OK, so obviously the A-Rod express isn’t gonna land in SF, but how about Miguel Cabrera? It’s hard not to love the idea of adding a 24-year old with 138 career home runs, who posted a .400-plus OBP for the last two seasons, with a career line of .313/.388/.542 .929 OPS. Bill James, in the same article I mentioned the other day, ranks him as the 13th best young player in baseball:
He’s fat and he looks lazy, but he hits .320 and drives in 115 runs every year. As a hitter, he’s in a class with Albert Pujols, Manny Ramirez and Albert Belle, just crushes the ball about 200 times a year. As a third baseman he’s in a class with guys who really need to work on playing third base.
So, fine, move him to first, and leave the horrifying Pedro Feliz to be our version of a defensive replacement at third. As long as we can sign him to an extension, he should be picked up for, say, either Jonathan Sanchez or Noah Lowry and a couple of prospects. Actually, Jon Heyman reports tha Marlins want prospects only, which is even better:
Florida will likely seek a package of three young players, including at least one or two top-tier talents for Cabrera, 24, who is eligible for free agency after the 2009 season.
He’s not even eligible for free agency for two more seasons?! Great. Let them look through a list of five or six of our best prospects, and let’s pick up one of the best hitters in the game at the beginning of what should be the prime years of his career.
You could argue that he’d be a better pickup than A-Rod, simply because of his age. He’d make a huge impact on our offense immediately, and by moving to first, he’d solve two problems at once. Then Sabean could go out and actually earn his money, and grab Andruw Jones. He’d be a bargain coming off one of the worst years of his career (which was still a better year than Feliz, who Sabean is talking about giving $8 million dollars), he’s still two years younger(!) than Feliz, and he’d instantly save about 100 runs in center. (Gotcha!! You thought I was serious, admit it) In two moves, we’d have transformed the team, adding something like 70 to 80 home runs, better outfield defense, and we’d get younger in the bargain.
Come on Sabean, make something happen. Three straight years of sucking the pipe are enough.
UPDATE: David Pinto says a lot about Cabrera in his Sporting News article, but he says it all in his post about Cabrera:
Players like Cabrera are rare. Acquiring one for prospects is more than worth it.
Guys, we’re not talking about trading away great young pitching prospects for a 30-year old catcher –an obviously stupid and disastrous move that Sabean should have never even considered– we’re talking about trading great young pitching prospects for a potential Hall of Famer who’s gonna be 25 years old. As much as I, too, am still gun-shy at trading away some of our young pitchers, there’s really no comparison. Other than Cain and Licecum –who have to be considered untouchable– the Giants do have some young studs, and the Marlins would be happy to take a couple of 17 and 18-year old uber-prospects; and I seem to remember we’ve recently picked up a couple. Is it really in the team’s best interests to wait and see if one of these players is major-league ready in three or four years, or should we trade them for an already established All Star who is younger than any position player on the team?
UPDATE, Part II: OK, so I’ve just checked on John Sickels’ Minor League Report, and the Giants prospects are, well, they’re horrible. Nate Silver says it even more succintly, (I forgot about this article, sorry):
We’ve talked about teams that face difficult situations, such as the Orioles, Rangers and Pirates. Well, the Giants are in more trouble than any of those clubs. Way more trouble. From the majors on down to the rookie levels, the Giants have by far less talent than any other organization in the big leagues. Making matters worse, they have almost no tradable assets
Beyond Sanchez, we’re talking about a heaping pile of backup infielders and middle relievers. Maybe we can’t put together a package to land Cabrera, shit, unless they fall asleep at the wheel, there’s probably no way in hell we can, but we should still try like hell.
There’s risk in everything, but Jeremy Accardo’s elbow is just as likely to explode as Cabrera’s ass is. This team needs a lot of help, and there’s none to be had in the system. Should Sabean just wait and see if the Yankees are gonna get him?
