El Lefty Malo

Puzzling Pieces in the NL West

2012-02-07T00:55:31Z

We've all gnashed and thrashed and hashed out the Giants' moves this winter. Some of us are sunny about the offense coming back in cute bellboy caps to earn a nice tip for carrying the baggage of the pitching staff; some of us are sitting at a French sidewalk cafe with a full ashtray, a cold espresso, and visions of our collective happiness hanging from a frayed elbow ligament.

One good way to beat back the existential notion that we are all born with our mothers astride the open door of the NL West cellar is to look at the other teams. Where the Giants were underwhelming, their rivals were below-whelming. Arizona saw the Giants their Melky and raised them a Kubel. The Dodgers said, ha, $5 million for Jeremy Affeldt? Watch this: $6.4 million for the arbitration-eligible James Loney. There have been good moves, to be sure, but I'll take solace in the rest of the NL West engaging in activities that, though not quite as questionable as George Michael behind a hedgerow, are still rather odd if you squint a bit. A few instructions for viewing the rest of the division through orange-colored glasses:

- The Rockies plan to use Michael Cuddyer as their starting right fielder. That makes sense in Colorado, I guess, where the right field is the least spacious of all the Coors Field greenswards. But nine times a year, Cuddyer will be galumphing across the right field of Mays Field, which gives me glorious visions of Buster Posey triples. Now, it's possible Cuddyer will shift to left field or the infield when visiting San Francisco, but managers can be stubborn. I still chortle at the thought of the Diamondbacks visiting a couple years ago and hearing Renel say, "Now batting, right fielder, Adam Dunn." Cuddyer is a good hitter, and he'll probably give the Rockies their $30 million worth, but his outfield defense could become a bigger problem than anticipated. What else? Marco Scutaro and a weird muddle of back-of-rotation pitchers have joined the Mile High Club. Yawn. I fear Troy Tulowitzki, I fear Carlos Gonzalez, Dexter Fowler might put it all together, and Cuddyer will hit. But they need those top pitching prospects from the Ubaldo trade to step up fast. Orange-colored glasses assessment: What, me worry?

- The Dodgers. I've mentioned Loney, who by midseason last year was a near lock for an offseason non-tender as his career numbers continued to slide toward Ryan Theriot territory. He got hot in August and September, and the Dodgers decided the risk was worth it. The big Dodger news, of course, was Matt Kemp's lifelong-Dodger contract extension. Good for them. Not surprising. And it doesn't bother me one bit. Kemp could keep putting up MVP numbers, but this is the same guy whose under-performance the previous years was drawing jeers and calls for a trade. Which Matt Kemp (besides the fabulously rich one) will show up in 2012? 2013? 2014? 2015...? And beyond Kemp, it's all Spawn of Aaron Miles this winter, as if Dodger Stadium were the USS Enterprise and middle infielders were Tribbles. ("All we have to do is quit feeding them; quit feeding them, and they stop breeding!") Andre Ethier could go bananas playing for a big contract, the Kershaw-Billingsley tandem could beat the Giants 1-0 in 48 of the 162 games on the schedule, and a new owner could lift the gray cloud over Chavez Ravine. A weird out-of-the-blue freaky lovefest could take hold. (Though not a hairy-armed '70s illegitimate lovefest, according to reports.) We mock the Dodgers, but do we fear them? No, we do not.

- Uh-oh, my glasses start to fog up when I look at Arizona, which, apparently, won the division or something last year. As if teams in creepy places with funny softball-team names were actually allowed to win! Giggles aside, when I heard Arizona traded for Trevor Cahill, I was mildly alarmed. He is one of those pitchers who has pitched well against the Giants in the past. Yep, one of those. In four starts, he's gone at least six innings per start and allowed no more than one run. But when I heard Arizona gave up Jarrod Parker, I was elated. Imagine Zack Wheeler had a cup of coffee with the Giants, threw an impressive game, then was traded with a bunch of other prospects for Trevor Cahill. See? (OK, Parker has had Tommy John surgery; Wheeler has not. But still. And Wheeler isn't with the Giants anymore. But still still.) And then Jason Kubel comes to the desert. He'll hit home runs, he'll probably hit pretty well -- see Cuddyer, Rocky. Hell, Kubel could have an unexpected breakout, hit 40 bombs, go all Hairston on the Giants, catch everything hit near him in left field, and make Kevin Towers look like more of a genius than he already is, the bastard. But on paper it seems like Arizona committed $14 million to a guy who'll give you a little bit more oomph than Cody Ross but a lot less glove work. And fewer smiles. Don't you ever, ever forget the smiles. And Aaron Hill, who sucked and sucked and sucked and sucked and then came to Arizona at the trade deadline and was awesome for two months, is getting $11 million for two years. I'm probably going to eat this blog post in July when Aaron Hill keeps refusing to suck anymore, but for now, I don't have the existential dread that, say, A's or Mariners fans must have watching the Angels-Rangers arms race atop the AL West. Unless I think about Paul Goldschmidt. Thinking about Paul Goldschmidt makes me worry. He got the memo sent to all rookies about not hitting 450-foot home runs off Tim Lincecum, and he ignored it. The nerve.

- I seem to be forgetting something. Ah yes. The Padres. Out with the Latos, in with the Volquez. Out with the Ludwick, in with the Quentin and the Kotsay. Out with Heath Bell, in with Huston Street. They may be rebuilding while bringing in competent veterans, but I'm not keeping one eye on the Maalox the way I did last winter when assessing the D'Backs.

I'm well aware that the fans of rival teams can put on their own glasses (brown-and-yellow colored glasses?) and run the same game on the Giants. My defense of Brandon Crawford is probably being passed around a high school statistics class somewhere as a "can you fucking believe this?" case study. So help me out. Give me some good reasons why the NL West competition has had just as uninspiring an off-season as the Giants, and why the only thing to fear is the outgoing curse of a spurned Bill Neukom.

