitching leads us next time.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Molina Teleconference and Sanchez Shoulder Surgery
Molina has been officially signed by the Giants and there was a press conference earlier today. Reports from Baggarly's blog (and his news account) and John Shea of the Chronicle. Here are key points covered, including the surprising news that came out of a KNBR interview last night with Bruce Bochy, where he casually noted that Freddy Sanchez had shoulder surgery about a month ago and is on the bubble for making the start of the season.
Unlike many others, I have no problem with the signing, particularly since it would give Posey more time to get more experience in the minors. It should also give us one more year of control over him, plus the learning he would have done in 2010 would have costed us one year of control, while now he will get some of that learning in AAA before hopefully getting called up in July or August (or even September), and getting to play a little backing up Bengie plus learning from Molina.
I'm upset about Sanchez but I'll get over it (unlike others). He should only be out for two weeks, and that should not kill our chances of winning while he is out, because Uribe is a good enough replacement. Hey, one year Schmidt was out until May, and we came back and started winning and had a good year. As long as we don't fall too far behind while he is out, we should be OK.
Still, something has got to be done about the training staff, we seem to have all these unknown medical conditions that creep up on us, starting around when Bonds knee that was suppose to keep him out for a little while instead kept him out almost all season.
Guzman: hey, thanks for the excitement you gave us for a little while, good luck.
- Molina is officially a Giant, signing a $4.5M contract. Bengie noted that the Mets never offered a multi-year contract, else he probably would have took it, and only offered him a $5.0M contract (my note: most reports had it at $5.5M), so he decided that he would rather be where he was comfortable than get $500K more (my note: but apparently did not mention the $1.5M option that he could earn that most sources reported). He also said that he expects the Giants to be making the playoffs, unlike the Mets. He believes the Giants are "very, very close" to making something special happen.
- Nice quote: "The plan is to move him down in the lineup, possibly sixth. "I never considered myself a fourth hitter. I thought I was doing them a favor," said Molina, adding he'll bat wherever manager Bruce Bochy wants him. "I can hit behind the pitcher if he wants me there."
- Molina said he texted Posey and assured him that he wasn't there to take his job (though probably he did, unless the Giants signed another starting catcher) and offered to be there for him for anything. Posey then called back and they chatted. Sabean reiterated that Posey needed more seasoning in the minors, though he didn't rule out Posey starting the season as the backup catcher. Bu the expectation is that he'll get to start everyday in AAA and continue his learning with Steve Decker (former Giants catcher) who is now Fresno's manager (moving up the farm system). Baggarly noted that it's possible he will receive a promotion at some point this season. Molina said, "I said I'm happy to help out with whatever he needs. If they want to bring him up and do their thing, hey, I understand."
- Sanchez had left shoulder surgery on December 23rd. The Giants Dr. Akizuki, who is on their staff, repaired a torn labrum and cleaned up an arthritic AC joint arthroscopically. Apparently the Giants did 4 MRIs on him before signing him, but like the medical shows, missed the torn labrum, which went unnoticed until Sanchez started swinging a bat again. He is expected to be out 10-12 weeks, meaning that Opening Day is in doubt, but the expectation is that he'll be 100% once he does take the field. I can understand the mistake, but when so many of them are being made, it makes you wonder what is going on with our training staff. The good news is that Sanchez is working his butt off to make opening day and it is encouraging thus far.
- Juan Uribe is our starting 2B until Sanchez gets back. That's why we signed him, insurance in case some regular is unable to start or needs a rest. I was hoping the Giants might play DeRosa there instead and let two young players start in the OF, but I can see the merits of keeping DeRosa out in LF since he doesn't have the most experience out there (though over a season's worth of games in the OF).
- They reported that both Burriss and Renteria were doing well. Renteria told the Giants that he's excited about where he's at. Hopefully that will translate to his hitting like he did when he was a plus hitter, that would be a boon to our offense.
- The Giants DFAed Jesus Guzman to clear space for Molina. Sabean noted that any other acquisitions would come on minor league contracts with invitations to spring training, including additional right-handed relievers.