This is why I didn’t want to see Sabean kept on. Another winter of sitting here saying, wow, here’s an interesting way to solve the team’s problems, and then watching the Giants sit pat and trot out Klesko and Aurilia again. While the Hot Stove has rumors of just about every team in baseball doing something (more bad news, the Nationals just lost their third baseman to a broken wrist) the Giants big announcement is that they are severing ties with the best player they’re ever gonna have. That, and stories about bringing back Vizquel and Feliz, easily the worst left side of any infield in the entire world.
i’m curious. is anyone really willing to part with a cain or lincecum if that’d what it would take to get miggy? I say hell no to that but just wondering
I say DO IT. Granted Cabrera might be a slight risk due to his fondness for food, but at the same time you don’t get chances to HOF level talent before they even reach their prime. Especially the type of player who fits your ballpark, since RH power > LH at Pac Bell (unless you’re named Bonds). This kind of opportunity doesn’t come around often, Giants need to pounce.
The funny thing is I doubt people would be complaining if we had just won in 02. Thanks Dusty.
Or thank you Gene Glynn for sending the slowest player in baseball in JT Snow home with 2 outs in the 9th and the bases loaded on a ball hit to shallow LF. And Bonds was in the hole….
Hey at least we sacrificed our future to make a run at the NL West… LOL — you know a team is in bad shape when our years of going for it include 3 years of sub .500 baseball. Pathetic… it’s tough to be a sports fan in the bay area these days.
Jesus…my worst fears are coming true. What have Bochy back, Sabean back, and a AAA team with two young phenoms on the mound. The team sucks and to fix it we either wait 3-5 years (with luck) or trade away one of our two young phenoms and nobody want to do that. So, in the meantime, we just…w-a-i-t.
Well with how bad the team has been the last 3 years you really think we would have anything to do but wait? Seeing as how management totally neglected the future of the team while trying to sell the farm with Bonds it was painfully obvious that this team would be much worse as soon as they let Bonds go. And now we have reached that point.
Yeah man, preaching to the choir. We here have been assailing the Giants’ moves for what (?) four years now. I really don’t believe that there is a short-term solution, only propaganda and players with names that “average fans” will recognize as being good once.
wait john,
sickels report is from a year ago, and both lewis and nate proved their worth as did kfran
eme has gotta be way down in the rankings due to his injury probs
i still think sabean has done a crapass job, but sickels gave some low grades to definite major league talent
so can someone please explain to me why sabean was given an extension??
I agree with Hobbes2d, there doesn’t seem to be any SSs available that would be a “significant” upgrade over Omar (although most if not all could actually be minimal upgrades). Maybe the second year extension is based on foresight of no major SSs coming available next year either.
Signing Omar therefore cements the position and sets the Giants up to fill the hole at 3B with a Cabrera, A-Rod or another superstar. This suggests they are very determined to sign a significant bat for 3B (and, fingers crossed, to let Feliz walk).
Having Omar at SS could also be a positive selling point to a superstar third baseman.
While I hate that Omar got an option year for 09, I don’t see how anyone can really bitch too much since its not like there are any better options out there. David Eckstein? Bleh. Jack Wilson? Bleh. Cezar Izturis? Bleh. And then of course we have no one who can play SS. Its probably Frandsen’s worst position, Valez has played all of like 20 AB’s in the ML’s, and didn’t even play in AAA last year. Renteria was already acquired by Detroit. The only other guy out there who might be available is Julio Lugo and he is utter trash as well.
So going young at SS really isn’t even an option at this point. At least this way they’re still guaranteed of having quality defense at SS. Granted Defense is overrated sometimes but not at a position like SS. Vizquel finished with better defensive statistics then Jimmy Rollins and Rollins won a Gold Glove (although that’s not saying much since the majority of the GG winners this year were undeserving).
I just don’t get why people are so surprised and what their expectations were that overnight this team would suddenly field a bunch of young kids who are ML ready. That just wasn’t in the cards.
