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.

Paying Forward: Sanchez and Sandoval

I was going to do two different posts but, basically, both are two stories of paying forward so I put them together. First, I will cover how Jose Uribe's contributed to Pablo Sandoval's development. Then I will cover how The Big Unit is helping out with Jonathan Sanchez's development. I think this justifies every penny we are paying Randy Johnson, and leads me to say that if Johnson wants to pitch next year, we should re-sign him and let Bumgarner and Alderson spend a full year in AAA in 2010 in preparation for joining our starting rotation in 2011.

Uribe and Sandoval: Tying the Knot

Most of you probably don't know this but I got my start doing this sort of stuff by writing about the Giants for Fanhome (which then became Scout.com; the Giants section was called SF Dugout back then), which was fed out to Yahoo. Here is a link to my first article, which explained that Jose Uribe helped with Vladimir Guerrero's early development by coming by his neighborhood and donating nine gloves to the kids, which allowed them to play baseball properly. And the rest, as they say, is history, Vlad eventually was signed and became the great player that he is today.

Remembering the kindness of Uribe, Vlad has been paying forward, bringing not only gloves, but clothes and other equipment, as well as building a proper baseball field. As accounted in today's article by the great Andy Baggarly in the San Jose Mercury, one day he donated a bunch of his used footwear to a cousin of his, who happened to be in the Giants farm system, but when it didn't fit his cousin, he passed it on to a fellow player on that short-season team who did have size 11 feet, Pablo Sandoval. Sandoval told Vlad, when they were on the field together in this last series, that Vlad's shoes got him to the big leagues.

And that seems totally appropriate because there have been a lot of comments about how Sandoval's hitting reminds people of how Vlad hits because, while he swings at a lot more pitches than most hitters, particularly out of the strike zone, he's able to position himself so that he gets the barrel on the ball and get hits. After starting out cold to start the season (many new starters appear to get the yips early on before getting their bearings), Sandoval has been bringing things up a notch, little by little, culminating in his recently ended 10 game hitting streak, where he hit .471 including four homers.

He is now hitting .330, good for fifth in the NL, which is bringing talk that perhaps he can be a perenial contender for the batting title. People complain that he doesn't take walks (or balls) but as Bochy noted in Baggarly's article, Tony Gwynn never got a lot of walks either, because players like him and Sandoval usually can put the ball in play when they swing the bat.

Baggarly had a nice discussion on how the Sandoval is adjusting his batting tactics this season, per the Giants suggestions. Not wanting to kill their golden goose, the Giants don't want to discourage his "bad-ball brilliance" but rather, show a more discerning eye at the plate. That would also explain his slow start, as he worked on doing that instead of just swinging and hitting.

The stats Baggarly noted on show that he's improving. His pitches per plate appearance is up 10%, from 3.11 last season to 3.46 so far this season. He is also swinging at the first pitch much less as well, only 45% this year vs. 50% last year. In addition, overall, he is swinging at only 58% of pitches this year vs. 64% last year. The results: he is hitting .330/.373/.536/.909.

That's why walks are overrated by the Giants fanbase and sabermetricians, who parrot the Moneyball line about OBP. Ultimately, if you have the choice between two similar players with the same OBP, you want the one who has the higher batting average, which by definition therefore has a lower walk rate, because the batting average boost both OBP and SLG. That's the ying and yang of offense, you want to both get on base (OBP) and drive in baseruners (SLG). That's a nuance that escapes many: of course, it's better, given the choice, to take a walk rather than make an out, but if a guy can hit well and not strike out much at the same time, a low walk rate is not bad. It didn't hurt Tony Gwynn, nor did it hurt Vlad.

Of course, there are few who can hit like Gwynn or Vlad. But so far in his career (careeer batting line of .336/.367/.518/.885) and only at the tender age of 22 (he'll be 23 in mid-August), Sandoval is doing a pretty good imitation of them.

As noted by Baggarly, one of the fears has been that pitchers would adjust to his aggressive tendencies this season, and he would not hit like he did last season. I didn't think that would happen because teams have known about his aggressive tendencies since he first joined the Giants, and every year, at every level, the pitchers were not able to control Kung Fu Panda. In fact, he figured them out more often than they figured him out:

2006 - A: 17.0% K%
2007 - A+: 13.0% K%
2008 - A+: 14.3% K%
2008 - AA: 11.4% K%
2008 - MLB: 9.7% K%
2009 - MLB: 14.7% K%

And while his K% went up this season, it should be noted that his BB% has gone up too, making his BB/K rise from last year's 0.29 to this season's 0.39, and that a major league hitter who can keep his K% at 15% and lower is among the elite of the league. The batting average of hitters who can keep their K% between 10% and 14% average around .285 batting average.

