Your 2018 Giants: Arbitration Signings All Done (as usual)

Been meaning to write but then the McCutchen trade went through:  the Giants signed all five of their arbitration eligible players.  That is what the Giants have mostly done in the Sabean era, avoid arbitration.  Only he who must not be named has ever took the Giants to arbitration under Sabean (he who left, really blew everything there), though Lincecum and Belt were close to it twice, before a deal was struck before the actual meeting, the scheduled day.

Here are the contracts along with the estimates made by Matt Swartz:

• Will Smith:  $2.5M ($2.5M; exact)
• Cory Gearrin:  $1.675M ($1.6M;  above by $75K)
• Sam Dyson:  $4.425M ($4.6M; below by $175K)
• Joe Panik:  $3.45M ($3.5M;  below by $50K)
• Hunter Strickland:  $1.55M ($1.7M; below by $150K)

Total was $13.6M, which was $300K lower than the estimates.

Your 2016 Giants: Belt Signs Five Year Extension for Total 6 years, $79M

News per Pavlovic (who appears to be the one who broke the news, saw his Tweet first) and Baggarly.

• Extends the $6.2M contract he signed to avoid arbitration this season.  At that time, Giants FO said it was a springboard to a longer term deal.
• Sets 2017 salary at $8.8M, covering his last arbitration year.  $6M gets paid beginning of year as signing bonus (does anyone know what accounting advantage teams get from doing this?)
• Then from 2018 to 2021, four years at $16M each
• Total:  6 years, $79M, just edging his Brandon buddy's $75M 
• Limited no-trade clause specifying 10 teams that he can't be traded to

Covers him to his 33 YO season.  He's says he's happy to be able to stay here with the rest of the core of the team.  Gave the team all the credit for his maturation as a ballplayer, and stated his appreciation for the organization.  

Evans also noted the fan and media speculation of Posey playing at 1B eventually.  He stated that there has not been any internal discussions of that, that Posey is considered the quarterback behind the plate and a major reason why pitchers like pitching for the Giants.  And thus no internal talk about moving Belt to another position.  

Your 2016 Giants: Belt Signed for $6.2M

Per reports, Brandon Belt has signed with the Giants for $6.2M one year deal.  For those who cared, it appears that Schulman tweeted it first, Heyman the first to note the amount, and here are Baggarly and Pavlovic reports.

Other pertinent bits of info:

• Belt asked for $7.5M and the Giants offered $5.3M, with a midpoint of $6.4M.  He got a little lower than that.  MBLTR had projected a $6.2M signing, so they hit the proverbial nail on the head.
• This is his third arbitration season , and 2017 will be his last one (he was a Super Two), after which he can become a free agent.  
• They were scheduled to meet yesterday and it would have been the first arbitration hearing to happen since he who shall not be named (but initialed, AJP) in 2004, though both Lincecum and Belt had come very close to having a hearing before (Lincecum and the Giants were waiting outside the arbitrator's door when his agent approached Sabean for one last try; Belt had flown to the arbitration session's site, missing the first full-time spring training session, but came to an agreement without the Lincecum dramatics).  
• It was noted that Evans had previously stated that the Giants are talking with Belt's agent about an extension, but that first they work on the one year deal.  
• Baggarly reported:  With Belt under contract, the Giants have committed more than $160 million (counting prorated portions of signing bonuses) to 16 players. The rest of their unsigned players have less than three years of service time and their salaries, which are determined by the club, will be at or just above the major league minimum of $507,500.
• Pavlovic reported:  Belt made $2.9 million in 2014 and $3.6 million last season. He is scheduled to be a free agent after the 2017 season but the Giants have indicated a willingness to try and reach a long-term agreement.

ogc thoughts

It is great that he signed.  I was a little worried because of the spread (and the beat writers fanning my worries) but the Giants under Sabean has famously been extremely adverse to going to arbitration with their players, and so I wasn't too worried.  Sabean had noted before the problems of the arbitration hearing, as the format forces the team to tear down the player in order to "win" the arbitration hearing by having the arbitrator select the team's offer.  Krukow also noted this adversarial aspect in one of his recent early morning KNBR shows, noting the damage it can cause to the team's relationship with the player.  Thus, the Giants usually gets their guy signed, all except for one guy during Sabean's reign.

