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

07.21.2008
Brewers 7, Giants 4: Ray Goes Away

Here is Sunday morning's pre-game blurb on the Mercury News Website: "Caution planned for ace: Tim Lincecum will make his first start today since the flu prevented him from attending last week's All-Star Game, and the Giants won't push their prized pitcher."

Mmm, yah. Timmah got knocked around, threw 121 pitches and the Giants got season-swept by the Milbrewskis.  As you've probably heard, the nice bit is that Sabean traded Ray Durham for two human beings and according to Henry Schulman will pay half his remaining $3 million salary. Still, that's two prospects, whom we'll discuss in a second, and $1.5 million to push toward Buster Posey's mystery signing bonus. It was the right move to make, and we'll see a lot of Burriss, Velez and Ochoa at second base, but fair warning that the Giants offense will get even worse. His detractors who can only remember his .218 average from last year refuse to acknowledge it, but Ray-Ray was having a good year. As Brewers GM Doug Melvin noted, he now leads the Brewers in batting average and on-base percentage.

Others will follow, quoth the Sabes: "We stayed true to our word. No matter where we were in the standings or what we thought our chances were, we needed at some point to turn our fortunes to our younger players. Our older players, if they were good enough in the market to be able to be acquired by somebody else, we were willing to do that. Thus, Ray is the first transaction."

Whom did the Giants get? A lefty starter named Steve Hammond who was doing well in AA earlier this year but after a promotion to AAA Nashville gave up 6 HRs in 17 IP. Despite that, his 5 BB / 20 K ratio was intriguing, and reportedly the Giants will keep him in AAA. He's 26 years old, so he's getting long in the tooth to be a prospect. The second guy is Darren Ford, a 22-year old OF in high-A ball who can steal a base if he gets on. His strikeout totals are shocking for a speed-and-defense guy, averaging nearly 130 a year in '06-'07 and  up to 83 this year. Before he reached high A, his OBP was promising, but he's not getting on base as much these days.

Trades are always evaluated in two stages: immediately after the fact, then down the road once the players involved prove their worth or lack thereof. Immediate take on this: the Giants get two mediocre prospects, a lineup opening for their own youngsters, and a little salary relief for two months of a guy who is a nice bench piece and last year was the worst hitter in the National League. Strong work, Sabes. Down the road, if Hammond can contribute in '09 or '10 as a reliever or occasional starter, it's a bigger win.

Also of note: Keiichi Yabu went on the DL with a strained finger. Geno Espineli, a funky lefty reliever, is up from Fresno and made his debut today. The Fresno manager made him sweat a bit, though:

Grizzlies manager Dan Rohn called the lefty reliever into his office and told him he'd failed a drug test. Espineli, recently selected to the U.S. Olympic team, tried to gather himself, not knowing his skipper was playing a prank on him. "I was thinking, 'God, how am I going to explain this to everybody?"

So who's the next to go? Among the hitters, I say Aurilia is most likely. The Giants won't ask much in return, he's not owed much remaining salary, he's well respected, and he still mashes lefties. Among the pitchers, Taschner could attract attention from teams that miss out on Rockies' lefty Brian Fuentes. If Fuentes moves quickly, the Giants could find a nice little market for The Special Agent before the deadline.

Do you like the Durham deal? Are you sad to see him go? Any favorite Ray-Ray moments to share? Discuss.



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[July 21, 2008 9:16 AM]  |  link  |  reply
bbstucco said

So we unloaded a veteran. Well done for us. But why did we get a speedy, no-power CF in return? What, we need more outfielders who don't have any power? Sabean couldn't get a similar-level prospect who, you know, plays the infield? The area where we don't have 1,000 guys waiting for a shot?

[July 21, 2008 9:27 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Anonymous said

The guy who will really create opportunities is Randy Winn. The infielders are already getting chances and the outfielders are being converted into infielders because of a logjam. Trade Winn because nobody will touch Roberts, it seems. Then you have two seniors, Lewis, and a junior OF playing.

[July 21, 2008 10:18 AM]  |  link  |  reply
bigO said

I've said it before and I'll say it again. They need to go after Beltre (the M's will trade everybody not named Felix). They could have gotten Clement too if they'd have acted as soon as Jojima was signed but it's too late now.

