I have to feel happy for Penny. He did right by the Giants and he has made himself a clearly more valuable player. If the Giants are going to expand their payroll he seems to be the best and most obvious player for them to go after. I imagine Penny would be amenable to returning to the Giants. His success in San Francisco, his surprising return to form, did not occur in a vacuum; something about being on the Giants squad allowed him to flourish and he should think twice about moving.

Since the idea of acquiring a real batter seems to be off the table the Giants will need the best pitching they can get. But is Penny going to be too expensive, and will he want too many years? Probably.

It is another thing to have overpriced marginal players. The Giants have lots of these too as you note. Also see Mets, Tigers, Cubs, Brewers, Astros, White Sox, Blue Jays, Orioles.

And it is a worse thing to be a team with half of your payroll tied up in 3 humongous nonperforming manure piles. Each signed in succeeding years.

The piece d’ resistance? Extending the contract of the Nobel Imbecile Prize moron who was responsible for this mess and reward him with a 3 year extension just in time to add a fourth fecal cluster to the circle of shit when Freddy Sanchez was given a two year contract after posting up an awesome 690 OPS and a sub-300 OBP.

Oh. And another under the radar former Giant kicking ass.

Hint: The Giants rushed him to the Majors, he hurt himself trying to overthrow, like Joe Nathan, and was cast over the side for LaTroy Hawkins after being shipped to the minors and badmouthed in hushed voices to the local Bay Area mouthpieces by the front office on his way out the door. Just like Nathan.

All this took place while paying Armando Benitez millions to eat chocolate tacos, pull hamstrings, and shit himself, and paying millions to guys like Matt Morris, Brett Tomko, Jamey Wright ad nauseum.

And yet, in Penny, they have a guy who came in and shoved it for them for no cost, and whom nary a word is mentioned?

This organization is a fucking farce.

Fucker

This is because the Giants have $57.1M committed in contracts to Zito ($18.5M), Rowand ($13.6M), Renteria ($10M), Sanchez ($6M), Cain ($4.5M) and Affeldt ($4.5M). These six players are receiving 69% of the total payroll.

Lincecum is likely to ask compensation on par with Barry Zito’s. Lincecum is, after all, the staff Ace, more effective, more consistent, and he has twice as many Cy Young awards; facts that his agent will no doubt point out during negotiations. There is also the example of the Yankee’s contract with CC Sabathia. Lincecum is going to get a very big raise, no matter how the negotiations shake down.

This will leave somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million dollars to pay the remaining 18 players, possibly less. There is no room to sign even second-tier players.

The Top Six

Barry Zito, earning $18.5M, or 22.4% of the team’s total payroll, plays every five days. He is going to turn 34 early in the 2010 season. His quality of play would make him a fourth or fifth starter on a NL West team. His claim to fame: Worst signing in baseball history. A reoccurring nightmare on the hill, his fastball crosses the plate at about 75MPH. Baseball’s equivalent of toxic waste.

Aaron Rowand, earning $13.6M or 16.5% of the team’s total payroll, plays every day. He is going to turn 33 in the 2010 season. His quality of play is average and declining. His claim to fame: Runs face first into walls, team mates. Bad plate discipline complimented by lack of pop. Rowand led the team in strikeouts and batted a pitiful .261, the worst since his first full season in the majors. At least he isn’t Dave Roberts bad.

Edgar Renteria, earning $10M, or 12.1% of the team’s total payroll, plays when not injured. He is going to turn 35 in the 2010 season. Renteria checked out of the 2009 season early to have surgery on his right elbow. His quality of play was below average in 2009. His claim to fame: Option declined by the Detroit Tigers. Renteria is blocking younger players with no upside. Look up the word “boondoggle”.

Freddy Sanchez, earning $6M, or 7.26% of the team’s total payroll, plays when not injured. Another 33 year old player. Sanchez has undergone knee surgery. His quality of play is average. His claim to fame: Damaged upon receipt. Sanchez has no pop and is blocking younger players with no upside.

Matt Cain, earning $4.5M, or 5.45% of the team’s total payroll, plays every fifth day. He will turn 26 in the 2010 season. His quality of play is solid. His claim to fame: Very good and getting better. Worth every cent. Hell, give him a raise.

Jeremy Affeldt, earning $4.5M, or 5.45% of the team’s total payroll, left handed relief. Affeldt will turn 31 in the 2010 season. His quality of play is solid. His claim to fame: Very good and improving. An important element in the bullpen and worth every penny.

Overall I don’t have anything much against the Freddy Sanchez deal, if he can play healthy next year, and Cain and Affeldt are worth every cent.

The three highest paid players on the roster are pure unadulterated waste. $42 million for those three, fully half the team’s payroll (51%). Spending that kind of money you’d expect to get a top-tier ballplayer or two, instead of a hat full of shit.

As for addressing John’s post, it looks to me like the writers got lucky the vote got split so the deserving player won. The real evidence to me, that the writers still don’t have a clue, though, is the NL MVP vote. Chase Utley didn’t make the Top 10 for 14 of the 32 voters, and only receieved Top 5 consideration from 5 of the 32 voters. What does the best defensive 2B in baseball have to do to get noticed? He hit .282/.397/.508 with 31 HR’s! He’s a better hitter than Ryan Howard, a better baserunner (he even set the record for most steals without being caught this year with 23!), and he’s a gold glove 2B! He’s one of the 4 best players in all of baseball (the other 3 being Pujols, Hanley, Mauer), and has been that good for 5 years now. When someone as good as Utley is only deemed the 8th most valuable player in the national league, it really makes you wonder who decided to give the vote to a group of people who so obviously has no clue…

Alan “Bud” Seligula, Temporary Commissioner For Life and creator of the All-Star Home Field Advantage Video Game announced his
retirement at the end of the 2012 season. This is not the first time His Royal Custardness has feigned retirement, in an effort to weasel even more dollars from MLB. After backstabbing Faye Vincent along with the other members of the Great Lakes Gang — Selig, Carl Pohad, (Twins) Stanton Cook (Cubs), Jerry Reinsdorf, (Black Sox) and Peter O’Malley (Trolleydodgers)– feigned humility, surprise, reluctance and great sacrifice in being chosen by the other owners to be their front man.

