Here’s one more reason to question the moves our GM makes:
…. Vladimir Guerrero has agreed to a one-year $5 million dollar contract with the Texas Rangers, opting to stay in the same division where he helped the Los Angeles Angels to five titles in the last six years.
And there’s this:
…. Scott Podsednik agreed to a $1.75 million, one-year contract with Kansas City on Friday, giving the Royals speed at the top of the order and versatility in the outfield. The deal includes a club option for 2011.
Now, I’m not advocating signing either Podsednik or Guererro. Both players have been injured and declining for several years. But what I am pointing out is that injured, 30-something-year old players sign these kind of one-year, incentive-driven contracts all the time.
Just not with the Giants. With the Giants, they get traded for. With the Giants, they get two and three-year deals, for $12, and $14 and $18 million dollars.
(Not to mention, the Giants needed an outfielder this off-season, not another infielder)
Who do you think will create more bang for the buck over the life of their contracts, Posednik, Guererro or DeRosa? The three players are almost exactly the same age. Last season, Vlad had one of his worst seasons ever, and in every phase of offense was more productive than DeRosa, posting a .295/.334/.460 .794 OPS. Podsednik was supposedly on Sabean’s radar, but somehow managed to slip through his fingers and sign for the paltry sum of $1.75 million somewhere else.
One of these guys got a two-year deal worth $12 million, one got a one-year deal worth $5 million dollars, and one of them got a one-year deal worth $1.75 million. And the Giants can never afford to make a run at a real player.
Did Edgar Renteria deserve a two-year deal worth $18 million? Absolutely not. After the lay down, give up year he pulled in Detroit, not one team in baseball was willing to offer him those kind of numbers. He would have been happy with a minor league contract and an invitation to camp. Only Brian Sabean thought he was worth $18 million dollars. Only Brian Sabean thought he was worth anything at all.
Did Dave Roberts deserve a three-year deal worth $18 million dollars? Please. Dave Roberts had never been an everyday player in his entire baseball life. He was 34 years old, and in all likelihood, was as stunned by the Giants offer as anyone in baseball. And, of course, as an everyday centerfielder, he was completely overmatched in every phase of the game, from having to hit both right handers and lefthanders, to simply staying healthy; because, of course, he was old, and injury-prone.
On and on, over and over again, Brian Sabean doles out millions of dollars to players who are sitting at home staring at the telephone, praying that it will ring –players who go from starting for the Giants to yakking it up in the broadcast booth– and the rest of the baseball world laughs.
Again and again, players tell us how happy they are to be in San Francisco, a destination that has become baseball’s version of the PGA Seniors Tour; while our estimable GM tells us his hands are tied, the team can only afford so much.
Understand this; the Giants have plenty of money. Brian Sabean and his crack baseball team spend that money as poorly as any team has in the history of the game.
Two 35-year old ballplayers just signed with new teams. Both of them are old, both are on the decline. One of them got a one-year deal worth $5 million. The other got a two-year deal worth $12 million.
Last year, two 34-year old shortstops signed with new teams. One of them got a one-year deal worth $5 million, the other got a two-year deal worth $18 million.
Do you see?
21 Backtalkers
“And the Giants can never afford to make a run at a real player.”
That one sentence perfectly summarizes the current state of SFG baseball. The only chance that Sabean gets released from his contract early is if Neukom comes to understand and appreciate the reasons why it’s true. This piece perfectly articulates what thousands of Giants fans have known for quite a while and should be on the front of the sporting section of the Chronicle.
Aubrey Huff signed for only one year. It’s a nice move because if he sucks you can dump him and ishi or someone else takes his spot. Pablo stays at third where statistically he’s a better fielder and younger than derosa plus his bat has move value at 3rd than at 1st. In this deal to Huff there’s no mult year 10mil+ committment like w/renteria and all the myriad other banged up vets sabes lusts after. Is our GM finally getting it? Better late than never I like this signing…
I don’t get the Huff signing. It’s just so…marginal. We should be able to find production like his out of some AAA guy rotting away, not getting his shot at The Show somewhere. It’ll likely be a totally inconsequential move…but it’s classic Sabean, throwing $3M at an old guy who isn’t going to do much, when we probably could have found the production elsewhere. Guzman/Ishikawa/Phelps/Garko…between those guys, one or two of them could give you what Huff will likely give us. 1 yr/$3M isn’t much, but it’s all those little moves that add up and eventually mean we can’t even make an offer to Matt Holliday…I dunno how closely I’m going to follow the Giants this year, it’s just so frustrating and disheartening that Sabean can still be running the show after all this time.
Don’t focus solely on Huff’s last year. It was terrible, for sure, but the guy has a career OPS of .812, and is a career .282/.340/.472 hitter, not to mention averaging 25 HRs and 90+ RBIs per season. Two years ago, he hit .304 with 32 Hrs. Those are definitely better numbers than what Ishikawa has put up (against AL east pitching, no less).
This is a smart deal- you get the chance of Adam LaRoche-like production for a fraction of the cost (Sabean isn’t lying; the Giants couldn’t afford the multi-year deal he wanted). And if it doesn’t pan out, the mistake won’t stay to haunt you.