Unlike many others, I have no problem with the signing, particularly since it would give Posey more time to get more experience in the minors. It should also give us one more year of control over him, plus the learning he would have done in 2010 would have costed us one year of control, while now he will get some of that learning in AAA before hopefully getting called up in July or August (or even September), and getting to play a little backing up Bengie plus learning from Molina.
I'm upset about Sanchez but I'll get over it (unlike others). He should only be out for two weeks, and that should not kill our chances of winning while he is out, because Uribe is a good enough replacement. Hey, one year Schmidt was out until May, and we came back and started winning and had a good year. As long as we don't fall too far behind while he is out, we should be OK.
Still, something has got to be done about the training staff, we seem to have all these unknown medical conditions that creep up on us, starting around when Bonds knee that was suppose to keep him out for a little while instead kept him out almost all season.
Guzman: hey, thanks for the excitement you gave us for a little while, good luck.
Monday, January 11, 2010
I'll Huff and I'll Puff: Giants Sign Aubrey Huff for $3M
As reported by ExtraBaggs, Chronicle, and sfgiants.com, the Giants are expected to sign Aubrey Huff to a contract pending a physical. Baggarley and the Chron reports that it is for $3M and one year. No indication where he will play, will have to wait for the Giants press conference to announce this, probably tomorrow.
But that hasn't stopped the speculation on where he might play. Obviously, with his experience playing 1B, 3B, and OF (mostly RF), he's another flexible cog in the lineup who is expected to supply left-handed power. He's usually been a key RBI producer for most teams he's been on, and that's what has kept him in the lineup despite his poor defense.
There has also been speculation on what this means for Travis Ishikawa, since Huff was a 1B/DH last season for Baltimore then Detroit. And, de riguer, the usual hand twisting over Sabean not being fit to be our GM.
Giants Thoughts
Where to start? First, this is a great deal. $3M gamble on a proven hitter who had a bad 2009 (and 2007 as some like to note) but even he at his current apparent skill level is probably one of the better hitters on the 2010 Giants, which people forget is the main point, not that Huff is just a shadow of his former self. Bill James project that he'll hit .267/.334/.445/.780 with 20 HR (though now reduced by AT&T) and that would be good in the Giants lineup. And he is a career .282/.340/.472/.812 hitter with 203 HR. His strikeout rate supports a continuation of a high batting average, as it has mainly been under the 15% that you want hitters at or below, and he also walks a lot to boot, and have pushed that rate up in recent years, though his strikeout rate has gone up as well, to poor levels last year.
His 2009 was affected greatly by playing in Detroit, which was one of the extreme pitcher's parks in the majors when it first opened but has moderated since then as their hitters figure out the park (much like AT&T in its early years, and it still greatly affects LHH) but appears to still affect players new to it. He still hit .253/.321/.405/.725 in Baltimore with 13 HR before moving on to Detroit where his HR/FB ratio fell from 9.7% to 6.5%.
In addition, he suffered some some extreme bad luck on the road in 2009, with a BABIP of .245 where his road BABIP was .295 for his career. However, some of that might be a decline in his abilities, as his road BABIP was .274 where his career is .290. However, that is mostly a Detroit effect as his home BABIP in Baltimore was .297, which is right in line with his career numbers, it was his elevated strikeout rate that contributed to his offensive decline with Baltimore.
All this suggest that Huff might not be on his last legs but could have a comeback offensively. Particularly if he doesn't play that much against LHP, which for some reason he played proportionally more against in 2009, another reason why his numbers overall were down, as he is not a great hitter against LHP, though OK for a LHH.
Defensively, he's actually much better at 1B than 3B (though still slightly negative), so the odds are that he'll be playing at 1B mostly for the Giants as Sabean said that they want to keep Sandoval at 3B. Of course, with Ishikawa also a LHH and 1B, Travis probably will not see a lot of starting time in 2010 or, as some speculated, will be released at some point. Huff is also capable of playing in the OF, but mostly poorly in RF.