Brandon Crawford Will Probably Be Just Good Enough, I Think

2012-02-03T22:26:21Z

If the Giants' honchissimos keep insisting Brandon Crawford will be the 2012 starting shortstop, sooner or later we'll be forced to believe them. Most recently:

To all you who argued for Jose Reyes, who pined for Jimmy Rollins, who even rationalized Alex Gonzalez, and who still can't believe Brandon Crawford will provide even the barest minimum of proficient batsmanship, I humbly present my thesis: Brandon Crawford Will Probably Be Good Enough.

We all know his D is something to watch. Defensive metrics are about as reliable as Yelp recommendations, and I'll dip into them later, but for now let's assume he'll save a lot of runs -- countless runs! -- with his defense.

On the hitting side, how good is just good enough to keep Crawford in the lineup as a glove-first shorstop? In his 220 plate appearances (about one-third of a full season), he was dreadful. Fifty-two shortstops had at least 200 PAs, and only nine had worse numbers than Crawford, measured by wOBA.

But the more I thought about his year, the more I felt the numbers didn't quite jibe with what I saw. He showed occasional flashes of power, like his debut grand slam in Milwaukee, he showed a willingness to hit to left field, and despite the 4-for-30 stat noted above by Schulman, I saw a few nice at-bats against lefties. One in particular I remember from the Chicago road trip, where he went opposite-field into the gap against John Grabow. Granted, Grabow is no Javy Lopez, and the pitch Crawford hit was a hanging cookie, but for a young guy to hit any major-league lefty, mistake or no, is a nice sign.

The next thing to note is Crawford's strikeout rate. In the minors, he posted some whiffariffic numbers well over 20%. In the majors, he had the lowest K-rate of his career, 14%, and he maintained a decent 10.5% walk rate.

Could that mean he was swinging defensively just to put the ball in play? Possibly. He put a lot of balls in play, and he had the worst batting average on those balls, .228, among the entire 52 shortstop group I noted above. Wow. That's bad. That's bottom-ten-in-the-majors bad. (Brandon Crawford, meet Vernon Wells and Chone Figgins.)

Sometimes a laughably low BABIP is a sign of bad luck. But Crawford's line-drive rate, 14%, was the third worst among the 52 shortstops, compounded by a 51% ground ball rate (14th highest). Like Aubrey Huff last year, he made a lot of wet-noodle contact. (At least he wasn't a pop-up machine: his 10.5% rate puts him squarely in the middle of the shortstop pack.)

With his decent left-handed power, was he particularly hurt by his home field? According to this chart, he hit some deep fly-ball outs to both left and right, but it doesn't look like he was robbed much.

So he put balls in play, weakly, more often than not on the ground, and hit a lot of catchable fly balls. Assume for a moment he repeats that pallid formula in 2012. With all the grounders, his BABIP should get a boost; he'll get lucky and a few more balls should find holes. But now assume that as a hard-working 25-year-old, Crawford's natural skills improve incrementally, he hits more line drives, perhaps a couple more fly balls find the bleachers, and he also has a change in luck.

He finished in the bigs with a decent September (.256 / .333 / .419), but he didn't rip it up in the Arizona Fall League (.276 / .315 /.414 in 92 PA). Posting something similar to those lines over a full major-league season would make him one of the most valuable shortstops in the game. Too much to wish for. Projections have him a big step below -- think something like .240 / .310 / .350 -- but even with those feeble numbers (which would be an improvement over 2011), his fielding could make him worth a win or two over replacement. A partial season's worth of advanced fielding stats aren't typically good to go by, but in Crawford's case UZR/150 bolsters what eyewitnesses agree upon: he's well above average.

Of course, our perception of Crawford will be colored by the feats of his teammates. If everyone else brings the whoopin' stick, all we ask is that Brandon work some walks when he leads off an inning, not hit into too many double plays, and do a little damage against the John Grabows of the world. We will love Crawford if his hits are like bacon gravy poured over a heaping mound of big innings that, like huge helpings of cheese-infused mashed potatoes, Clayton Kershaw and Ian Kennedy cannot finish as they beg their managers to call for bullpen help.

But if the bad Melky and fat Panda and odd-year Aubrey show up, if... well, you get the picture.

And if Brandon Crawford's so impossibly bad at the plate and the Giants have such a miserable 2012 that this blog post becomes a favorite weapon of my enemies when I run for Senate in 2022, then at least we, as Americans, as tax-paying citizens, can all agree that this upstanding young man is better looking than John Stamos. Don't believe me. Believe this impartial source.

Looking for the Brandon Belt Buckle at FanFest

2012-02-01T00:33:31Z

I just saw the ad featuring Buster Posey in the Chron sports pages this morning: Giants' FanFest is Saturday. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all that.

But Buster notwithstanding, hell no. I'm staying as far away as possible. I'm not an autograph hound, I don't enjoy standing close to famous people unless I have something intelligent to say (which I never do, because my brain short-circuits), and I don't want to squeeze my way into Mays Field unless there's a baseball game going down.

The Q&A sessions are mostly fluff: Last year we learned about Brian Wilson's off-season workouts, Tim Lincecum's dogs and moustaches, and Freddy Sanchez's friendship with George Lopez. Important stuff. Who knows what gems will be revealed when Melky Cabrera takes the stage? (I guess we'll never know.) But with Wilson, Sanchez, and Buster Posey all recovering from key injuries, no doubt all eyes and ears will be primed for tea-leaf reading. If Buster had Wilson's sense of humor, he would walk into a packed room at FanFest with a pronounced limp.

How's this for reading between the lines: Does Brandon Belt get his own autograph station? Or, more generally, how will the Giants position Belt in their pre-season marketing? I don't see a Brandon Belt buckle day on the promotion schedule. (Though there is this.) How's that for a vote of no confidence? Then again, there's no Aubrey Huff Pilates Thong giveaway, either, so if we're grasping at straws to figure out what the hell's going to happen this year, we might as well grasp early and often.

