More proof of Sabean's idiocy....

Lefty, do we have any sense on when the arbitration process starts?

It would be nice if someone could interview players like Bay, Laroche, Carlos Lee, Soriano, and any of the other offensive players that have declined offers to SF to find out why they don't want to play here. Bay signed in New York to play in a field that is just as tough to hit in as here if not worse and in front of a much more scrutinizing fan base. Laroche is gonna play for one of the worst teams in baseball and for 10 million less, it would be interesting to see why!

Maybe players are looking at offensive stats of players that have played for the Giants in the past and are afraid their numbers will suffer but Kent, Burks, Bonds obviously, Santiago, even JT all had good offensive stats playing in this ballpark. It shouldn't be a secret either that a big reason why offensive stats haven't been as good as previous years for some players is frankly because they sucked once they came here, not because of the ballpark (Garko, Hillenbrand, Alfonso, Durham to a certain extent, even Winn and quite a few others).

I have to believe it is something other then the ballpark and quite possibly has something to do with management. Maybe during the Bonds years there were players like Schilling who didn't want to play on the same team as Bonds but since he isn't around anymore there has to be another reason.

If it isn't management or the ballpark or the city or the teams potential, what if the perseption that players don't want to play here is actually something Giants management has come up with as an excuse for not signing high level talent. We all know that Sabean isn't shy about making excuses mostly to cover up his incompetencies and this would be the ultimate excuse anytime a big name is floated around as a potential offensive upgrade, Sabean can just use his ace in the hole and say "they didn't want to play here"!

This to me makes the most sense of all. My guess is that the offer of 2 years 17 million to Laroche was either never officially made or they made it after having pissed Laroche off by trying to low ball him with the first offer. By publicly saying that we made the offer and it was turned down, Sabean gives the appearance that he is making efforts to bring in players and it isn't his fault that they don't accept his offers.

last year Orlando Hudsons deal was very simular and was misleading. The guaranteed amount might be low especially compareded to rumors.However,there were incentives that put his deal very close to 9 Million.This could have those bells and whistles on it as well bringing him closer to the Giants rumoered offer.Also,a very high percentage of MLB players live in AZ and love playing there.

Yeah, tough to judge. I would be tempted to say that the recent experiences of Rowand and Zito signing big $$$ contracts with SF and being subsequently booed when they failed to play up to their potential may have something to do with it.

But the Bay to Shea move sort of contradicts that. Until you remember that Bay at the time of signing saw himself as the 3rd option on that club offensively behind Beltran and Wright.
It's possible that for equivalent cash, a guy like LaRoche or Bay doesn't want to come into SF with the expectation that he's going to put up career numbers and put the club on his shoulders. Some guys don't want that pressure even if we as fans think that a $9-10 mil per annum contract justifies it. Some guys want to make that money and play a supporting role on a good club (thinking that the truly big Pujols or A-Rod bucks are the only ones which should come with crushing pressure) or just play 162 for Arizona in mostly nice weather.

One reason you might not think of comparing Arizona to SF: taxes. That's a reason why a lot of players live there or in Florida. That's a reason why a lot of players don't want to go to Toronto. I could be wrong... read it somewhere and it's Friday so I don't wanna try to research. I live in San Jose and my taxes are insane. My buddy in Phoenix laughs at me because of salex tax and propety tax and taxtaxtax. I laugh at how he can't go for a jog at 9am without having a heart attack.

Are you folks serious? We're talking about millions of dollars. These men are from middle-class/working class families. This is serious money.

Would you turn down millions of dollars because you don't like how you work environment looks?

I'll take the money--like my friend Rowand---and deal with the environment later.

The logical inference is that LaRoche and his agent seriously misjudged both the market and the Giants.

All of this talk about AT&T is bullsh*t to drive up the contract price.

A lefty with pull power can drive the ball over the 308 ft RF section. Huff's only being semi-comical when he says he can hit them out of the park. He can.