The Unmentionable Mr. P

Colletti was the guy in charge of getting AJP to agree to a deal, but, first, screwed up by low-balling the player (via the information from The Sporting News, one would know this; they noted that the expected amount was $3.0M, and they asked for $3.5M while Colletti offered only $2.25M, no wonder they lost) and then was unable to convince .   No wonder AJP wanted to go to arbitration and not yield, and that was a perfect example of and start to his time with us, unyielding, uncooperative, unproductive.

I still suspect that Colletti was the one who engineered this trade, mainly because Magowan has publicly stated that he would have vetoed had he known about it.  But also, during that time, Colletti talked on KNBR admiringly and incessantly about how Sabean had been great as a boss, allowing his assistant GM's to do more than just their duties, to do things like engineer trades (and he noted this more than once), so that is another seed in my doubt.  (and I think Sabean was allowed to do this by his predecessor, as he has been credited for doing the Rueter trade, and continued that policy)

Furthermore, Magowan could have used his time complaining and covering his behind by naming Sabean explicitly, but instead chose not to name anyone, allowing everyone to assume it was the GM.  One would think that while clearing his own name from that fiasco of a trade, he would have specifically stated "when Sabean did not bring this to me" but didn't.  Plus, it is publicly known that Magowan has leaked things before about people, like Baker's tax issues, so he's willing to name names before, but didn't here.  Why?  But I digress.

Long-Term Extension

Hopefully the Giants are still working on a longer term deal, getting some of his FA years, but I fear that it'll just be a two year term at best.  I believe the issue has been more that Belt's side has been pricing to his potential that he has shown in spurts but never over a full season.  Like Crawford, I think his agent wants to see a breakout season (like Crawford had in 2015) before committing to a long term deal.  Hopefully 2016 is the year and he can stay healthy all season.

Based on the 40/60/80% rule, the Giants have been valuing Belt at these amounts:

• 2014:  $2.9M, which I used 30%, equals roughly $10M market value
• 2015:  $3.6M, using 40%, equals $9M market value
• 2016:  $6.2M, using 60%, equals roughly $10.3M market value

Thus, they have been valuing Belt at around $10M market value throughout, for the most part.  His 2015 value took a hit because of how poorly he did in 2014, but 2015 pushed him back on track.

How About the Pence?

I saw a comment on Shankbone's site, I think, that Belt is looking for a Freeman deal, but should accept a Pence deal.  I see the validity of that.  Pence's arb deals put his market value at around $14-15M (from what I recall) and he eventually got a deal valuing him at $18M per season.   Any deal for Belt's FA years would start with his 30 YO season, so a 5-6 years deal is probably the max he might get.  So a Pence deal for $18M AAV, 5 years, would seem to be about right, given the MLB inflation since then, and his production so far, 2014 notwithstanding (and his problems that season was caused by Scutaro hitting Belt in the head with a thrown ball, so it was just an unfortunate accident and not poor production on Belt's part).

Though, as some note, both beat writers and fans, perhaps the reticence in a deal might have to do with what happens to Belt if and when Posey is moved off the catching position.   But I don't see that as a big problem for either side.  If it were, the Giants would not be the ones announcing that they are probing a long term deal with Belt and from the players side, most players would take the $80M then worry about where he's playing next, assuming that's a price point they are interested in.  

From reading his blog, he seems to be a really normal type of guy, much like Crawford, his Brandon-in-Crime, and enjoying his time with the Giants.  And hopefully he saw the value of the Giants pushing him to change before, due to the success he has experienced since taking the Domonic Brown advice via Sir Bam Bam's intervention.  So I don't see any overt reasons for him not to be amenable to a long term deal, and if anything, he might appreciate what the Giants have done for him and the team environment that they have.

But there are factors that we don't know much about.  Both he and his wife does come from Texas, and so perhaps they would like to return there sooner than later.  Or maybe he's one of those players who want to go to their boyhood team and have an emotional press conference announcing the signing, like Brett Butler and Jason Schmidt, who loved the Dodgers.  Belt is young enough that he could, say, help the Rangers get over the hump and finally win the World Series, or Astros, who are on an upswing in their team cycle towards competitiveness and he could be a vet who has done it twice (hopefully at least one more before he goes free agency route) who can help guide the young players.  So there are possible reasons why he don't want to sign with the Giants long-term.  We'll just have to see what happens.