But seriously, we're all dying to know how much Belt is part of the equation, or rather, which standards he'll be held to by the brass to be part of the equation. Are they going to send him to Fresno with a motivational "Let's Get Back Together" T-shirt? Did his 116 plate appearances in the Dominic Republic this winter (with a .300 / .395 / .470 slash line) help or hurt in the front office's estimation? Is it all going to come down to his spring training at-bats versus those of Huff? Because when a guy leads his team in home runs for the spring and puts up a .369 / .391 / .692 line, Whoa Nelly -- make room for the savvy vet kicking it into gear for the opening bell.

I did my share of pissing and moaning about the treatment of Belt last year; not so much his demotion in April but certainly his lack of playing time down the stretch (59 at-bats in September, when he easily could have had 90 or more). In hindsight, I have a smidge of empathy for Bruce Bochy, who watched the entire team flail its way out of contention in late August against Atlanta, Houston and the Cubs, and Belt, other than with a four-hit game in Houston, didn't help his own cause much, despite starting or getting multiple at-bats in nearly every game in the second half of August.

Of course that's not fair to Belt, and in a perfect world he would have been the starting first baseman from stem to stern last year. But in major league baseball, there is no perfect world. Even the blue-chippiest of prospects are often given short leashes. In the annals of getting-jerked-around-ness, Belt suffered a relatively mild case in 2011, magnified by expectations that in turn were fueled by praise that bordered on Chuck Norris parody.

Hopefully he'll be front and center at FanFest 2013. I've already put in my order for the buckle.

The Best Way to Use Ryan Theriot

2012-01-27T17:36:10Z

Surprise! The Giants weren't done dealing after all. They've signed Ryan Theriot, backup middle infielder supreme, to a one-year deal for $1.25 M and incentives that could bump his cash to $2 M. It's non-guaranteed, which means they only pay him a few hundred thou if he's cut before Opening Day. (Hank has the details here.)

Blech, you say, another moving part who has no power and doesn't get on base very much. Right. There's a reason he's a backup infielder, although he's one of those backup infielders who always seems to be in a starting lineup somewhere. But if you know one thing and one thing only about Ryan Theriot -- other than the fact that Bip Roberts once, intending no apparent mischief, pronounced his name "The Riot" -- it's this:

vs LHP as RHB .301 / .373 / .401 / 122 tOPS*

Those are his career splits against left-handed pitchers. Gosh, I had no idea. Those are very good numbers. And if he could do in 2012 against lefties what he did in 2011 against lefties -- .310 / .356 / .413 -- he would be one of the best leadoff platoon hitters in baseball. (UPDATE: *Chris at Bay City Ball chided me softly on the Tweeter that tOPS, which I pulled from Theriot's Baseball Reference page, is not the same as OPS+, which is what that said before this update. Mea culpa. tOPS is a player's OPS in a split relative to his total OPS; in other words, Theriot is better (22% better?) hitting against lefties than he is against all pitchers. Which isn't as impressive as saying he's 22% better than the league. But his raw slash line against lefties is still impressive for a middle infielder.)

Who knew? Many people, probably. Hopefully Bruce Bochy does, too, and will use him accordingly. No harm in having Theriot on the bench when Brandon Crawford starts, and having Crawford ready as a late-game defensive replacement when Theriot starts against tough lefties.

If Crawford, as some people predict, Bococks his way back to Triple-A, well, then the Giants will have a Rajun Cajun shortstop platoon of Theriot and Fontenot. (Add Brian Wilson, and it's three LSU alums on one team.) I'm not as down on Crawford; I think he'll hit just enough to make his glove indispensable. But I feel better with Theriot as an extra alternative, instead of just Fontenot and Manny Burriss. Keep in mind, Freddy Sanchez plays second base for the Giants, which means plenty of chances to look up and see " Theriot -- 2B" penciled into the lineup.

All in all, not a bad move. Thank you, Orlando Cabrera for retiring and making it possible.

With the Clay Hensley signing (which I missed yesterday), the Giants' 40-man roster is now topped up. They'll have to ditch someone to add someone. Hensley could well be the ditchee; his $750,000 contract is also non-guaranteed.

Timmy, Matt, And The Final Scene From "The Graduate"

2012-01-24T22:10:26Z

You know what I'm talking about, right?

According to reports, the Giants have agreed to a two-year deal that eats up Tim Lincecum's final two arbitration years, and talks are progressing with an extension for Matt Cain. Cain and Lincecum. Lincecum and Cain. And the San Francisco Giants. Meant to be.

There are limits to my romanticism. Even if Cain agrees to stay past 2012, it's not exactly like the Giants have swooped in and rescued their aces from the clutches of the wrong suitors; Lincecum would be here through 2013, anyway. But longer-term, many fans this winter felt the team's lack of offense could drive first Cain, then Lincecum to the altar and into the ever-lovin' arms of the Steinbrenners, Jeffrey Loria, or -- gasp -- whoever takes over the Dodgers, which would be akin to the guy down the street with the blow-dried hair and home teeth-whitening kit taking off with your high school sweetheart.

As fans of "The Graduate" know, of course, in the above clip, where Dustin Hoffman rescues Katherine Ross from marrying the "wrong guy," what lingers not is the excitement of the rescue but the look on their faces as they tootle away on the bus. (If you haven't seen it, please do. Not only is it a great movie, but Anne Bancroft -- Mrs. Mel Brooks, no less! -- puts the Mmmmm in MILF.)

And I can't help but wonder whether, in the aftermath of celebrating the new Timmy and Matt contracts, our own reality will set in: Um, OK, now what? How good can this team be with three pitchers making $60 million the next two years and a revamped ownership group that's committed to...well, what, exactly? Fiscal responsibility? Pitching and defense and homegrown hitters? It's all well and good if the organization becomes Atlanta West, with a constant infusion of excellent young hitting talent, and certainly the record has improved the past couple years with Sandoval, Posey, and perhaps Brandon Belt. (I'll add Gary Brown to the list in August if he has run roughshod through AA ball all summer.)