Selig claims he wants to do other things, like write a book or teach history at the University of Wisconsin where he went to school. That may not be a good idea as Selig is not too popular with at least one School paper writer who thinks Selig has set a horrible example for future leaders of this country:

First, he brought baseball to Milwaukee by stealing it from Seattle, who then sued the American League for a new franchise. However, that stuff happens all the time. Later, in the ’80s, Selig showed his love for baseball’s athletes by “rigging the signing of free agents,” and, along with the Chicago White Sox’s Jerry Reinsdorf, colluding players out of $280 million. Of course, this is all according to former MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent, who has a bit of an ax to grind with Selig. See, it was Selig who led the coup to throw Vincent out of office and Selig who replaced him with, well, himself.

These days, he spends most of his time threatening cities with the idea of team relocation — or worse, contraction — if the good townspeople don’t publicly finance new stadiums for their billionaire owners. He’s also been busy turning a blind eye to steroid use for the last 15 years, which didn’t seem to matter when MLB was raking in cash, but merited congressional intervention when it started corroding the image of the game and it’s commissioner.

At least the owners will have Selig to whine in the media for them when the next CBA (collective bargaining agreement) is negotiated after its expiration ending in 2011. Nice of him to stick around just long enough to try to fuck the players again just before he retires.

Skewed Payroll Indeed

In addition, speaking of fucking over the players, the union is pressuring Lincecum to hold out for Arbitration in order to raise the bar on player salaries. Of the three major sports, MLB has the lowest percentage of revenues going to player salaries. While the owner’s stooges in mainstream media evoke class envy by pointing to the big ass contracts of Rowand, Zito, Renteria, and Winn as well as other marquee free-agents, the median salary of the San Francisco Giants was $661,250.00, 23rd place, on an a payroll of $82 Million. Other than 2008 when it was $650, 00.00, that is the lowest it has been since 1997’s $550,000 when the total payroll was $33 Million.

Here is a hint for Timmy’s agent if and when he decides to negotiate with Sabean and avoid arbitration. I use the word negotiate loosely in Sabean’s case as it appears he thinks he is dealing in Mexican peso’s, not dollars judging from the money he shelled out for Zito, Rowand, Roberts, Renteria, and Winn.

Cite Selig’s last reported salary of $18.35 Million in 2007. The year before he was paid $15.5 Million, the year before that $14.5 million. Extrapolate and extend that for 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. I think it is a fair assumption to infer that Selig’s salary (in light of record owners’ revenues and money into the Central fund) is likely over $20 Million in 2008 and even higher this year. Roughly speculating, it looks like Selig is in line for approximately $60 to $70 Million over the next 3 years.
Barry Zito is due to be paid that amount as well over the same period. So if we assume that Lincecum is merely the equal of Selig and Zito, that puts our boy at $20 million per just for openers.

Throw in the fact that Timmy promises he will not cancel the World Series. He will not give home field advantage to the team with the best record in intra-squad games. In addition, Lincecum will phone no radio shows and whine. He will also not throw baseballs across gullies and pretend it is a Zen exercise. He will also not twitter, tweet, or otherwise act like a pussy in public. That will be in addition to his 60 percent better ERA and a 75% better chance to win games he starts versus Zito too.

The Prescience of Robert

The Giants will continue to have difficulty retaining what homegrown talent they produce, and they will continue to have to overcompensate for mediocre talent. They are also taking the risk of alienating the fan base, which would be the kiss of death.

Then there is this. Nick Carfado of the Boston Globe keeps linking the Giants to Dan Uggla and now Miguel Tejada. I cannot imagine what Sabean would give up for an Uggla, given that he is probably fantasizing about Uggla turning into the next Jeff Kent. Which considering that he gave up Matt Williams for an up to that point unremarkable, but steady “second tier” Kent, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Larry Beinfest snooker Sabean out of Matt Cain.

Tejada is exactly the kind of over the hill baseball card with good Bay Area “Q” rating type of free agent that Sabean loves to sign. Old, beyond prime, gritty, all-star, blah blah blah. This year’s version of Edgar Renteria, Edgardo Alfatso, Moises Alou, Omar Vizquel etc.

I tend to think that the fan base will not be alienated. Baer is too smart a marketing person to allow that much slippage in attendance. That’s why guys like Tejada and Uggla are the kinds of guys the Giants chase. Sabean is really good at out-Royaling and out-Cubbing his competitors for these types of players, which is why he was renewed. It’s a fake left, go right type of transaction. Stay one step in front of the hounds of complete despair. Present the illusion of competing. Continue to offer false hope with the latest and greatest overpaid refuse, and surround them with underpaid club-controlled AAAAers.

Do all of this while refusing to eat the contracts of useless pieces of shit like Zito, Rowand, and Winn etcetera and replace them with actual good players.

You know, like what the Dodgers, Angels do when they make a bad acquisition like Gary Matthews Jr, Bartolo Colon, Juan Pierre, or Milton Bradley.

Otherwise, that may imply that writers who selected one or the other felt that it was “only fair” to drop the other to 3rd place and slip Lincecum into 2nd, regardless of how they felt he compared to either pitcher. That doesn’t make sense to me.