[July 21, 2008 10:55 AM]  |  link  |  reply
trilljester said

I believe it was Ray who hit that moonshot to CF against the Padres when Brian Giles tried to play CF and he stumbled, and fumbled the ball, Ray got a triple, Giants ended up winning that night. 2 years ago, I think?

My favorite non baseball moment was in 2003 when the Giants just got Ray, they had those promo ads with the guy saying "RAYYYY! From across the Bayyy!", that was pretty good too.

ELM: Who leads our team in OBP now that Ray is gone?

[July 21, 2008 11:41 AM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM replied to trilljester

>>Who leads our team in OBP now that Ray is gone?

Rowand, at .355. Winn and Lewis are right behind at .350.

Trilljester, these things are easy to look up. Go to sfgiants.com and click on "stats" on the menu that runs left to right under the "All Out All Season" banner.

[July 21, 2008 12:32 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Johnny Disaster replied to ELM

Also http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/stats is a fun place...

[July 21, 2008 11:27 AM]  |  link  |  reply
justin love said

The next who should go is Bengie. Don't get me wrong I'm a Bengie fan but, you have to sell while a player is hot Billie Bean style. I liked Bengie when he was batting 3.20 now he is batting in the 2.80's and still falling. With Pablo, Buster, and Holm Bengie's time is up. Plus his defense and callin games is overrated. I like his heart, but we need offense right now.

[July 21, 2008 11:53 AM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

My favorite moment of the past couple years was his pinch-hit home run off Broxton to beat the Dodgers last September. It was extra sweet because Brad Penny was shutting the Giants down, gave up a hit to start the 8th, and Grady Little took him out after only 82 pitches. Dumbass Grady.

[July 21, 2008 4:18 PM]  |  link  |  reply
dignan said

Very sweet moment indeed ELM, remember that one well.

For my favorite Ray moment, I'll go with his 5 RBI (career high), 2 HR game against Mark Redman and the A's July of 2004 (http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SFN/SFN200407020.shtml).

He hit 9 lead-off homers that year which was fun to watch, though it seemed like we ended up losing most of those games anyways.

It's definitely time to move on, but Ray was a good giant IMO and I hope he gets a shot at some postseason action in what could well be his final year in baseball.


[July 21, 2008 8:06 PM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive said

My favorite moment was after we had signed him, he was a premiere free agent and he filled our leadoff needs well plus was a rock, playing 150+ games per year.

All the times on the DL totally detracted from his time with us, from my view, though he did play well for us WHEN he was actually healthy and playing and not sitting on the bench waiting for his hammy to stop screaming at him.

And the sad thing is that Ray insisted on doing things his way and not listen to the Giants training staff until maybe when his contract was almost up, and still he didn't come in for help, he did most stuff on his own.

But when he was in there, he was a great Giant.

It was time for him to go, he probably shouldn't have been signed the last time except that we had nobody to hit behind Bonds so he had to be signed or the lineup would have been a greater sham than it turned out to be. But just think who we could have gotten in last year's draft with two extra picks for another team signing Durham (assuming he didn't agree to arbitration, a poor assumption probably given he resigned so fast with the Giants).

I'm glad he got to go to a playoff contender, he didn't get to do that much with the Giants. Plus splitting time with Weeks is probably idea for him, keeps him healthy, if he's out, they can go with Weeks, plus he can be a plus DH should they make it all the way to the World Series. Most NL teams have to do that to maximize their chances should they make it that far.

I think if Benjie is hitting 3.20, you have to keep him in the lineup, you can't replace OPS production like that. :^)

Aurilia is the logical next choice for trade among the position players, Taschner and Walker among the pitchers. If Hennessey didn't implode, he probably would be on the list too.

[July 21, 2008 8:20 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Anonymous said

Durham would have agreed to arbitration, even if he did not, it is not automatic that there would be two extra draft picks. dePodesta was saying something like the player has to be in top-30 in the league in production, etc.

[July 22, 2008 4:49 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Mark C. O'Connor said

I happy with anything we get at this point. Roberts, Winn, Aurilia, Molina, none of these guys are part of the future. And we won't get much for them. I'd rather lose with "potential" than with "aging vets." If we want some return, like a young power bat, we might trade Wilson. (Sure, he could be Nathan II, but I don't think so.) He is at his peak value now (All-Star, saves leader), and a contender might need an extra arm in the 'pen. I like the kid, but closers and set-up guys don't help a weak team. They can be an excellent "final piece" in a contender's stretch run, though.