But I'm not convinced they can build a pipeline of talent to make up for the complete disdain for free-agent hitters. What's more, the disdain seems mutual. Note, for instance, the Cody Ross situation. Ross, a guy who could bank the goodwill of 2010 for years in this town, reportedly wanted multiple years to re-sign with the Giants. He ended up getting one year with the Red Sox, and half his previous salary.

So what we have, as we giggle on the back of the bus at the thrill of the moment's reunion, is a team reliant on homegrown hitters (dependent on scouting and player development with a spotty track record); homegrown pitching (dependent on scouting, development, and lots of health luck -- with an excellent track record); and a manager who will have to handle young rosters sprinkled with down-on-their-luck free agent veterans. On that last point, I was content with Bochy's style until the Huff/Belt situation last year, when Huff's screamingly bad year kept grinding on without a wholesale Belt-for-Huff replacement. If Huff receives similar slack this year, I'll start polishing my pitchfork.

Of course, nothing in this sport is til death do us part. With global warming, prevailing winds could shift and blow pop-ups to second base over the brick wall and into McCovey Cove, prompting Prince Fielder to tear up his new Tigers' contract and demand to sign with San Francisco. Or something like that.

Point is, things change; strategies should be flexible. But I'm prepared for a long relationship set by the parameters spelled out this winter: We're not going to pay a lot for this Beltran Muffler! And maybe that will be fine. The team avoids the expensive free-agent duds by avoiding expensive free agents entirely, Buster Posey will beget Conor Gillaspie, who will beget Gary Brown, who will beget Tommy Joseph, Angel Villalona will pay his debt to society with 40 home runs a year, and a long line of young mashin' Giants will make Mays Field rock while the healthy and expensive pitching staff rolls.

That's certainly better than a long run of Giants' offense set to the tune of "The Sounds of Silence." (Or is it "The Sound of Silence"?)

The January Rotation

2012-01-23T23:14:41Z

We're a month away from baseball. The early-spring, hey-how-was-your-winter, let's-run-ten-wind-sprints-and-call-it-a-day kind of baseball, when the big news items are someone's moustache and someone else who strained his back picking up a bucket of batting-practice balls. Prediction: Brian Wilson will arrive in a vehicle and be on TV.

But baseball nonetheless. Or as we call it, hard by the shores of the San Francisco Bay, Melky Time. My hot stove has been busy, and I head into not-quite-spring with an absolutely rockin' rotation.

St. Vincent / Live in Washington D.C.

I don't think I've ever heard anything quite like this. I'm a bit late to the game (what's new?), as Annie Clark, who performs as St. Vincent, has been around several years twisting rock songs into forms that feel unique. Like Grizzly Bear, another alt-rock darling, Clark is excellent at hiding familiar pop-rock forms under hazy electronic layers and behind sharp angles. I'm in thrall. (I'm also a sucker for beautiful women with noisy guitars.) The combination of her spacey vocals, disturbing lyrics, and squalling guitar lines in "Surgeon," the first song of the set, had me from go.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists / Shake the Sheets

Often called thinking-person's punk, Leo's music certainly runs a plumb line through to the late '70s with its energy; "Shake the Sheets" from 2004 is more early Clash than Ramones. Social consciousness, world awareness, and the ability to hew power chords and ska or reggae flavored backbeats into a single song make "Shake the Sheets," from 2004, a torch bearer for those first few Clash albums. What's different, though, is important: Leo and his band are finely honed blades, their ability to ride a song just this side of chaos makes the best songs thrilling. Check out this clip of Leo solo, performing the first song from "Shake" before a hipster record-store gathering. Note how he sings ahead of and behind the beat but is never off, and the song is all the richer for it. It's expert stuff, and I suspect few punk rockers of any era have had the skills to pull it off.

Andrew Bird / "Eyeoneye"

Since I wrote this a couple years ago, I've come around in a big way to Bird, and after having a breakthrough moment listening to the studio version of "Fiery Crash" on headphones a few weeks ago, I've found myself jonesing for new material. (This live version is stunning, too.) Here it is: the first single from his new album, and although there are familiar sounds (whistling, scientific word play -- the song title is part of the word "reionize") it has a sparer, more echoey sound than previous studio material. Even Bird's voice sounds more distant. Perhaps I'm reading (hearing?) too much into it because Pitchfork says it was recorded in Bird's Illinois barn. (A cold, empty barn?) Remains to be seen what the rest of the LP is like, but if it's all like this, I don't mind a little change of pace. It's always interesting when the artists you've moved steadily toward move away from what you've been enjoying.

Cowboy Junkies / Sing In My Meadow

When people think of the Cowboy Junkies (if they think of anything at all), they probably think of melancholy acoustic tunes or well-crafted adult pop, but the band has its crungy noisy side, the sonic partner of lyricist Michael Timmins' forays into murder ballads and bad love. The miasmic power chords and Bonhamesque drum thump was last heard in abundance a decade ago on the "Open" album, but it's back on Sing in My Meadow, a bait-and-switch title if there ever was one. (No tra-la-la or spring wildflowers here.) Perhaps I've got Zep on the brain these days, but it really feels like the Junkies were listening to a lot of "When the Levee Breaks" and "Kashmir," and some of the grungier stuff from Neil Young (their ultimate hero), when blocking out the main ideas for the songs on "Meadow." (You can hear it all streaming free here.) For true Junkieheads out there, you'll be curious to see they've covered their own "Hunted," more or less in the same vein, with a blistering guitar lead from their long-time "Fifth Junkie" Jeff Bird (no relation to Andrew, as far as I know), but it's more frenetic and with a rawer, less restrained vocal from Margo Timmins.

Tim Lincecum in Arbitration, And Other Cases

2012-01-18T04:25:48Z

Let's wrap up the day's arbitration news. No surprises on the Giants front unless you count the $6 million figure for Melky Cabrera, and in the comments of the previous post, longtime reader OGC argues convincingly that it wasn't an overpay.