As for LaRoche: this was his best shot for a good FA contract. He'll be 33 (assuming the D'backs pick up his option) when he hits the market again, the same year Cantu and Uggla among others will be FA. Good luck with that, fool, and good riddance. Huff at one year is a better scenario for us.

FYI, the Giants never respond to rumors.

One theory: Perhaps Laroche and his agent didn't like the offers on the table and took the one-year deal with an eye toward next offseason. Chase Field is a good hitter's park, and it tends to inflate home run numbers. Perhaps Laroche (or, more likely, his agent) knows this and is looking to nab a bigger contract for 2011 on by putting up some artificially boosted numbers in the desert in '10.

For whatever reason, we are better off that Laroche is not a Giant and I have no worries that we will still dominate the DBags this year. Huff is a much cheaper option and he may not produce the kind of numbers that he did 2 years ago but he should be somewhat consistant whereas Laroche usually takes a few months to get going every year.

Paul R's theory makes sense, with one added suggestion: LaR thought that by playing hard-to-get he would get the Giants to raise their offer. His agent may very well have misread the signals coming from Sabean, who (in this scenario) wanted to keep his options open in case his other possibilities failed and he did have to return to LaR. This hypothesis doesn't depend on believing that Mays Field or San Francisco life/taxes are no-nos, or that LaR's agent is a cretin.

Paul R has a point. This is probably the same reason Beltre ended up in Boston. Granted, it's a high wall in LF there, but he'll be peppering the green monster with line drives instead of seeing them go for 300 ft outs at another park. Chase Field is very hitter friendly toward lefties and the humid weather helps too. LaDouche is an idiot for turning the money down, and he knows it too. I don't care if you're playing in yellowstone ... to turn down what essentially amounts to an extra 10-12 mil (provided AZ doesn't pick up the option) is senseless.

Market price for LaRoche was only set when he took Arizona's offer. If the rumor is true, I think it stands to reason that he thought he could get an economically (in his estimation) superior offer elsewhere or from SF if the process continued. (And again, economically superior doesn't always mean more dollars.) If the rumor is true, the end deal certainly doesn't appear to meet that standard and he judged unwisely. However, the missing piece is an externality no one has really discussed.

As interesting as the rumor of the terms of the deal itself is the rumor that the Giants put an expiration date on it. If true, this probably put LaRoche in a difficult position. Other teams may not have believed him or instead felt that they stood to gain nothing by negotiating with him under a deadline when the terms of the deal seemed so absurd. (That should have been a hint to him by the way.)

I still think it makes sense to evaluate the environmental factors because there will be times where the Giants actually price an offer correctly. That's the other side to this rumor, the Giants' offer was apparently such a huge outlier that we're all jumping on the agent when that narrative ends up as "AGENT, you should have known the Giants offer was obscenely high and simply taken it before Sabes finished the word 'dollars'"

So, I don't think we should portray this as LaRoche choosing between two offers both before him simply awaiting signature. He had a good offer (allegedly) with an expiration date and some chatter from other clubs who probably indicated vague interest but not enough to negotiate on deadline.

It happens. Ask Jason Varitek.

According to MLBTR, it's for $4.5M in 2010 plus a $1.5M buyout or $7.5M for 2011 (or basically $6M per year or double what we are paying for Huff): http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2010/01/dbacks-sign-adam-laroche.html

I tend to take the rumors of the size of offers with a grain of salt when they involve pre-signing rumors for the Giants. The Giants make a point to say that they don't release such information. So you know any rumor involving them has to be on the agent's side.

But let's say that it's true. Then it is really $6M plus what he can get next year vs. $8.5M for two years. Then it would behoove him to get at least $11M in 2011 to even out the salaries. And, actually, it is more than just the two years, it affects afterward as well.

What if it's like you speculate, that LaRoche, for whatever reason (mainly that LHH HR go to AT&T to die), did not want to come to SF. Then you don't care that you might piss off Sabean by leaking a rumor regarding them, and tie the Giants to the amount that LaRoche wanted from others and probably told the others, 2 years and $17M. Once the Giants signed Huff, obviously there is no fake offer anymore, and you have to accept what the D-backs give you.