I think this move saves Ishikawa as a reserve on the team whereas if we had signed LaRoche, Ishikawa's days were probably numbered. The Giants need a backup who can take over for Huff if he is really done for his career or if he struggles too long adjusting to AT&T and a new team. In addition, obviously Huff is not the answer long-term at 1B and the Giants don't really have an option at 1B in the minors close, though Thomas Neal with a strong season in AA could put his name in play and Bowker could always move there too. And Ishikawa is much stronger defensively than Huff at 1B, as OK Huff is there defensively (UZR is only slightly negative at 1B in limited play).
Huff looks like he'll be our #3 hitter now, having done the best in that lineup position during his career, though the Giants could put him 5th and DeRosa 3rd. With a relatively high BA, high OBP, plus high SLG, that makes sense. Looks like the lineup will be Sanchez 2nd, Huff 3rd, Sandoval 4th, DeRosa 5th is relatively set, maybe swapping Huff and DeRosa, possibly with Rowand leading off (for now). That leaves Renteria, Schierholtz/Bowker, and Posey to bat 6/7/8, probably with the RF 6th, then Renteria and Posey batting 7/8 depending on the situation.
Using the Bill James projections, this Giants lineup is estimated to produce 4.63 runs scored per game. With last year's pitching and fielding producing a defense of 3.77 runs allowed per game, and assuming they can do the same in 2010, the Giants would have a 95 win season, and be a very strong contender for the NL West title.
I also see a lot of shifting around that might happen. When Sandoval rests, I can see Huff playing 3B against RHP for sure, else Uribe. Huff has been great hitting against RHP during his career, and he did OK against them in 2009 for Baltimore. If Schierholtz or Bowker fail to win RF, Huff could start instead in RF if Ishikawa does enough to beat out Schierholtz or Bowker. Obviously if Huff fails, Ishikawa would be there to take over but if Bowker does well enough, he could take LF, push DeRosa to 3B, and Sandoval to 1B.
There are a lot of fallback positions the Giants could take and not take a huge hit in the lineup should any of our new additions or any of our young potential starters fail to produce. I think that this balances improved offensive production with giving opportunities to our young prospects to succeed or fail.
I would have preferred going with the young prospects, but the Giants management is focused more on continuing the gains they made last season and improving in 2010 relative to 2009 in order to greatly improve the odds of competing for the NL West division title. I think that Ishikawa, when including his stellar defense, would provide as much production at 1B as Huff. But at $3M, Huff is not that expensive and Ishikawa, as much as he produced last year, there are still question marks that, if unanswered, could spell another disastrous year of production from 1B.
Now Giants management can focus on signing our arbitration eligible players and perhaps sign one or two to contract extensions (hopefully Lincecum and maybe Wilson or Sanchez). Also, perhaps they can sign Sandoval to a nice long-term extension going into his free agent years, that would be good.
But that hasn't stopped the speculation on where he might play. Obviously, with his experience playing 1B, 3B, and OF (mostly RF), he's another flexible cog in the lineup who is expected to supply left-handed power. He's usually been a key RBI producer for most teams he's been on, and that's what has kept him in the lineup despite his poor defense.
There has also been speculation on what this means for Travis Ishikawa, since Huff was a 1B/DH last season for Baltimore then Detroit. And, de riguer, the usual hand twisting over Sabean not being fit to be our GM.
Giants Thoughts
Where to start? First, this is a great deal. $3M gamble on a proven hitter who had a bad 2009 (and 2007 as some like to note) but even he at his current apparent skill level is probably one of the better hitters on the 2010 Giants, which people forget is the main point, not that Huff is just a shadow of his former self. Bill James project that he'll hit .267/.334/.445/.780 with 20 HR (though now reduced by AT&T) and that would be good in the Giants lineup. And he is a career .282/.340/.472/.812 hitter with 203 HR. His strikeout rate supports a continuation of a high batting average, as it has mainly been under the 15% that you want hitters at or below, and he also walks a lot to boot, and have pushed that rate up in recent years, though his strikeout rate has gone up as well, to poor levels last year.
His 2009 was affected greatly by playing in Detroit, which was one of the extreme pitcher's parks in the majors when it first opened but has moderated since then as their hitters figure out the park (much like AT&T in its early years, and it still greatly affects LHH) but appears to still affect players new to it. He still hit .253/.321/.405/.725 in Baltimore with 13 HR before moving on to Detroit where his HR/FB ratio fell from 9.7% to 6.5%.