The Giants have offered $17 million to Tim Lincecum, his peoples have asked for $21.5 million, both record numbers, and if they split the difference, it's one more notch in my arb-eligible contest bandolier. (I predicted 1 year, $19 million.) If the two sides use the same modus operandi that resulted in Lincecum's previous contract, they'll go up to the precipice of a hearing and shake hands on something like a two-year, $39 million deal. I'd love to see a four-year extension, but I could live with another two-year deal and steel myself for the probability of Lincecum testing extremely lucrative free-agent waters -- think Scrooge McDuck diving into his swimming pool of cash -- and becoming a non-Giant after the 2013 system.

Pablo Sandoval signed a three-year extension that buys out his arbitration years but none of his free agent years. Three years, $17.15 M guaranteed with incentives, says Baggs. (The breakdown: $3.2 M, $5.7 M, $8.25 M.) Nearly nailed it, I did. My guess is the incentives were the key to this deal, the carrot (literally?) dangled in front of the Panda that the Giants hope will keep his off-season discipline from wavering. If he comes to camp looking like one of the featured attractions of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, we'll know that for Pablo, the sweet smell of success was wafting into his hotel room from the Popeye's Chicken next door.

Others to settle on one-year deals: Nate Schierholtz ($1.3 M), Santiago Casilla ($2.2 million), Melky Cabrera ($6 M) and Angel Pagan ($4.8 M). No word yet on Sergio Romo, who apparently asked for $1.75 M, with the Giants offering $1.3 M. (I'm pulling my figures from the MLBTR Arbitration Tracker.)

A few other thoughts:

- The trades of Jonathan Sanchez, Ramon Ramirez and Andres Torres were certainly not about saving money. Sanchez agreed to a smaller contract than his trade counterpart Cabrera; Ramirez and Torres' new contracts add up to half a million more than Pagan's deal. Call it a wash. Which means the Giants don't seem concerned about clearing a little room for near-future additions. That became obvious in the Carlos Beltran drama, but I'm now thinking ahead to mid-year. Will the ownership demand that any additional salaries be balanced by cost savings? I'm keeping a close watch out for stories with hints from people close to knowledgeable sources familiar with Larry Baer's personal grooming habits that allude to payroll being frozen at Opening Day and not budging a goddamn inch, so don't even ask.

- In case anyone had any illusions, keeping Lincecum and Matt Cain long-term will require somewhere between $45 M and $50 M a year at the far reaches of the contracts. With Lincecum likely to make $20M-plus in 2013, any discussion of a Cain extension (which would start in 2013) probably has something north of $20 M as an average annual value. The Giants will not be able to afford both unless their farm system becomes Brave-like in its ability to pump out cheap young star after cheap young star, or unless they vault themselves into the Phillosphere, the layer of gas and cloud that's well above where most teams play but a couple layers below the Yankosphere and the Bostosphere.

- This is the last year the Giants will be so freakishly consistent with -- and stubbornly devoted to -- their bullpen personnel. Someone look this up for me: When was the last time a team ended one year, played the next full year, and started a third year with six of the same relief pitchers? Barring trades, Wilson, Romo, Affeldt, Casilla, Mota and Lopez have a good chance of being bullpen mates for two full seasons. You could technically throw Dan Runzler in there, too. But after 2012, Wilson is eligible for arbitration once more, and he'll command at least $10 M. I won't be surprised if Lopez ($4.25 M in the second year of the contract he just signed) is the highest-paid reliever on the team in 2013.

The Price of Melk Is Going Up

2012-01-17T18:42:56Z

The Giants have avoided arbitration with Melky Cabrera by signing him to a one-year, $6 million contract, roughly a third more than what he was projected to receive. It's not exactly crazy money -- the system rewards players in the near-term, and Cabrera's most recent year was a very good one. But it was his only good one.

Once Carlos Beltran signed with St. Louis, we knew that Cabrera and Angel Pagan were going to be the big prizes of the off-season, full stop, so there's no new information to digest. The extra million dollars shouldn't shock the Lunatic Fringe into a new round of Sabean denunciation, but it sure as hell shakes the rust off the gnawing existential fear I thought I'd tamed into submission over the holidays with gin and electroshock therapy.

More arb news: Angel Pagan will earn $4.85 million, about in line with expectations, and Santiago Casilla will earn $2.2 million. I'll round up the Giants news at the end of the day. And
remember, we've got an arb-eligible contest in full swing. Refer back to the comments here to see how your predictions are faring. (Results are based on Opening Day rosters.) Here's what I predicted, with actual results in ALL CAPS:

Santiago Casilla -- avoids arb, signs 1 yr/$1.9 M (SIGNS 1 YR, $2.2 M)
Mike Fontenot -- avoids arb, signs 1 yr/$1.5 M (SIGNS 1 YR, $1.05 M)
Jeff Keppinger -- non tendered (YES)
Tim Lincecum -- avoids arb, signs 1 yr/$19 M
Sergio Romo -- avoids arb, signs 1 yr/$1.2 M
Ramon Ramirez -- non tendered (TRADED, SIGNED 1 YR, $2.65 M WITH METS)
Jonathan Sanchez -- avoids arb, signs 1 yr / $6 M, then traded (TRADED)
Pablo Sandoval -- avoids arb, signs 3 yr / $18 M
Nate Schierholtz -- avoids arb, signs 1 yr / $1.4 M
Andres Torres -- avoids arb, signs 1 yr / $2.4 M (TRADED, SIGNS 1 YR, $2.7 M WITH METS)
Ryan Vogelsong -- avoids arb, signs 2 yr / $8 M (YES, BUT W/THIRD-YR OPTION)
Eli Whiteside -- non tendered (YES, BUT RE-SIGNS WITH GIANTS)

I started the contest before the Sanchez and Torres/Ramirez trades, obviously, so no predictions for Pagan or Cabrera. I also forgot Manny Burriss. He reportedly re-signed for an undisclosed amount.

So far I've nailed Keppinger, predicted the Sanchez trade but in the wrong order, got the first part of Whiteside correct (he re-signed with the Giants), gotten damn close on Fontenot, Casilla, and whiffed on Torres and Ramirez, who by the way have both avoided arb with the Mets for $2.7 M and $2.65 M respectively.