Payroll and Mid-Season Implications

Because of the oddities between how the threshold is calculated and the payroll that the Giants publicizes, while they are over the threshold and paying the penalty tax, roughly $3.5M over for a $1M penalty tax, once all the pre-arbs are signed for roughly the minimum, they are $14M less than the $180M payroll that I'm using as the upper limit of where they might go up to in 2016.

How I got to $180M:  Baer noted that they were at $170M in 2015 (currently at $166M for signed and pre-FA players) and expect it to go up some, and $180M is a bit more than 5% increase (almost 6%, but I like round numbers and there is a national contract kicking in :^), which is the inflation rate FG has been using lately for $/WAR calculations.

So the Giants have a buffer of anywhere from $4M to $14M to spend on acquiring players in 2016 season. Given the "buy high" risky buys of Cueto and Samardzija, have to think that they would be willing to go to high end of that range if they see the need and opportunity to win and get into playoffs during the trading period, to pick up needed players.

Your 2014 Giants: Belt signs one year deal at $2.9M

Hank Schulman tweeted that Belt got $2.9M deal for 2014.

Your 2014 Giants: Vogelsong Signs for one year, $5M plus incentives

According to reports (for example, Schulman), Vogelsong will be signing for $5M plus incentives that could bring him above $6.5M.  That's on top of the $300K he got in the buyout of the team option (which was for $6.5M) in his prior contract.  It's been noted that the Giants saves $1.2M from the prior team option that they could have exercised instead of the buyout.

Your 2014 Giants: Javier Lopez Re-signed to three-year $13M Contract

As reported by all the usual suspects (here is the Haft analysis, for example), Javier Lopez signed a three-year $13M contract with the Giants and it just became official yesterday, after he had his physical.  To get him onto the 40-man roster, which was filled up by the recent promotion of minor leaguers ahead of the Rule 5 Draft, the Giants outrighted Jose Mijares to AAA, who, after clearing waivers (i.e. no team wanted to take him onto their 40 man roster, most likely because they would have to go into arbitration with him), elected for free agency instead of AAA, probably in hopes of finding a major league roster at a lower (but still higher than minor league pay) price point.  He was already being rumored to be a non-tender candidate (MLBTR had him pegged at $2.1M via arbitration)

Lopez was swayed by Sabean stating that the Giants wanted him back last season, apparently on more than one occasion.  It was "a big deal" to Lopez, as he had never had a GM do that before.  However, not swayed enough to sign before becoming a free agent, and it was reported that he had interest from up to 10 teams.  The biggest competition for his services had been reported to be the Nationals, because he grew up in the DC area and still have family and friend there who were hoping he would sign there.  However, he noted that he wants "to finish up as a Giant and that was ultimately a better place for me at this time."

ogc thoughts

About time, I was getting a little worried that the Nats might sway him, even though reporters noted that he would probably bring any deal to the Giants before moving on.  That is a great contract, it covers his 36, 37, and 38 YO seasons and as a LOOGY, he don't get used much, so his arm is still relatively unused, plus, in general, LHP seem to have longer careers.  It is also great as it worked out to $4.3M per season, and I and many others thought that he would end up with $6M per season.  And he just had his best season ever, so even if he declined some, he would still be great.  I'm very happy with this signing.

Looking at his stats, I noticed a very interesting anomaly, which speaks to the Giants magic with pitchers.  At the time he was acquired, his K/9 was 5.5 K/9 and BB/9 was 4.2, for a 1.33 K/BB and while he was pitching OK for Pittsburgh before he was traded to us, it was around his career numbers, 5.1 K/9 and 4.2 BB/9, 1.22 K/BB, though lower, as he had his worse season ever in 2009, where he was totally lost (6.9 BB/9!).  Here is his Giants career numbers:  7.4 K/9, 3.3 BB/9, 2.24 K/BB, all very good numbers and a stark contrast with his career numbers before.  Before, 25% of inherited runners scored under his watch, with the Giants 12%.  And he had his best season ever in this too, with only 11% scoring, low before Giants was in 2004 with 13% and he had 19% in 2003, but from 2005 to 2010, before we got him, he had a 30% inherited runners scoring on him (for comparison, in 2013, the Giants overall had 29% - and that is including his amazing numbers, and the league average was 27%).  Now you see why the Giants had to get him back.