Sadly, Omar Vizquel probably IS the best SS the Giants could get for 2008 (god forbid he plays enough to get paid in 2009 as well). But the Giants are not going to be contenders in 2008. I’m not convinced that Omar at $5 million is a better idea than Joe CrapAAA for the ML minimum. Spend that $5 million somewhere that will be helpful down the road when the team is ready to contend again. The money they are paying Vizquel is now lost … it won’t get them any closer to the World Series, so it’s wasted money.
Of course, I’m also not convinced that Sabean would do the right thing with any extra $5 million that he is given. I mean, he just gave $5 million to Omar Vizquel.
Vizquel and Feliz, easily the worst left side of any infield in the entire world
On the upside, this could lead to baseball going to Offensive / Defensive platoons ala football.
Completely agree with the gist of your post, but the problem is, as you came to realize, that we’ve got nothing to trade for a player of Cabrera’s stature. The guy is amazing, and the fact that the Marlins are shopping him is beyond befuddling (maybe they know something nobody else does…).
At any rate, I would go so far as to say that I would trade Cain or Lincecum, especially if Dontrelle Willis, who I believe the Marlins are also looking to move, would be thrown in the deal. That would be awesome.
It also now appears that the Yankees are going to offer arbitration to A-Rod meaning whoever signs him has to give up their #1 pick. Gee, a bazillion dollars & a top 5 pick for a 31 year old player. Where do I sign up? GGAAHH!
This makes too much sense, so it won’t happen. Although, in addition to Cabrera I think I’d probably rather have Hunter for his price tag than Andruw Jones for his cost.
And yes, Cabrera will probably end up being a much better buy than A-Rod given his age.
[...] Original post here [...]
where is the Feliz for $8mm talk? Gawd no. Feliz might be back but Bonds is gone? How did Sabean keep his job?
I’d love to have Cabrera, but after we threw away Jeremy Accardo and Joe Nathan (and Boof and F.L.), I’m spooked. Can Sabean put together a package that we won’t spend the next 10 years regretting? The only thing I enjoyed this year (except Barry) was watching Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum pitch. I think I would wear sackcloth and ashes the entire off-season if we lost either of those two. And then become a fan of whatever uniform they were wearing next year.
The only reason that I am not that upset about bringing back Omar is that it will prevent Brain (Dead) Sabean from giving David Eckstein a 4 year $45M contract offer. All bets are off though if he even starts sniffing around Feliz.
Oldrips, I agree with you about this. On the other hand, it’s a sad commentary on our GM when we welcome him doing something modestly stupid, because it prevents him from doing something else that is even more flagrantly stupid. It would be nice to have a GM where we could expect something intelligent once in a while…
Go further and notice how many shortstops and 3rd basemen were called in september when the Giants had been mathmaticly eliminated weeks prior.
But we did call up a 35 year old first basemen.
What does it say about the Giants farm system that paying $5.5 million to a 41-year-old SS with a 621 OPS is preferable to paying one of their minor leagers $316,000 to do the same job? I mean, how bad must these minor leagers be for the Giants to be willing to pay a $5 million premium NOT to play them, so that they can instead play the 41-year-old who hits like Neifi Perez?!
If your answer is “But Omar had an offer year, he’s really a better hitter than that,” then let me ask you: Name one player, in the history of baseball, who fell apart at age 40 but then came back strong at age 41. Go on, name just one such player. Can’t do it, can you?
Ted Williams hit something like .250 in 1959 and then came back to hit over .300 in his last year in the major’s in 1960.
Nice thing about baseball-reference.com is that we can answer specific questions. So, what guys fell apart at 40 and came back strong at 41?
I started by looking at 40-year-old SS who play enough to qualify for a batting title, beginning my search in 1958, when the Giants arrived in SF. That wasn’t any help … Omar Vizquel is the only SS in the last 50 years to get enough PA to qualify aged 40+. I took it back to 1947, when integration occurred. That added Luke Appling, who was still hitting at a high level at 40. I went back to the turn of the last century, which gave us Honus Wagner, who actually DID have a better year at 41 than he did at 40. But basically, Omar’s unique.