In addition, he suffered some some extreme bad luck on the road in 2009, with a BABIP of .245 where his road BABIP was .295 for his career. However, some of that might be a decline in his abilities, as his road BABIP was .274 where his career is .290. However, that is mostly a Detroit effect as his home BABIP in Baltimore was .297, which is right in line with his career numbers, it was his elevated strikeout rate that contributed to his offensive decline with Baltimore.
All this suggest that Huff might not be on his last legs but could have a comeback offensively. Particularly if he doesn't play that much against LHP, which for some reason he played proportionally more against in 2009, another reason why his numbers overall were down, as he is not a great hitter against LHP, though OK for a LHH.
Defensively, he's actually much better at 1B than 3B (though still slightly negative), so the odds are that he'll be playing at 1B mostly for the Giants as Sabean said that they want to keep Sandoval at 3B. Of course, with Ishikawa also a LHH and 1B, Travis probably will not see a lot of starting time in 2010 or, as some speculated, will be released at some point. Huff is also capable of playing in the OF, but mostly poorly in RF.
I think this move saves Ishikawa as a reserve on the team whereas if we had signed LaRoche, Ishikawa's days were probably numbered. The Giants need a backup who can take over for Huff if he is really done for his career or if he struggles too long adjusting to AT&T and a new team. In addition, obviously Huff is not the answer long-term at 1B and the Giants don't really have an option at 1B in the minors close, though Thomas Neal with a strong season in AA could put his name in play and Bowker could always move there too. And Ishikawa is much stronger defensively than Huff at 1B, as OK Huff is there defensively (UZR is only slightly negative at 1B in limited play).
Huff looks like he'll be our #3 hitter now, having done the best in that lineup position during his career, though the Giants could put him 5th and DeRosa 3rd. With a relatively high BA, high OBP, plus high SLG, that makes sense. Looks like the lineup will be Sanchez 2nd, Huff 3rd, Sandoval 4th, DeRosa 5th is relatively set, maybe swapping Huff and DeRosa, possibly with Rowand leading off (for now). That leaves Renteria, Schierholtz/Bowker, and Posey to bat 6/7/8, probably with the RF 6th, then Renteria and Posey batting 7/8 depending on the situation.
Using the Bill James projections, this Giants lineup is estimated to produce 4.63 runs scored per game. With last year's pitching and fielding producing a defense of 3.77 runs allowed per game, and assuming they can do the same in 2010, the Giants would have a 95 win season, and be a very strong contender for the NL West title.
I also see a lot of shifting around that might happen. When Sandoval rests, I can see Huff playing 3B against RHP for sure, else Uribe. Huff has been great hitting against RHP during his career, and he did OK against them in 2009 for Baltimore. If Schierholtz or Bowker fail to win RF, Huff could start instead in RF if Ishikawa does enough to beat out Schierholtz or Bowker. Obviously if Huff fails, Ishikawa would be there to take over but if Bowker does well enough, he could take LF, push DeRosa to 3B, and Sandoval to 1B.
There are a lot of fallback positions the Giants could take and not take a huge hit in the lineup should any of our new additions or any of our young potential starters fail to produce. I think that this balances improved offensive production with giving opportunities to our young prospects to succeed or fail.
I would have preferred going with the young prospects, but the Giants management is focused more on continuing the gains they made last season and improving in 2010 relative to 2009 in order to greatly improve the odds of competing for the NL West division title. I think that Ishikawa, when including his stellar defense, would provide as much production at 1B as Huff. But at $3M, Huff is not that expensive and Ishikawa, as much as he produced last year, there are still question marks that, if unanswered, could spell another disastrous year of production from 1B.
Now Giants management can focus on signing our arbitration eligible players and perhaps sign one or two to contract extensions (hopefully Lincecum and maybe Wilson or Sanchez). Also, perhaps they can sign Sandoval to a nice long-term extension going into his free agent years, that would be good.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
DeRosa Press Conference
Andy Baggarly has a report on the conference call announcing the signing of DeRosa:
- No set position or place in the lineup yet for DeRosa. He don't mind as long as he's in the lineup everyday.