Relievers are not Fungible

And, of course, the sabers are probably laughing at this deal right now.  Many believe that relievers are fungible and easily replaceable and thus money should be spent elsewhere.   The A's epitomizes this concept with Beane getting rid of his closers like a fantasy baseball team, picking up good assets in return.  There is an article out there pointing out how easily teams could replace their closer, that having an experienced closer is not that valuable, since these teams could replace their prior, failing, closer so easily.

The problem, for me, is that this is not true.  If it was, we would not have gone through the Benitez Experience and the aftermath of that.  If Nen's production was easy to replace, then why wasn't the transition smoother, it took years before we got Wilson as a true valid replacement of Nen.  And for all you Sabean Naysayers, it is not just the Giants having this problem, other teams do too, plus the Giants history with the bullpen is pretty good overall, we have usually had a strong bullpen throughout the Sabean era, as well as picking up good relievers that others discarded, like Casilla and Eyre.

And just because you have a closer does not mean that he will come through for you when the chips are down in the playoffs.  You may be able to easily replace a closer, but none of the analysis I've ever seen on this subject takes into account the quality of the replacement.  Saves are always going to go to someone, and even the worse teams in the league will have a guy saving 30 games, just because someone has to get that opportunity.

Put another way, if finding good relievers is so easy and cheap, then why do so many clubs have problems with their bullpen?  Teams know their talent, studies have shown this, so then it would be an easy matter of dumping the pitchers who are not good and inserting in the good relievers that you can find so easily and cheaply.  By this logic then, every team should be able to have a bullpen group that is incredibly good.  The whole house of cards that sabers have built on their relievers are fungible concept falls apart given how hard it is to find good relievers, let alone good closers.

The Giants have had a great luxury over the past few years.  They have had at least three guys capable of closing for them:  Romo, Casilla, and Affeldt, plus Wilson previously.  If Hembree makes the team, we could be back up to four again, depending on Affeldt coming back from his injury marred season (I do expect that).   If you want that mass of talent in the back of your bullpen, you need to pay for them eventually.

Mijares Era is Over

We hardly knew ye!  He had an OK season, 4.22 ERA, but great 9.9 K/9 and 2.70 K/BB, which are all very good pitching peripherals, plus Bill James reported him at 63% strikes thrown and 16% swinging strikes, both good numbers, and he'll be only 29 YO next season, so why the DFA?  He could even be a pretty good LOOGY if given the chance, LHB only hit .276/.343/.367/.710 against him, very low OPS (though, wow, very high batting average and OBP), great 4.38 K/BB, and excellent 35 K's out of 109 PA.  I think it was a combination of things.

First of all, he's a reliever, but he wasn't good with runners inherited.  He allowed 41% of his runners to score, one of the highest on the team (second highest for relievers with 25 or more inherited runners; FYI, Dunning was first with 44%).  As noted above, the league average is 27%, so he was pretty bad.  And he had the second most inherited runners, with 46, only Lopez was higher (making his 11% even more impressive).

Secondly, on top of that, his leverage index was only 0.732, where 1.0 is average pressure, so it was not like he was used in high pressure situations a lot.  It should have been easy peasy to keep those runners from scoring.  And in his 16 high leverage situations, though he only gave up 4 runs out of 16 runners, an OK 25% scoring rate, emblematic of his struggles in such situations, his first one of the 2013 season, he came in with no runners and left with the bases loaded, and that was not the only time that happened in the season.

Finally, as nice as it is to have three lefty relievers in the bullpen, saving Lopez and Affeldt for set-up duties, the Giants probably are going to have a roster crunch there.  There are 7 bullpen spots for the Giants.  We already have Romo, Affeldt, Casilla, and now Lopez signed for the 2014 season and taking the key roles in the bullpen, leaving three.  Petit is out of options so he most likely will be our long reliever (as signified by the Giants releasing Moscoso recently), leaving two spots.

For those two spots, just from the expected relievers we had last season, these guys will be battling for spots:  Jake Dunning, Heath Hembree, George Kontos, Jean Machi, and Sandy Rosario.   I noted Dunning's problems with inherited runners above (his leverage was low too).  Rosario only had a 61% strike thrown and 13% swinging strikes, both very low, with a very low 5.2 K/9 while a very high 4.3 BB/9 for a lousy 1.20 K/BB ratio, all belying his 3.02 ERA (probably earned by his fellow relievers saving him from a much worse ERA).  Rosario's hold on a roster spot is probably as tenuous as Mijares if the Giants need another 40-man spot.