And with his increase in BB%, he greatly improved his batting average potential. For hitters who strike out as much as Sandoval is right now, those who walk at 5% and under average only a .269 batting average, while those above 5% to 10%, average a .279 batting average. He is also hitting more doubles as well.

I would also note that his cartoon-ish high .367 BABIP last year - each hitter's BABIP is individual - is being repeated this year, as his BABIP is currently .361. If this is his normal level of production, he would be one of the highest in the majors right now and, as noted, a perenial contender for the batting title.

Mike Scioscia was quoted in Baggarly's article:

"I tell you, he's a special talent at the plate. On video, we saw him hit some balls a really long way. The thing I notice is he's got good balance at the plate. There are some things you can try to do, but you don't have the margin of error you might have with other hitters wh ohave soft zones. He's too strong and his bat is too quick. You can try to get under his swing, and we've done it a couple of times. But if you don't get it there, you've seen what can happen."

I think I'll end with Vlad's comment to Baggerly:

"Leave him alone. If he's hitting the ball like that, hey, let him hit."

Yoda Unit and Luke Sanchez

In a nice article by Andrew Pentis, it discusses how The Big Unit, Randy Johnson, is actively mentoring Jonathan Sanchez. That is one of the benefits that was discussed about adding Johnson to the team. I won't go through all the details - and there is a lot of great detail, so I recommend going there if you want that - but would note that Johnson is giving a ship-load of advice to Sanchez and being a hard taskmaster.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that would explain to me how Sanchez has been so up and down (mostly down) this season. He is thinking too much on the mound, and so he reverts back to his learning mode, which as Malcolm Gladwell noted in his article about choking and the art of failure. And that's not a bad thing in the long run, but has been pretty bad in the short run.

He is being driven by lofty goals. He wants to be like his fellow rotation mates - and that's a tall order with the current Cy Young winner, three Cy Young winners in total, and one (Cain) looking to be in the hunt for the Cy Young this season. He also wants to pitch 7 innings every time, but has rarely made the 7th, let alone pitch through it. And, so these goals could also be affecting him as well, making him think too much.

A player, including particularly a pitcher, need to be able to do everything that they do reflexively and subconsciously, using muscle memory, or they will get what people call "the yips". That is demonstrated when a catcher suddenly cannot throw the ball to the pitcher, launching towards secondbase, or an infielder who suddenly cannot throw to a base without throwing it over the fielder's head. I think this explains Sanchez's regression this year.

I think it will all pay off eventually, but "when" is the operative word. The team cannot wait much longer for him to start putting it all together. We have been good enough to still be over .500 even with him sucking so badly, but now that we are so close to the prize - a playoff spot, as they are only 1 game behind St Louis - the Giants are trying to shore up the weak points on the team. That's why Burriss was sent down to AAA so quickly, without waiting for Frandsen to be available to call up, and that is why Fred Lewis has become the 4th OF and Schierholtz has been seeing regular starts now - he has started in 6 of his and the Giants last 7 games.

I think that the Giants will skip at least one of his starts, that has been Bochy's M.O., and if he doesn't make enough progress, perhaps another one, and just let him relieve and get his mind back into order by giving it a rest. Hopefully that will be enough, but perhaps Johnson should also skip on his lectures for now until after the All-Star break, to give his pupil a mental break. Sometimes you are getting so many instructions that you feel overwhelmed.

That's what happened when I learned how to drive a stick shift. My friend, bless his heart, taught me how to drive, but was constantly in my face about everything that I needed a break and ended the lesson. I drove home and then just leisurely drove around my quiet neighborhood and, once the pressure was off, I was soon shifting very well (though once I burned some rubber and revved the engine, catching the attention of a couple of cute girls, who appeared to think I was doing that to impress them).

I think that Sanchez after the break will be more like the dominant pitcher he was last season, than the lost pitcher he has been this season. He has been pitching scared and thinking too much to let his abilities show, and the break will do him well. But I think that Johnson will have to be less of the stern teacher and more the supportive buddy to help with that.

Still, overall, based on the great reportage by Pentis, I would have to say that the Randy Johnson Experiment has been a great success. The details of how he has been tutoring Sanchez has been amazing. I was leaning towards letting him go and getting a draft pick for him, maybe, but now I think we have to resign him and let him work on helping our young prospects in the minors during the September call-ups (you have to think that Bumgarner and Alderson will be up here) and spring training next year. He, himself, hasn't been that great overall, but has been OK enough that we are winning games with him pitching and is worth the tradeoff in terms of him helping Sanchez reach his potential. I hope we keep him.