Huff has had one good hitting year in the last 5, which was heavily related to a lot more of his flyballs turning into HR’s than normal. Given that he’s a LHH in AT&T, this isn’t going to happen next year. Other than that he’s barely been above average over the past 5 years, he’s 33, and projected to be slightly better than average next year. Combine that with poor defense, and you’re left with something that’s pretty comparable to Ishikawa overall. Career numbers are good – I like to look at a bigger sample than a smaller one, but once you get to be 33 and your numbers start to drop, they become a lot less relevant. There’s not much of a chance Huff does anything truly worthwhile, and there’s a decent chance he’s done altogether. We’re wasting away another $3M on a player that isn’t going to give us any more than an Ishikawa/Guzman combo. Heck, Guzman probably has a better chance of breaking out with the bat next year than Huff.
1 yr/$3M to Huff is fine. There’s little risk, there’s a good chance he’s worth it, with a chance for more. I get it. The problem is we keep making these deals that don’t make us better in any substantial way (even if Huff is better than an Ishikawa/RHH platoon, it’s by a very, very small amount)….and then we’re told we can’t afford someone like Matt Holliday. You know how we CAN afford Holliday? By not signing DeRosa, Huff, Uribe and Renteria, that’s how. There’s your money, right there. Now tell me, which would you rather have – 4 guys that give us a marginal upgrade or one guy that by himself completely changes our lineup, and by himself gives us more production than the other 4 combined? It’s more Sabean BS – giving up prospects for guys like Garko, then going out and paying guys like Uribe or Huff whose production can be easily replaced by people we already have in our organization – so players who are essentially free.
That’s why it’s such a bad move, not because Huff doesn’t deserve 1 yr/$3M for what he can do, but because our entire organization is hamstrung by a philosophy that absolutely refuses to go with the young cheap “talent” in favor of expensive veterans who don’t give us anything more worthwhile than the young guys. This kind of philosophy has been proven to fail, hasn’t gotten the Giants anywhere, isn’t getting the Giants anywhere, nor will ever get the Giants anywhere. It’s a losers way to build a ballclub. For some reason, that’s acceptable to this franchise.
In the context we would all think is conducive to winning you are right. 100% right. But that way, in the view of the ptb, entails risk. Risk in failure without name recognition in the context of “competing” but not trying to actually win. Huff will be marketed along with Rowand and now DeRosa and Sanchez as even more gamers, more gritty, more small ball, more blah blah blah shoring up the offense.
Folks that don’t pay attention to the context of Giants transactions, which is the majority of folks that pay their way into the park, probably see the addition of Huff, the DeRosa signing, the Sanchez signing, a “healthy” Renteria etc as a bolster to the Giants offense over last year and since the Giants won 88 games last year, these changes will garner the Giants 95 wins easy.
And thats the marketing mantra that the tools in the media will eventually spin. After all the Dodgers owners are getting divorced so thats good for at least 15 additional losses they will incur. Manny got busted for peds and his performance was sub-par after the suspension, and they lost two key guys in the rotation so thats worth another 15 losses. Yup. The Dodgers will be lucky to win 65 games next year.
The Rockies? Well, they’re just fucking lucky because of that bullshit arena-baseball park and they cheat with the baseballs so the baseball gods are going to get them good this year for sure. Jim Tracy sucks as a manager and they were highly motivated to prove Clint Hurdle was a douchebag, so they tried real real hard and probably won’t try as hard this year as a result. Also, tew they won’t have Torrealba anymore so thats at least 35 more losses for the Rockies, so they won’t be any good either.
And the Padres and Dbacks are so horrible they’re not even worth talking about.
The Giants will have the division clinched by the All-Star Break this year for sure.
whatdayamean “if”
This is the prototypical, classic, patented, copyrighted, trademarked, stereotyped, hand-signed, Brian “tits on a nun” Sabean” transaction.
An irrelevant player who is
Overrated, overpaid, and now thanks to the wet-brained one:
Over here.
LOVE THE POST
hate the huff deal…really sabes his line was worse than ishi’s…worse so you waste 3 mil on him and hog tie us from making a productive move at the deadline maybe…i really hate to say this but brian sabean needs to meet with an accident somehow someway somewhere he is murdering a great opportunity to win this division and a WS title….Aubrey freaking Huff is a joker and worse than the 1rst baseman on the roster and worse than the guy we just let walk away (Garko) and he is costing us more than both of them together would have…I’d be ashamed of myself if i had to tell my boss that…I wouldn’t have a boss anymore if i wasted resources like these idiots…grrr
Well, the DeRosa signing was definitely classic Sabean, which is equivalent to shite, but Aubrey Huff could, and possibly can, hit. He can’t field a lick however.
If you’re DHing while Miguel Cabrera plays first you know you can’t field.
This signing makes me wonder where DeRosa plays now? Left field I guess?
This makes out defense really quites bad:
1B- Huff: horrible
2B- Sanchez: average
3B- Sandoval: average (being a little kind here)
SS- Renteria: horrible
LF- DeRosa: bad
CF- Rowand: average (maybe a little above?)