Getting High on the Vogel-Yay!

2012-01-12T05:25:10Z

You can pencil Ryan Vogelsong into the Giants' rotation for the next two years. According to various reports tonight, he has signed a two-year contract with a third-year team option, all in the neighborhood of $8 million, according to some. As I noted in my previous post -- yes, it's been too long -- he would have to produce an epicgenio failez to make even a modest salary increase seem foolish. So a few million in 2012, a few million more in 2013, for a guy who's likely to bust his tail, love his job, enjoy every minute, and give the Giants a lot of good innings, health be willing, great, no problem.

Of course, the extensions we've really been waiting for haven't yet materialized, and I expect the doomsday theorists to define Vogelsong's extension in conspiratorial terms: a meager cushion the team will try to slide under our crestfallen hopes when neither Cain nor Lincecum re-up with the only pro team they've ever played for. Cain and Lincecum? Bah. Mercenaries! But We Give You Ryan Vogelsong, The Man Who Wouldn't Be a Dodger...

Well, no. I don't really think anyone really thinks the Giants' marketers really think they could do it, although this is the crew that somehow made "Smell the Magic Inside" work like a charm.

This really should be a pop-the-cork kind of moment, as it no doubt was for Ryan and his tweetin' spouse. The congrats are rolling in. So I'll leave my little black cloud on the horizon and get back to my day job, which has been killing me lately. (Whatever happened to the American God-given right to update one's blog daily?) And I'll tell myself that the Giants are going into 2012 with above-average, fringe-MVP types at third base and catcher, new outfield acquisitions who'll be hungry to prove their one good year each was no fluke, a rotation with four potential Cy Young candidates (I've had a few flutes of the Vogelsong champagne), a kid phenom who took his lumps last year and is ready to figure it out, and Aubrey Huff racked, stacked, and ready to drop and give us 50 anytime, anywhere.

And just to prove that an airborne optimistic event has drifted over my neighborhood, I predict that Brandon Crawford isn't going to be as bad a hitter as most people think. He'll steal your base hit, he'll steal your girlfriend, and he'll occasionally double into the left-center field gap.

Why So Quiet on the Vogelsong Front?

2011-12-30T07:40:51Z

With all the GMs out there hungry for starting pitching, you'd think we would be hearing more about Ryan Vogelsong this winter. But according to MLB Trade Rumors, the only mention of Vogelsong has been a Baggs groove in early December that the Giants "expect" to sign him to a multi-year contract. (Just imagine if Vogelsong gets a long-term deal before Opening Day but Cain and Lincecum don't; rabies shots for everyone!)

It's cold to ask after such a heartwarming 2011, but might it behoove the Giants to shop Vogelsong around? I'm assuming that the lack of rumorage indicates they haven't done so. No one's even bothered to make stuff up, like "sources close to the Florida front office indicate that the team has had discussions about potentially thinking about Vogelsong."

If no one's been thinking about Vogelsong, it's not because he's due too much in arbitration. According to MLBTR's arb-estimation formula, Vogey can expect something like $2.5 million, which is but a quarter of the value he produced in 2011. He could fade quite a bit from that high-water mark and still be a bargain. And there was nothing in his performance last year to suggest he'll drive off a cliff as soon as he collects his arbo-millions.

Despite the top-10 ERA year, I could see how GMs would be reluctant to trade much for Vogelsong, a 34-year-old who, well, you know the story. He certainly wouldn't bring in trade the type of tasty prospect pickins Oakland and San Diego received respectively for Trevor Cahill and Mat Latos. But what about an intriguing hitter, a you-take-a-flyer-on-my-guy, and-I'll-do-the-same-with-yours kind of trade, something akin to Jonathan Sanchez for Melky Cabrera?

I'm not advocating this, by the way. Trading Ryan Vogelsong would leave Eric Surkamp and Barry Zito alone in the back of the rotation, and there are only so many 86-MPH left-handed fastballs a guy can tolerate every five days. Which brings me to the reason I think we've heard nothing: The Giants have no intention of trading him. Unless he falls off that aforementioned cliff -- and the Giants don't think he will -- he'll help prevent the team from staring into the abyss of its lack of minor-league pitching depth. (How's that for a paradoxical abyss?) Behind Surkamp, there's...

Ta-da! No one. Unless you count Shane Loux. There are some interesting arms from recent drafts, but no young guys in the high minors who could fill in adequately in 2012 with an eye toward a regular rotation slot in 2013. Shockingly for the Giants, the prospect tilt is all the way to the hitter side now that Zack Wheeler is gone. (It should be noted that Wheeler probably wouldn't have fit the near-term bill, either. It'll be interesting to see if the Mets start him next year in Double-A and how many innings they'll let him work beyond the 115 he threw in 2011.)

Trading Vogelsong and finding a replacement in the scrap heap, something I would expect the Giants to do better than most franchises, isn't a sound strategy, either. As Grant noted earlier today, there are interesting, or at least familiar names lining up to stake a claim to the Vogeltitle. And wouldn't it be great if Boof Bonser -- John? Is that you? -- really truly finally showed up? But trade Vogelsong, figuring that one among Bonser, or Yusmiero Petit, or Casey Daigle, or alas, poor Matt Yourkin, will do an adequate replacement job? No way no how.

Which, I'll repeat, is fine with me. More Vogelsong, please. The Giants don't have much choice. Still, it would be interesting to see his name show up in the trade rumor column a few times between now and April, just to know other teams care.

And Barry Bonds, Too

2011-12-16T22:32:00Z

OK, no Led Zeppelin references in this one, but only because I have to go to Miss Monkeypants' school holiday party. I hope they serve some decent food.

Barry Bonds has to spend a month locked in his house for all the no good, very bad things he's done the past decade and a half. I'm so beyond it. In fact, I was so beyond it a decade and a half ago. The steroid hoohah was horseshit because performance enhancing drugs, called amphetamines (or "greenies" if you're feeling nostalgic) were until a few years ago readily available in baseball clubhouses. Here's something I wrote a few years ago:

Barry was probably ingesting all sorts of shit you wouldn't want your kids or even your Clydesdale to take; yes, it was illegal in a, well, legal sense, but ahem, cough, not necessarily in a baseball sense, and if you want to call that cheating, it's hard to argue otherwise.