- Sandoval is still floating as well, either 1B or 3B, depending on where the Giants can add another bat.
- Still looking for another hitter. Will focus on 5th starter and catcher later. In previous talks, already said he would be happy starting the season with Bumgarner as the last starting pitcher and Posey the starting catcher, though he would prefer to start Posey in the minors.
- Giants have an offer to Uribe still. Could win the starting position at 3B.
- The Giants are LaRoche were miles apart during the winter meetings; unlikely to do anything.
- Holliday's contract demands price him above where the Giants are willing to go.
- Adrian Beltre appears to not be on the Giants pursuit list.
- Giants trainers were "pleasantly suprised at the condition of [DeRosa's] wrist when he had his physical. Expects to be 100% by spring training.
- Other teams viewed him as a contingency plan in case they didn't land a better one, and he didn't like being Plan B. Plus, he wanted to be able to choose where he goes versus being forced to go somewhere.
- Bochy likes DeRosa batting 5th. I think that's a good spot too, because his OBP is relatively high for the team, plus his SLG is generally high because of his HR power.
- He likes playing infield as that is where he came up as, but he's willing to do whatever the team wants, whatever is best for the team. He is fine with giving Bochy a lot of options, he realizes that is what got him to this point in his career.
Monday, December 28, 2009
You Say DeLefty, I Say DeRosa
Most reports are stating that the Giants are signing Mark DeRosa to a 2 year, $12M contract. Hank Schulman has his blog entry on it, Yahoo has one on that plus signing Uribe, and the ever reliable MLB Trade Rumors has a post on it, chronicling the timeline.
Judging from the posts there and elsewhere, fans are not that enamored with the deal. Some say it's an overpay, others say that he's not the answer, and there are the few who like the deal.
Giants Thoughts
I don't have any problem with the signing of DeRosa. His versatility gives the Giants a lot of options around the diamand plus another power bat in the lineup, along with decent OBP. We have a lot of question marks - LF, RF, 1B, C - and he can fill 3 of those. He can also play 2B and 3B.
Thus if Bowker, Lewis, and Schierholtz all struggle, DeRosa could be a steady offensive producer in the corner OF. It looks like Ishikawa is being given another chance to start at 1B against RHP, so when there is a LHP starting, DeRosa could play either 2B or 3B, with Sanchez playing the other position, and Sandoval would move to 1B. If anybody is injured or going through a bad stretch, DeRosa could pitch in there. He's going to be our goto super-utility guy.
I'm OK with Uribe if he's not signed to too much money. People love him but he played above his head in 2009, he's not likely to repeat that performance. He's more likely to repeat his 2006, 2007, 2008 performances where he wasn't that good. And that's OK, he's out backup player at 2B, 3B, and SS plus is another power bat off the bench.
This also does not negate the possibility of the Giants signing a power hitting 1B or LF either. DeRosa is probably going to be, at minimum, the hitter getting all the ABs against LHP when Ishikawa sits. Sanchez hasn't made it through a season without some rest, and Rowand will need some more rest as well, as Bochy noted, so DeRosa could play RF for a game with Schierholtz taking over CF, which he did on occasion in the majors. Not an ideal situation long term, but for a game here and there, it's tolerable.
I think his salary is OK. $5M would have been better but $6M is fair enough for his versatility and his ability to play for significant parts of a season and performing well doing that. His age is a concern, but even with the injury, he still hit 10 HR in 239 AB, so it was not his power gone, it was his ability to get base hits and getting on base that suffered.
And as I've noted, the offense even with no other moves should be improved over 2009's and DeRosa would nudge it up a little more. And with our pitching as good as it was, it won't take much more to push us to the 90-95 win range, which should be good enough to compete for the NL West title.
Judging from the posts there and elsewhere, fans are not that enamored with the deal. Some say it's an overpay, others say that he's not the answer, and there are the few who like the deal.
Giants Thoughts
I don't have any problem with the signing of DeRosa. His versatility gives the Giants a lot of options around the diamand plus another power bat in the lineup, along with decent OBP. We have a lot of question marks - LF, RF, 1B, C - and he can fill 3 of those. He can also play 2B and 3B.
