When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

12.07.2007
When The Music's Over

Evening update: Martin the OGC has an interesting thought on the Giants' Rule-5 pick, a 21-year-old who hasn't pitched above A ball. In short, why choose such a longshot to stay on the roster if you're not truly going to rebuild? It's not proof-positive. It's a $25,000 gamble that Capellan can outpitch Steve Kline or Jack Taschner in the spring. But it might be a sign that the Giants are more inclined to be flexible with young players.

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Bathroom_big

Now that Theo Epstein, Billy Beane, and 28 other GMs have rung up thousands of dollars in sales of fancy coffee drinks from the in-lobby Starbucks and trashed their Opryland hotel suites, let’s take a deep breath and consider what we actually know.

After lots of heat, little light, and many heaving chests, Tim Lincecum is still a Giant. For all we know, that could have been Brian Sabean’s plan all along. The Winter Meetings seem like a terrible place to make a trade unless someone else has imposed a deadline.

Here’s my guess: The last few days were an exercise to establish value and to see if, maybe just maybe, some overcaffeinated peer would trade three major-league-ready future All-Stars for Lincecum. Didn’t happen. Probably won’t happen. 

Cockroaches4Sabes said he would need to be blown away, and obviously offers of Delmon Young and Alex Rios straight up did not muss his ‘do nearly enough. Now he has all winter to talk on his cell phone without Ken Rosenthal crawling up his ass every fifteen minutes or the Lunatic Fringe freaking out about every new Rotoworld blurb.

Noah Who? In four days when nearly every major leaguer and half the minor leagues were listed in rumors, Lowry’s name was conspicuous by its absence. The same goes for names such as Roberts, Winn, and Durham.

Meanwhile, several big bats are off the free-agent market or have been traded: Miguel Cabrera, Andruw Jones, Torii Hunter, Delmon Young. None were a magic bullet for the Giants — no single batter is — and I’m not grieving over lost opportunities. But no matter how much we clamor for rebuilding and for common sense, the reality is the Giants will have something like the following lineup next year if they don’t acquire any hitters:

CF Roberts/Davis
3B Frandsen/Aurilia
RF Winn
C Molina
2B Durham
1B Ortmeier
LF Lewis/Schierholtz
SS Vizquel

I’ll still sit in my bleacher seats and cheer them on. But be forewarned: when the Giants are up to bat, it’ll be more fun to watch seagulls eat cold garlic fries.

As the big pitchers — Santana, Bedard, Haren — are either traded or pulled back from the block, we’ll have a better sense of the market for secondary starters, i.e., Lowry and Sanchez.

I also think that once Aaron Rowand, Mike Cameron and Kosuke Fukudome sign, we’ll know if Dave Roberts and/or Randy Winn are sparking any interest. Whoever can’t bag a shiny expensive center fielder might be willing to take either one. You might even say that at $6 million a year, Roberts is an absolute bargain. If Ned Colletti is about to off-load Juan Pierre on some unsuspecting sucker, Sabes should jump in and say, “Hold it, pardner, for a lot less money and a more marginal prospect, I will trade you Dave Roberts!”

Unless the sucker upon whom Pierre is about to be off-loaded is Sabes himself. Then you can fish my body out of the bay.



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[December 7, 2007 5:20 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Anthony said

um, what is that picture at the top there?

[December 7, 2007 5:30 PM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

like duh, a trashed bathroom.

[December 7, 2007 5:43 PM]  |  link  |  reply
#99 said

Who's the cockroach, Rosenthal?

I don't know if you heard any rumors about the Giants getting Tadahito Iguchi? Supposedly he wants to play for a west coast team and he is willing to play thirdbase. Iguchi appears to be better offensively and is only 5 months older than Feliz. In theory the plan is to play Iguchi at third, unless they can dump Durham and find a decent thirdbaseman, in which case they would put him back at second.

I think this is probably the kind of move Sabean will end up doing. Nothing staggering but just trying to make the Giants slightly better offensively at each position.

[December 7, 2007 6:04 PM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

Yeah, Rosenthal. I'm quite proud of my on-the-fly photoshopesque skills.

Re. Iguchi: I've seen the rumors. He's only a slight upgrade, no great shakes. I woldn't want the Giants to get locked into him long-term.

[December 7, 2007 7:53 PM]  |  link  |  reply
wcw said

In re: Lowry, one NY papers had the Mets offering Milledge for him but the deal foundering because Sabean 'needed another young pitcher back in the deal.'

http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/ny-spmets075491315dec07,0,2967654.story

On the bright side, Lowry has value.

On the downside, Sabean is an idiot.

[December 8, 2007 10:23 PM]  |  link  |  reply
johnP said

Refresh me. The Giants need bats, so the got rid of their best bat from last year. Why was that again?

[December 9, 2007 12:58 PM]  |  link  |  reply
tyler said

that rosenthal picture just made my entire morning.