But here's the part where I grab you by the lapels: if Johnny Bench, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jax, Rollie Fingers or some other legend admitted today that he wouldn't have performed as well as he did without "greenies" -- the illegal-without-a-prescription amphetamines freely available in big-league clubhouses for many years -- would you argue that his records, his individual and team achievements, should be asterisked, invalidated, and his plaque removed from the Hall of Fame?

Don't say, "Well, until it's proven, it's only theoretical." Because you can be sure that someone somewhere in the Hall of Fame or in the record book got a nice lift more than once on a criminally muggy August night in Philly or Hotlanta when the old back or leg or elbow was barking like a bloodhound. And really, what's the difference between what Bonds did and a couple greenies twice a week to extend a hitting streak or Cy Young season or 3,000-hit chase?

So investigate away, but don't expect to emerge from it with asterisks blazing. Indeed, let's get the truth out: who was doing it, who was supplying it, and who was letting it happen. There may not be criminal charges to file or record books to amend, but better to know the truth. And if George Mitchell doesn't blow the whistle on Selig and whoever else was playing ostrich while the big bucks flowed in, please feel free to wrinkle your nose at the unmistakable smell of skunk.

The Mitchell Report. How quaint! I realize Bonds' punishment today is about lying to grand juries, which is definitely a bad thing to do. But having to spend extra quality time with his home theater equipment is about as slappish-on-the-wrist as you can get. (Even with the two years probation, 250 hours of community service and $4,100 fine.)

When Barry's Hall of Fame membership comes up (in 2013, I think), and the BBWAA snubs him like they've snubbed Mark McGwire, I'll trot out the above paragraphs again. No player should be punished for taking PEDs, whether it was in 1965 or 2001, before the owners and stewards of the game who nudge-nudge-wink-wink sanctioned it get theirs first.

Cuddyer Maker

2011-12-16T17:29:57Z

From one land of the ice and snow to another: ex-Twin Michael Cuddyer is going not to California but to Colorado, apparently, for $31.5 million and three years. There was talk of Carlos Beltran as another Rocky possibility, so does this mean the Giants are no longer over the hills and far away from singing "You don't have to go" to Carlos?

I raised the idea last week. Unless the Giants make a couple trades or find some unmarked bills in a greasy paper bag outside Red's Java Hut or some other dingy dive, they won't have cash for Beltran no matter how far his asking price drops. It's possible the Cuddyer contract sets the floor for Beltran: $10 mil a year for three years, and no lower. Cuddyer is two years younger and plays more positions; Beltran is still a better hitter. Their outfield defense will probably be equally bad in the next three years. Beltran was once a great outfielder, but age and knees are already taking a toll, according to UZR.

Beltran's agent might be able to squeeze three years or more from an American League team, but ah, age and knees, I think Beltran will have trouble getting more than two from a National League team.

So my contract suggestion from last week still stands -- two years with lopsided pay to push much of the cash to 2013, and a third-year option -- but I'll amend it slightly. Instead of a third-year team option, making it an easily-reached vesting option. If Beltran stays healthy, it vests. Because if Beltran stays healthy, there's a good chance he'll keep hitting, and if he keeps hitting, his foibles in (what I assume would be) left field of Mays Field would be easy to overlook (See: Bat, Pat the). I know I should turn the page on this bon homme Beltran but I can't help but jones, even if he becomes barely more than a potted plant in the outfield.

Now, the second part of my harebrained scheme requires a couple trades to clear payroll. The key is Jeremy Affeldt, whose $5 million option the Giants exercised fourteen seconds after the season ended. Keep an eye on two free agents: Arthur Rhodes and Darren Oliver. Both are quatragenarians, both throw from the port side, and both remain unsigned. Rhodes earned $4 M last year, Oliver $3.25 M. And keep in mind the Orioles just signed Japanese lefty starter Tsuyoshi Wada to a two-year $8 M deal, and he might end up as a reliever. If teams are convinced Affeldt is healthy, a $5 M price tag isn't outrageous at all.

One other thought about re-Beltranning that didn't occur to me last week. Under the trade-Melky scenario, more Carlos wouldn't necessarily mean less Brandon Belt. In the first year of Beltran's contract, one or the other could still play right field at Mays Field. Suboptimal, sure, but if the bats are hot, I'd be OK with the sacrifice of defense. That makes Nate Schierholtz -- surprise! -- the fourth outfielder again. Did you really expect anything different?

And in the second year of Beltran's never-gonna-happen, pie-in-my-sky contract, Aubrey Huff will be gone, Belt will take what's rightfully his, first base, and Beltran can slide to left field full time. Hot dog!

A Few Thoughts About the Arbitration Deadline

2011-12-12T17:36:13Z

By late tonight we'll know a bit more about fates of the remaining arbitration-eligible Giants. Of the 13 entering the off-season -- more than double the size of this year's average, according to MLB Trade Rumors -- Jonathan Sanchez, Ramon Ramirez and Andres Torres have been traded. But the Giants have also acquired two, Melky Cabrera and Angel Pagan. Brian Sabean has already said publicly that either Jeff Keppinger or Mike Fontenot will be tendered a contract, but not both.