Thus if Bowker, Lewis, and Schierholtz all struggle, DeRosa could be a steady offensive producer in the corner OF. It looks like Ishikawa is being given another chance to start at 1B against RHP, so when there is a LHP starting, DeRosa could play either 2B or 3B, with Sanchez playing the other position, and Sandoval would move to 1B. If anybody is injured or going through a bad stretch, DeRosa could pitch in there. He's going to be our goto super-utility guy.
I'm OK with Uribe if he's not signed to too much money. People love him but he played above his head in 2009, he's not likely to repeat that performance. He's more likely to repeat his 2006, 2007, 2008 performances where he wasn't that good. And that's OK, he's out backup player at 2B, 3B, and SS plus is another power bat off the bench.
This also does not negate the possibility of the Giants signing a power hitting 1B or LF either. DeRosa is probably going to be, at minimum, the hitter getting all the ABs against LHP when Ishikawa sits. Sanchez hasn't made it through a season without some rest, and Rowand will need some more rest as well, as Bochy noted, so DeRosa could play RF for a game with Schierholtz taking over CF, which he did on occasion in the majors. Not an ideal situation long term, but for a game here and there, it's tolerable.
I think his salary is OK. $5M would have been better but $6M is fair enough for his versatility and his ability to play for significant parts of a season and performing well doing that. His age is a concern, but even with the injury, he still hit 10 HR in 239 AB, so it was not his power gone, it was his ability to get base hits and getting on base that suffered.
And as I've noted, the offense even with no other moves should be improved over 2009's and DeRosa would nudge it up a little more. And with our pitching as good as it was, it won't take much more to push us to the 90-95 win range, which should be good enough to compete for the NL West title.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Giants Sign Affleldt: 2 years, $8M
The Giants have announced the signing of lefty reliever Jeremy Affeldt, 2 years, $8M. Reports on this at sfgiants.com, Extra Baggs, The Splash (Chron), and SF Chronicle (Schulman).
As Sabean usually does when he has money, he goes out and get the best or one of the best free agents available. That doesn't always work (Benitez for example) but we knew those negatives the moment we got him, whereas from what I've been reading, there is hardly a negative to be found on Affeldt. From what I read among the various reports, Affeldt was considered one of the better free agents to pursue this off-season, one of the two best lefties (Damaso Marte was the other, re-signed by the Yankees), and Fangraphs' Dave Cameron wrote a post called, "Free Agent Bargain: Jeremy Affeldt," arguing that perhaps he was the best available reliever withou consideration for the money he would get, which would make him an even better bargain. And, of course, there was the post I just posted this morning reporting another site's determination that Affeldt was the best choice among the relievers when not pursuing a closer and wanting to avoid giving up your draft pick.
Dave Cameron had this to note about Affeldt:
Well, I quoted most of his article, but there was a lot of good stuff there about him. The more I hear about him, the more I like him. I remember him when he was with KC, really up and down, and he was on my radar, but I just didn't have time to analyze all the relievers in detail. So I'm glad other sites did.
Clearly he matured and developed the past couple of seasons and we have him on a relatively economic 2 year, $8M contract, for his age 30 and 31 seasons. That is pretty good considering he's on an uptrend, he's reaching his peak years, and that fall off in performance don't normally happen until ages 33-34
So now the bullpen is Brian Wilson, Jeremy Affeldt, Sergio Romo plus, in the mix, Jack Taschner, Alex Hinshaw, Billy Sadler, Osirus Matos, and, if he is back from injury, Merkin Valdez. And I suppose Yabu too. That's not too bad overall, that was a swift and smart move by Sabean to land Affeldt so quickly. I'm looking forward to 2009!
As Sabean usually does when he has money, he goes out and get the best or one of the best free agents available. That doesn't always work (Benitez for example) but we knew those negatives the moment we got him, whereas from what I've been reading, there is hardly a negative to be found on Affeldt. From what I read among the various reports, Affeldt was considered one of the better free agents to pursue this off-season, one of the two best lefties (Damaso Marte was the other, re-signed by the Yankees), and Fangraphs' Dave Cameron wrote a post called, "Free Agent Bargain: Jeremy Affeldt," arguing that perhaps he was the best available reliever withou consideration for the money he would get, which would make him an even better bargain. And, of course, there was the post I just posted this morning reporting another site's determination that Affeldt was the best choice among the relievers when not pursuing a closer and wanting to avoid giving up your draft pick.