That leaves Hembree, Kontos and Machi as the most likely ones to win the two spots.  And after his sterling debut in 2013, I would think the Giants is hoping that Hembree is ready to take a spot in the bullpen (he had a great 66% strike thrown rate and 26% swinging strike).  Also, Kontos had a great 2012 for us, and admitted that he came into 2013 not in the best of shapes, so he's probably dedicated to returning to his 2012 form.  And Machi had a great season for us, and one of our fastest fastballs on the staff, 92.8 MPH average (though also high inherited runners scoring, 34%, but same as Kontos; Kontos ).  Plus, Derek Law really shined this season and continued it into the AFL, so he could be the dark horse for a spot.

If I had to guess, I think Hembree is being penciled in for a spot, similar to Wilson in his first try for a roster spot (he blew it with a poor spring), and that Kontos and Machi will be battling for that last reliever spot, with Law having an outside chance of earning it over them.  FYI, Kontos had a good 65% strike thrown rate and 17% swinging strike, and Machi had a good 64%, but excellent 18% swinging strike rate.

So it is already a pretty crowded and competitive situation in the bullpen, even without considering Mijares as an option.  And as much as Mijares could be a LOOGY, we already have one of the best in the game in Lopez, so it would be a luxury to have two.  So the writing has been on the wall, for a while now, as there has been talk since the season ended that he was one likely to be non-tendered.

Thanks and good luck to Mijares, he did great for us in 2012 (had a great 11% inherited runners scoring and 2.55 ERA), and helped us in the playoffs, especially in the NLCS with 3 strong appearances, 2.0 IP, one hit and one walk, with 3 strikeouts.   He will always be able to show off his World Series ring wherever he goes.

Your 2014 Giants: Lincecum Resigned to 2 years, $35M contract

This two year, $35M deal has been reported by Baggarly, Schulman and Pavlovic.  A no-trade clause was mentioned, but no other details have come out yet.

ogc thoughts

Wow, that is a lot more money than I thought it would be.  Even with the QO, that's $21M over that.  I thought - wrongly, clearly - that the negotiations would revolve around the QO.

Based on his actual performance, his BB-Ref WAR numbers were negative in 2012-13, but based sabermetically, his Fangraph WAR numbers were middling, 1.6 WAR last season, almost average.  What the sabermetics can't capture is what Giants fans saw the past couple of seasons, when Lincecum would get blown up with runners on, giving up a key hit here, there, seemingly almost everywhere.  That basically has put Lincecum around replacement level the past two seasons.

If WAR is valued at $6M per for the two seasons, that works out to roughly 6 WAR, or 3 WAR per season he needs to earn.  You have to use Fangraph's WAR numbers to even have a chance of earning back that contract.  Their Steamer estimate forecasts 2.1 WAR for 2014, but that's always based on what happened in the past and most probably includes his 2011 season, which appears to be in the distant past right now, based on what he has done in 2012-13. 

Clearly, the Giants think that Lincecum is on the cusp of a big breakthrough in terms of what he can produce.  And maybe he is.  He would have to pitch as well as he did in 2010 for the Giants to get extra value from his contract, which was a 3.43 ERA (3.7 WAR per BB-Ref), which is not far from his 4.37 ERA in 2013 (well, at least imaginable, as I'll get into next). 

He had a 3.82 ERA in his last 12 starts, ignoring that blow-up in his first start after his no-hitter, where either the 148 pitches thrown in that no-hitter or the 9 days of rest or both are possible causes of the blow up.  And excluding that one really bad start, he had a 3.56 ERA over his last 20 starts, covering every start from June to Sept (except for that one blow-up).  And that was his worse start of the season with extenuating circumstances, so dropping it as an outlier can be justified.  That basically puts us at this contract in terms of value produced.

And he did stellar in terms of PQS in those 12 starts, 8 DOM starts, only 1 DIS start, for a 67% DOM and 8% DIS, both very good, though still only 3.82 ERA. And for the 20 starts, that's 12 DOM, 2 DIS for 60% DOM and 10% DIS, both still great, for a 3.56 ERA over that period.  Again, that makes the contract look at least in the ballpark of what he can produce.  Basically, the Giants are betting that his slow start in 2012 and 2013 can be eliminated and that he can pitch at a relatively high level for all of 2014 and 2015.  And if he can do that, he's a great #3 starter for us, and a #2 or even #1 for other teams.