Santiago Casilla
Mike Fontenot
Jeff Keppinger
Tim Lincecum
Sergio Romo
Ramon Ramirez
Jonathan Sanchez
Pablo Sandoval
Nate Schierholtz
~~Andres Torres~~
Ryan Vogelsong
Eli Whiteside
Emmanuel Burriss
Melky Cabrera
Angel Pagan

Before the Winter Meetings, I would have bet a six-pack of tofu pups that Manny Burriss was not in the club's near-future plans, but then Sabes & Co. talked him up as having the door to a utility role wide open. Best shape of his life, of course. Been working out with Ryan Braun. OK, maybe not. It's also possible all that happy-Manny chatter last week was a last-ditch attempt to pump up his trade value before he's non-tendered, but if that thought crosses the mind of a doofus like me, I don't think it's going to fool anyone who runs a baseball team as a full-time job. So I'll assume the Giants are serious about Burriss, who has yet to show the ability to hit a ball more than 250 feet. If Burriss becomes Freddy Sanchez's main backup, the Giants could spend much of the year with a keystone combo of Burriss and Brandon Crawford, which would be one of the best defensive middle infields in San Francisco since Jose Uribe and Robby Thompson but one of the worst offensive middle infields since Johnny LeMaster and Rob Andrews. (At least Burriss wouldn't describe a ground ball through his legs as God's will.)

If I had to guess about one out-of-the-blue move today, it might be a trade of Nate Schierholtz. No particular reason, just the sense that the Giants will never, ever give him a full-time gig, and that his value might be at its peak right now after more great D and the flash of timely power he showed in 2011.

But the big one is the Keppinger-Fontenot Decision, which sounds like a failed World War I strategy. I want Font, but with all the public posturing about the need for a right-handed infield bat, I'm worried the line will not hold. Aux barricades, les citoyens!

What If...

2011-12-09T18:10:42Z

I just read this on Fangraphs, a story about how weirdly quiet it's been on the Carlos Beltran front. In fact, the only noise has been Cap'n Sabean describing how the SS Beltran has sailed.

But what if the Giants look up two weeks from now and Carlos is still an unwrapped present under the tree? His Mets' buddy Angel Pagan is now a Giant. In 2010, Pagan was the kind of leadoff hitter Beltran suggested a few months ago the Giants need to find in 2012. Carlos surely remembers watching from the trainers' room as Angel wreaked havoc.

Nah. Stop it. You're deluding yourself, Lefty. But really, what if...

- The Giants trade Jeremy Affeldt and replace him with a guy making the minimum, someone the Giants have been deft at finding in recent years. That's $4.5 M free.

- The Giants flip Melky Cabrera, who is predicted to make north of $4 M in arbitration.

Suddenly they're about $9 M lighter. If the Giants truly cannot go a dollar more, turn around and offer Beltran $9 M in 2012 and whatever it takes in 2013 to top other two-year offers. St. Louis offers 2 years, $26 M? Give him $17.5 M in 2013. Or shift a couple of those million to a third-year buyout so that it's guaranteed but attached to the lure of a third year if all goes well. Something like this:

2012 $9 M
2013 $15 M
2014 $15 team option, $3 M buyout

Who knows, that might not be enough. An American League team, happy to make Beltran a DH in his golden years, might step in with four years, $50 M guaranteed. And perhaps the Giants saw something in Beltran's medical records that completely freaked them out. (If that's the case, bad on them for trading for him in the first place.)

But if the years and numbers and dollars make sense for both sides, the 2012 Giants would be going to work with Beltran instead of Melky in left field, and this year's version of Santiago Casilla, or perhaps top relief farmhand Heath Hembree, in the bullpen mix. Tell me I'm not crazy.

The Giants at the Winter Meetings: So Sad About Us

2011-12-08T06:49:37Z

Cody Ross is sad that the Giants didn't bother to offer more than a one-year contract (or anything at all). Andres Torres is sad, as we all are, that he's gone. But farewells are inevitable; the pall that truly hangs over the Metroplex for Giant fans is not just that the brass will fly home from Dallas and end the first half of the off-season without having upgraded the offense; but also that they didn't seem to try that hard.

You could argue that Angel Pagan is a good bet to outperform Andres Torres; I'll give you that. But the acquisition of Melky Cabrera was in effect a replacement of Carlos Beltran. You could argue that Beltran's knees will play harsh tricks, and Melky's youth and breakout in 2011 make him a good candidate to outperform Beltran next year. You could argue that Beltran's defense will continue to eat away at his overall value.

But I submit: In the batters' box in 2012, Beltran + Torres is at least equal to or better than Pagan + Cabrera.

Throwing around Marlin money is no guarantee of success. (Look at the Adam Dunn disaster in Chicago.) So I didn't expect Jose Reyes, but I figured there would be concrete progress toward a better offense by this point, beyond the oft-repeated marketing mantra of the magical health dividend.

There's still time, of course. The second half of the off-season is upon us. Many free agents unsigned, many trades to be made. But Sabean swears that's it. Unless dollars magically disappear from the current payroll, the team is maxed out. He's even pulling a classic Sabean, saying out loud that either Mike Fontenot or Jeff Keppinger will be non-tendered in a few days. You know where I stand on that one, though it would be fascinating the watch the debate play out in Sabean's head. Keppinger hits for a higher batting average. Yeah, but Fontenot plays shortstop and third, a little. Yeah, but Keppinger hits right-handed. We need right-handed-hitting infielders. Yeah, but Fontenot will be a couple million dollars cheaper. Bing!

It's fun to tease, but I will acknowledge Sabean's mind has settled on a few sound principles. He noted today that the Giants' clutch hitting has to improve from its spectacularly dreadful 2011 rate. Behind this is the credo that clutch hitting is to a great extent an unknowable fluctuation. Get better hitters and put more people on base, and the clutch hitting will take care of itself. And the Giants will have better hitters in a few spots. Buster Posey > Stewart Whiteside. Anyone > 2011 Aubrey Huff. Anyone > Aaron Rowand. And yes, Angel Pagan will probably outhit Andres Torres.

But that's missing the point. We don't want to live on the thin margins again. We want at least one new guy at whom we can point and say, aha, now he makes sense. Perhaps there's a secret inner circle of scouts who see Pagan and Cabrera and nod in agreement -- yes, Brian, their time has come, you have chosen wisely -- or who have seen the future of rock and roll, and his name is Brandon Belt in 2012. I have not seen their writings yet on the Internet, however, so I doubt they exist. Until then, or until a zany out-of-the-blue maneuver brings a Hannukah present -- you got a Votto balloon with points! -- the Metroplex of my mind will be filled with melancholy.