Dave Cameron had this to note about Affeldt:
- "one of the more underrated pitchers in the game..."
- "in 2008, he took a pretty big step forward. His average velocity went from 92.3 MPH a year ago to 94.6 MPH, and his CB saw a similar improvement (going from 76.9 to 79.1). Adding several ticks to both pitches moves him into the power pitcher category, and it showed in his results."
- "His swinging strike rate (data from statcorner.com) jumped from 7.6% last year to 10.8% this year, putting him in the company of guys like Grant Balfour, Joakim Soria, and Kerry Wood." That improved his strikeout rate to 9.19 K/9 and helped reduce his walk rate to 2.87 BB/9, both very good.
- "In a lot of cases, a pitcher will add velocity by switching to a four seam fastball and pitching up in the zone, but that’s not the case here - Affeldt continued to pitch down in the zone, posting a career high 54.4% GB%." That's something I hadn't seen about Affeldt yet, that despite being a power pitcher, he also got a lot of groundballs. That is very similar to what Lincecum does, strikeout a lot as well as get a lot of groundballs. That high GB% leads to a low FB% which leads to fewer HR given up, even though his HR/FB was high in 2008 (partially due to playing in Cincinnati).
- Summary: "Based on 2008, Affeldt has shown an entirely new skillset as compared to his major league career, adding a couple of ticks to both his fastball and curve, which have transformed him into one of the game’s best left-handed relievers. Because his curve is a legitimate second pitch, he shows almost no platoon split, and is equally effective against both LHB and RHBs. His stuff is clearly closer-worthy, and while he has no experience as the 9th inning guy, some smart team would be wise to give him a two or three year contract for setup man money and watch him blossom into one of the game’s best relief aces."
- "There’s a good case to be made that Jeremy Affeldt is the best reliever available this winter, while most of baseball has no idea who he is."
Well, I quoted most of his article, but there was a lot of good stuff there about him. The more I hear about him, the more I like him. I remember him when he was with KC, really up and down, and he was on my radar, but I just didn't have time to analyze all the relievers in detail. So I'm glad other sites did.
Clearly he matured and developed the past couple of seasons and we have him on a relatively economic 2 year, $8M contract, for his age 30 and 31 seasons. That is pretty good considering he's on an uptrend, he's reaching his peak years, and that fall off in performance don't normally happen until ages 33-34
So now the bullpen is Brian Wilson, Jeremy Affeldt, Sergio Romo plus, in the mix, Jack Taschner, Alex Hinshaw, Billy Sadler, Osirus Matos, and, if he is back from injury, Merkin Valdez. And I suppose Yabu too. That's not too bad overall, that was a swift and smart move by Sabean to land Affeldt so quickly. I'm looking forward to 2009!
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
BA on Giants Signing of Rafael Rodriguez
Baseball America doesn't always make available free content, but this time they did on the Giants signing of Rafael Rodriguez.
As one can see from the handy list of the top bonuses paid, there is no guarantee that a big bonus is going to result in a good starting player. Failures include Wily Mo Pena, Joel Guzman, Byung-Hyun Kim, and Chin-Hui Tsao.
The good news is further confirmation of the general overall impression of Rodriguez's potential. They noted, "Rodriguez has good raw power and a projectable hitter's frame. A righthanded batter, Rodriguez has plenty of tools—he's an above-average runner with an above-average arm—but some scouts weren't sold on his hitting mechanics and overall feel for hitting."
In addition: "From a tools perspective," said one international scouting director, "you're not gonna find a better kid." That is a pretty good endorsement for his tools. Of course, as the examples above shows, tools don't always translate.
Giants Thoughts
Still, the importance of this move is still the same as before.
First and foremost, this is a continuation of the Giant's commitment to the International free agent market, with the second-highest bonus ever paid. This is a necessary tactic for any team, whether good or bad. This combined with astute selections in the draft will speed the rebuilding process.