In any case, whatever the case may be, this was a gamble but a worthwhile gamble on LaRoche's part, whether turning down the contract or leaking such a rumor. Many players peak around 30-ish then decline. Many teams have to wonder if he might decline soon.

If there really was a 2 year, $17M contract to play at SF, AT&T would make his overall stats look bad for the next two years, particularly for HR, and he's not going to get another good contract in the third year, he would be scuffling for work.

But, by getting a one year deal at $6M (close to the $8.5M that he could have had or was targeting), if he has a good year in Arizona, which according to Bill James, boosts LHH HR by 15% (vs. AT&T reducing LHH HR by 12%), he shows that he's as good as ever (vs. a decline playing in AT&T), and can get another two year contract next off-season.

In addition, that off-season should be better economically since the recession appears to be receding, and he should therefore get the 2 years $17M that he either wanted or could have had. And perhaps more since his stats should be boosted by playing in Arizona, he could get closer to 2 years, $20M instead.

He could have targeted Arizona from the beginning. The only teams with that high a LHH HR ratio were the ChiSox, Yankees, Rangers, Orioles, Cubs, Reds, and Brewers. Of them, only the Orioles really was looking for a 1B, and that team has a pretty sad history and looking to get out of that sad cycle since their latest owner came in.

Rangers could use one, but probably was willing to give Chris Davis another chance, particularly after picking up Vlad.

Arizona didn't have to get LaRoche since Jackson could play 1B, but they liked him in LF previously. They probably used Jackson (and Byrnes) to justify offering less to LaRoche. They had alternatives.

OGC-
Factor in the risk of injury in either year 1 or year 2, and I think you've got the math right.

Here are the potential problems with the analysis. From this point in his career on, with every year LaRoche plays, he becomes less valuable in terms of expected production. That's a pretty reliable rule of thumb. So, from that perspective, making yourself a free agent in 2011 as opposed to in 2012 makes some sense. But, it also increases the potential that you're going to not have that great contract year. Balance those risks how you will.

On park factors, isn't that more psychological for the player than a factor for the GM? Although we apparently didn't know how to do this when we acquired Neifi Perez, GM's now know how to price a player coming from Coors or Bank One. Put another way, people know that they should pull up Adrian Gonzalez's home/road splits when deciding what they should be willing to trade for him. So, it's one thing to say that it would be depressing to see a HR die on the warning track, it's another thing to actually count upon arbitrage opportunities being available for players based on park factors any more.

The Giants don't officially comment on tumors. They leak rumor strategically like everybody else. What makes more sense than anything said so far is that LaRoche was looking more expensive than Huff (but probably wasn't even sniffing $9 MM per year), so the Giants leaked numbers that make signing the older, inferior player look sensible. Maybe they actually put together a soft offer that coulda fluffed up to that absurd amount in unlikely circumstances, or maybe they just put it around they did. One thing is sure: the only beneficiary of the story was Sabean, whose Huff contract was greeted with relief rather than the skepticism and rancor it would have received if he had just signed him with LaRoche still on the market. Instead he gets to do his "Phew, glad we dodged that bullet." The bullet he either fired or is happy to have believed he fired. I bet the Diamondbacks are glad the Giants dodged it too. They upgraded 1b from way below average to above average. The giants upgraded from below average to average -- if you don't believe Huff is just as much in decline as the usual Giants savvy vet signing.

No, yes, maybe....

I think two things make sense here - a new contract in 2011, and Varitek. The first is what Boras, in particular, is ace at, and sure, his numbers will look better in Arizona.

He's also not really that good - the point above about the market being set when he signed is right on the mark. Remember Varitek had an option - not an offer. All hail his intangibles, but he signed for what he could get.

What is everyone's take on Eric Byrnes? Says he wants to come here and would cost the league minimum. We would have to designate someone for assignment to make room and he may take PT away from Nate in RF but he could also end up being a decent leadoff hitter if he can figure out how to get back to his 07 form. I would take him in a heart beat and if he doesn't work out then oh well!