So I threw out the position requirements. Since 1958, 17 hitters including Omar played enough to qualify for the batting title at age 40. Omar’s 2007 season was the worst season, offensively, of any of the 17. Seven players had OPS+ under 100 in their age-40 season … those are the guys we’d look at to see if they bounced back at age 41. They are George Brett, Eddie Murray, Jeff Conine, Craig Biggio, Dave Parker, Cal Ripken, and Omar.
Biggio is the only one of the six non-Omars to qualify for a batting title at age 41. That was last season, and he stunk. Brett retired, Murray hit .222 in 55 games and retired, Conine hit .254 with an OPS+ of 78 (this was last year … has he retired?), Parker retired, Ripken retired.
So no, there hasn’t been anyone since 1958 who had a bad season at the plate at age 40 who returned to have a good season at the plate at age 41. As someone mentioned, Ted Williams had a better year at 41 than he did at 40, and in fact his age-40 season was probably his worst. But even then he was better than average, so I didn’t include him in the “sucked but bounced back” group, since he didn’t suck. Include him if you’d like … I think Omar Vizquel has more in common with Craig Biggio than he does with the Splinter, but I’ve been wrong before.
Thanks, Steven, these results are very interesting.
I think the Omar deal shows that it is business-as-usual for Sabean. When his job was in jeapardy he mouthed the words “Must get younger…play the kids…blah, blah, blah,” but now that he has his two-year extension he’s back to doing what the always does: namely, bringing in “proven” veterans at the end of their careers (Aurilia, Klesko, Roberts, Finley, Alou, Matheny…). For a last-place team to re-sign a 41-year-old SS who was one of the worst hitters in baseball last year — well, that’s self-parody.
Good god I hope we dont get Hunter or Jones. Hunter is coming off a career year and Andruw Jones is 30 going on 45. Guy’s body is beat up like no other due to his former excellence in the OF, he’s like the new Jim Edmonds only younger.
As for Cabrera, Sabean HAS to get him. At any cost. I don’t care if we trade Cain and Lincecum to do it. And I don’t care that Cabrera has an awful work ethic and might eat himself out of the league within 5 years. This is their best chance to get a legitimate cornerstone positional player, who is young and brings power to the lineup. He is even controllable for two more seasons. This is a must.
I think people are underrating our farm system a bit here, we have pitching prospects that Florida might want like Sosa, Sanchez, Lincecum, Wilson etc. Idk why but I wonder if Florida would trade both Cabrera and Willis and then sign A-Rod and actually start spending $. A-Rod, Mike Jacobs, Dan Uggla, Hanley Ramirez and Jeremy Hermida aint bad. Plus whoever they acquire for trading both of their big name trade pieces who might have both worn out their welcome in Florida. You can’t tell me A-Rod wouldn’t help get a stadium deal in his own home town, but then again a WS team couldn’t do it….so who knows.
Our top 5 prospects? Here are 5 not named Lincecumway below average
1. Angel Villalona
2. Jonathan Sanchez
3. Henry Sosa
4. Emmanual Burriss
5. Michael McBryde
I would gladly give all five for Miggy. But outside Sanchez and Villalona, I don’t really see anyone else who other clubs would want. If would could pad this with a Freddy Lewis/Ortmeier/Schierhotlz, then maybe something would be possible. I really hope that Sabean doesn’t re-sign Feliz. The point of free agency is NOT to give lots of money to a consistently below average player.
The big flaw in you logic assumes that the Giants have 3 or 4 quality prospects to choose from. Gross miscalculation on your part.
alas the four or five best Giants prospects are still playing in High School.
Not to mention, Sabean surely wants Torii Hunter.
As long as we can sign him to an extension, he should be picked up for, say, either Jonathan Sanchez or Noah Lowry and a couple of prospects
Are you kidding? Nothing short of Lincecum or Cain, at the least, will nab Cabrera. At least, that’s the case if the Florida brass have any brains.