Second, this is a continuation of the Giant's commitment to the farm system. People have incorrectly labeled the Giants as uncaring or disdainful of the farm system. Nothing could be further from the truth, just look at how the farm system's products defines the major league roster. This is a major investment in the farm system that should continue with the signing of Buster Posey.
Third, another highly touted position player has been added to the farm system. Obviously, the Giants need more position prospects who have high potential. Whether he conflicts with Nate Schierholtz in the future or not is immaterial: it is better to deal with the problem of two good players in RF than risk that we have no future power-hitting RF should Schierholtz falter.
The Giants re-building continues apace and looks better and better to this observer of matters of the Orange and Black. It don't really matter that most of their development has been in the pitching ranks: that is the hardest to find, hardest to harvest, and where, as I've been trying to show in my "Hey Neukom" series, true strategic advantage lies in building a baseball team structured to maximize their chances of winning in the playoffs, according to the latest baseball theories and studies have shown, and success is related to excellence in the pitching staff - starters, closer and bullpen - and defense, not to offense. Offense is necessary only to the extent that you can win with that offense and that defense/pitching.
With the addition of Villalona and Rodriguez, the Giants are continuing their re-build of their position prospects in their farm system. By the time they should be ready to join the majors, our starters should be done with their inconsistency problems and ready to win consistently with their stuff. Hopefully they will be enough to provide the offense necessary to win with our defense and pitching. In any case, our pitching staff right now is good enough to build around, now we need to fill the blanks in the lineup. We need at least three good hitters in the future lineup. Rodriguez is a good addition who may fill one of those blanks.
As one can see from the handy list of the top bonuses paid, there is no guarantee that a big bonus is going to result in a good starting player. Failures include Wily Mo Pena, Joel Guzman, Byung-Hyun Kim, and Chin-Hui Tsao.
The good news is further confirmation of the general overall impression of Rodriguez's potential. They noted, "Rodriguez has good raw power and a projectable hitter's frame. A righthanded batter, Rodriguez has plenty of tools—he's an above-average runner with an above-average arm—but some scouts weren't sold on his hitting mechanics and overall feel for hitting."
In addition: "From a tools perspective," said one international scouting director, "you're not gonna find a better kid." That is a pretty good endorsement for his tools. Of course, as the examples above shows, tools don't always translate.
Giants Thoughts
Still, the importance of this move is still the same as before.
First and foremost, this is a continuation of the Giant's commitment to the International free agent market, with the second-highest bonus ever paid. This is a necessary tactic for any team, whether good or bad. This combined with astute selections in the draft will speed the rebuilding process.
Second, this is a continuation of the Giant's commitment to the farm system. People have incorrectly labeled the Giants as uncaring or disdainful of the farm system. Nothing could be further from the truth, just look at how the farm system's products defines the major league roster. This is a major investment in the farm system that should continue with the signing of Buster Posey.
Third, another highly touted position player has been added to the farm system. Obviously, the Giants need more position prospects who have high potential. Whether he conflicts with Nate Schierholtz in the future or not is immaterial: it is better to deal with the problem of two good players in RF than risk that we have no future power-hitting RF should Schierholtz falter.
The Giants re-building continues apace and looks better and better to this observer of matters of the Orange and Black. It don't really matter that most of their development has been in the pitching ranks: that is the hardest to find, hardest to harvest, and where, as I've been trying to show in my "Hey Neukom" series, true strategic advantage lies in building a baseball team structured to maximize their chances of winning in the playoffs, according to the latest baseball theories and studies have shown, and success is related to excellence in the pitching staff - starters, closer and bullpen - and defense, not to offense. Offense is necessary only to the extent that you can win with that offense and that defense/pitching.
With the addition of Villalona and Rodriguez, the Giants are continuing their re-build of their position prospects in their farm system. By the time they should be ready to join the majors, our starters should be done with their inconsistency problems and ready to win consistently with their stuff. Hopefully they will be enough to provide the offense necessary to win with our defense and pitching. In any case, our pitching staff right now is good enough to build around, now we need to fill the blanks in the lineup. We need at least three good hitters in the future lineup. Rodriguez is a good addition who may fill one of those blanks.
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