Now this makes things more clearer in terms of what the Giants might be thinking. 

Furthermore, his salary also is in the ballpark if we consider him a great reliever (which is not a long stretch given how well he pitched in 2012's playoffs as a reliever).  Rafael Soriano is the highest paid reliever at $14M per season, signed in early 2013.  At 10% inflation that's roughly $15.5M in 2014 and $17M in 2015, and Lincecum is being paid, on average, $17.5M the next two seasons.  And Mariano Rivera was being paid $15M per season in previous seasons, so top relievers in the majors will get roughly what Lincecum is getting in 2014-15, on an inflation adjusted basis. 

And he does not have to close to earn that, if he took on the super-reliever role that I had outlined before, he could easily earn that much WAR.  Romo earned 2.0 WAR with his great pitching in 2012.  By utilizing Lincecum in long relief by taking out starters before things get out of hand, like what happened in the 2012 playoffs, plus dropping him into set-up situations where he pitches 2+ innings, he could pitch that well and close out the game, and all those extra innings at great ERA would easily earn 3.0 WAR.

OK, the contract makes a lot more sense now that I've looked at the actual marketplace and performance boundaries that he might perform.   He basically performed at the necessary level to earn his contract if he can just avoid the slow start.  And one could blame both poor conditioning for his bad start in 2012 and the short off-season for his bad start in 2013, though we won't know until we get into the season.  And if necessary, he could be our super-reliever, used in a wide variety of situations, akin to how the best relievers were used in the 1970's, piling up more innings than regular relievers and being used in key situations more often, or even closer if the team needs him to move into role if something should happen to Romo and nobody steps up.

But still, it is a huge overpay for what he has done in the past two season, more than could have been reasonably expected on the marketplace had he actually tried free agency.  And it relies on him returning to a good semblance of what he was before, at least his 2010-11 version of himself. 

Still, a part of me believes that he can do it again, I guess that is the homer part of me.  Though most of me question it greatly, based on what he has done the past two years.  This is where the Giants scouts need to earn their money and properly assess where Lincecum is, both physically and mentally, and whether he is ready to make that leap to the next phase of his career, where velocity is not the plus it was before.   Plus, I think there is a good chance that he returns to some semblance of stardom, and I would rather bet on him, than, say, Halladay, who is among the free agents.  And I'm happy to have him back rather than seeing him in a, say, Dodger Blue uni. 

Plus, two years is not that much, both Zito and Rowand are off the books now, and if we are going to overpay someone and get subpar performance, I would rather do it with Lincecum than, say, one of the underwhelming free agents available.   Particularly since we could conceivably get that value back in 2015 by having him be a super-reliever.  I don't see any of the free agents capable of shifting over to relieving great for us.

And that is another reason to overbid for Lincecum rather than dip the toes into the free agent market for a player in the same salary range.  There is no compelling free agent out there, each one has their particular wart or three, just like Lincecum. So why not pay a little more for Lincecum, he at least has the reliever option and he does appear to be close to doing well over a full season, particularly since he's now studying batters with Posey before games, which he seems to have started doing mid-season at some point.  All that mitigates the risk of signing him to such a large contract, though it does not obviate it.   It is clearly a big risk, a big bet.  Only time will tell if Sabean (and the owners) made the right decision or not.

And this is a typical Sabean move, overpay a bit (I thought that two years at $14M per was the max, at the moment, plus bonuses to push the second year to the $20-22M range if he started well in 2014, which would bring him to the $35M range too, I guess) in order to have your birds in the hand, so that you can bid for other players without being leveraged in the negotiations by the other side.  Had he not signed Pence and Lincecum, the team would have been in a more desperate position, particularly if they had lost Pence, and the agents for the free agents will negotiate harder against Sabean, as he would have been viewed as needing to get replacements.  Now they can work on getting Lopez signed (probably 2 years, $6M per), and then focus on their main off-season purchase, a middle rotation starter to help fill out the starting rotation, leaving Vogelsong, Gaudin, Petit, and others to fight for the last starting spot. 

And I'm still not sure what is happening with Vogelsong.  There was no open commitment to bringing him back for use, only a commit to not screw with him by DFAing him and then renegotiating a deal.  Either they think he's worth that option, or they just get rid of him (though perhaps with minor league invite as a loophole on that).

So a big overpay, but I'm happy he's still a Giant, and here's where the Giants scouts and coaches need to earn their pay.