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

05.29.2008
Ray Durham's Siren Song

Sirens

Hey, maybe “How Much For Ray Durham?” (see Tuesday’s post) won’t be such a grim question, after all. Ray-Ray is getting hot at the right time — which for him means contract year.

After his double and home run last night, he’s .345/.429/.473 in May. Let’s pray this doesn’t tempt Sabean into giving him a contract extension. Tie yourself to the mast, Sabes, and we’ll ignore your pleas as we row your little skiff past the cliffs. (The guys with the oars? Those are Odysseus’s long-suffering season ticket holders.) 

If all the planets align, Ray will keep mashing in June, an A.L. contender that needs a solid bat and fill-in second baseman will offer a decent prospect in trade, and Eugenio Velez will be ready for a second tour come mid-July. Speaking of Hey-You-Genio, the Fresno Bee ran a nice piece about Velez’s educational odyssey. The Merc’s Baggarly noted it on his blog and outlined the fact that the Giants apparently made Velez change his swing this spring. Baggarly said he’d ask Carney Lansford about this. Keep your eyes peeled for it.

Trading Durham and Castillo would leave the Giants with Velez at 2B and Aurilia at 3B for the rest of the year, with Denker and Burriss filling in. It wouldn’t hurt to bring up Justin Leone, a 31–year-old minor league vet who has hit well the last two years for Fresno. He’s apparently glove-deficient and probably a quad-A type of guy, but with a possible infield next year of Frandsen, Burriss, Velez, and Bowker, Leone might be a nice utility fit, a cheaper, younger, faster version of Rich Aurilia.

Fill in the blanks: I’d rather dip my ____ in _____ than have Brian Sabean sign Durham to another extension.



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[May 29, 2008 5:04 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Anonymous said

First I was too slow to respond to the last two threads:

1. Kudos for citing our future GM's blog--great insight into the way that the Beane disciples use Sabremetrics. It's not the absolute, it complements the scouting. Let's hope Neukom is reading it.

2. The Giants can contend for a playoff spot in '09 if several of the following very plausible circumstances occur (1) Lincecum and Sanchez continue to improve (2) Cain improves his command (3) Zito starts pitching like the good number #3 starter he can be, contract be damned (4) the bullpen performs as it did in the first 1/4 of the season (5) the Giants are able to acquire some power in the offseason and can (6) find a decent shortstop

The fly in the ointment is #5. The free agent class looks weak next year and there will be a run among the big boys for the few good players, such as Teixeira.

As for your post, yes, the Giants could actually have some decent trade bait in July among Castillo, Winn and Durham. Sabean will not extend Durham. Durham has a terrible offseason work ethic. I don't know why it's so hard for some GMs to identify guys like Durham and Andruw Jones in advance. The gamer thing is way overdone, but if people can't see the impact of having Molina, Vizquel and Rowand on the team, they're blind. You have to augment that with young talent (and meaningful statistical analysis), but sheesh. My guess is Sabean has a mandate to rebuild in a way that gives the team a chance to compete for a playoff spot in '09. I think in July he'll try to parlay Durham at a minimum, but maybe Winn and Aurilia as well, into ML-ready position players that he thinks have flown under someone's radar. I think he thinks of Castillo this way already, so I would be surprised to see him go.


[May 29, 2008 5:19 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Frank said

The disturbing thing that is implied in the Baggarly article is that there is no 6 page report sent to Fresno WITH Velez, detailing what they tried to do with him and what they want him to work on in AAA. The artifcle makes it sound like Fresno embarked on plan A and Fresno is saying, "that sucks, let's try plan B."

[May 29, 2008 6:20 PM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM replied to Frank

Excellent point, Frank. It's implied, but not necessarily so. News reports often leave out the underlying stuff (and it was the Fresno Bee article that talked about Velez, not Baggarly. Baggs just linked to it from his blog.)

That said, I'm very curious to see what Baggarly finds out.

[May 29, 2008 7:56 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Johnny Disaster replied to ELM

Me too. It may actually give a data point on whether the Giants have an organizational hitting philosophy... something I'm skeptical about. I think the A's is 'Don't swing at balls. Get on base as often as possible. Mash the ball when you can.' I actually think that's a pretty good philosophy, which is painful for me to admit.

[May 29, 2008 8:24 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Johnny Disaster said

I’d rather dip my second baseman in a vat of money than have Brian Sabean sign Durham to another extension.
Its more classy than 'balls' and 'vat of boiling oil'.

[May 30, 2008 6:31 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Saltyseadog said

The Australian version - "I'd rather dip my tool in tar..."

[May 30, 2008 11:23 AM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM replied to Saltyseadog

You people are disgusting. I was thinking more along the lines of "strawberries in a chocolate fondue." Who doesn't like chocolate-covered strawberries?