RF- Schierholtz: average
That’s just the kind of defense you want to play behind good pitching. Pitchers love to see balls roll through the infield and drop in the outfield when they know a lot of them would be caught by “good” defenders.
DeRosa’s actually a pretty good corner OF’er, defensively. Sanchez is also solidly above average, and Schierholtz is likely above average, too. The important thing to remember is corner OF’ers, as a group, are terrible fielders – they’re the worst fielding position other than 1B in baseball, and guys like Carlos Lee are stashed there. Relatively speaking, athletic guys like Schierholtz or DeRosa look very good because of that.
Keeping an eye on the calendar
I’m kind of waiting to see what happens here over the next few weeks. Methinks the agents for certain Giants players have these dates on their own personal calendars more than most.
Jan. 5-15, 2010
Salary arbitration filing period
Jan. 19, 2010
Exchange of salary arbitration figures
Feb. 1-21, 2010
Salary arbitration hearings
Normally I don’t pay much attention to arbitration hearings, filings and salary exchanges for a number of very complex reasons, that neither space nor time permit me to elaborate upon. Suffice to say, I simply do not give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut about such things. Real life is enough encumbered by the annoyances of one’s own financial meanderings, let alone those of perfect strangers.
However, this year is somewhat more enticing simply because these dates in the context of Tim Lincecum, Jonathan Sanchez, and Brian Wilson may (or may not) give us at least a small indication of what the core of the Giants pitching staff thinks about the off-season roster changes and contract extensions of Bochy and Sabean
If you’re interested in the short and sweet synopsis of mlb arbitration you can read about it here.
If Lincecum wants out of Pier 98 and onto a team that creates a lot of runs with decent defense in the shortest possible time, he’s going to sign a contract that is a maximum of three years given Sabean’s almost paranoiac disdain for letting an arbitrator make the final decision.
He could go “all-in” and force Sabean’s hand and take the one year deal and let the arbitrator pick the number. To me that indicates he believes that his lower back problems are of the non-recurring variety, and he pretty much wants out of here as fast as he can catch a plane to where the teams actually put an emphasis on scoring runs with a core lineup of position players as opposed to annual series of scouting combines and farewell tours.
Or he may sign a multi-year beyond his walk year (2012) that would signal that he, his agent, and/or his old man are content with the direction the franchise is heading or he thins his lower back problems are going to be chronic (as they often are) and he wants to insure against the diminshed performance a reinjury would cause for as long as possible.
And speaking of Lincecum in a purely baseball sense.
If one sees the amount of extraordinary torque that Lincecum exerts on his lower back, you would see two things:
1. The source of his freakish velocity
2. The incredible strain on the lower vertebrae that he uses like the fulcrum of a medieval catapult.
Even in slow-motion the speed with which he transitions from his “reach-back” to his “stride, plant and pull through” is incredible. Like Pedro Martinez and other smaller power-pitchers, Lincecum generates a ton of velocity with his back combined with his glutes and lower extremities. If you look at this segment here he did on pitching mechanics with Joe Magrane and Harold Reynolds about a year ago, you can see what I’m talking about towards the end where they have the camera shooting from behind.
The incredible stride he takes with his front leg. Most pitchers extend out with their landing foot about the same as their height. i.e. 6 foot tall, 6 foot stride-out to landing point. With Lincecum who is 5.10. he strides out over 7 feet! Just an incredible amount of lower body action; and nobody knowing what the long term result is going to be, though so far, only the lower back strain from September of last year has resulted.
Lincecum is worth the price of admission. And other than Sandoval and occasionally Matt Cain, there simply is not much worth watching on an ongoing basis.
Ironically Baseball Prospectus did a not so flattering profile on Huff on Friday, and of course signed by our brilliant GM on Sunday. Just more of the same……..
January 8, 2010
Baseball Therapy
Free-agency Personals
by Russell A. Carleton
33 y/o four-corner player with proven track record of power hitting seeks team in need of proven veteran left-handed hitter. I enjoy hitting ground balls and the occasional walk, whether by the beach or not. I used to be a swinger in my early days, but I’ve since changed my ways. Wanna have some fun this summer? Call my agent.
Imagine if free agency worked like one of those online dating sites. You log on, read a four-line intro filled with half-truths and decide whether you want to spend the next six months with this person. You pick one that at least sounds interesting. Then you meet, spend some time together, and you find that he’s better than some of the other jokers you’ve found on the site. You watch a few games together, and he moves in. That’s when you find out that the half-truths from the bio are only 90 percent true.
For example, let’s take the above personal ad of Mr. Aubrey Huff. Huff enters free agency after spending a few years in Baltimore, and then being shipped off to Detroit for the second half of the 2009 season. He really is 33(we think), but while he carries the reputation of being a four-corners guy, the truth is that he hasn’t played in the outfield in a couple of years, didn’t play third base in 2009, and for the most part, he didn’t play first base much either. Worse still, defensive metrics haven’t been too fond of his contributions at any of those positions, even going back a few years; there’s a difference between being willing to stand in the vague area of a position on the baseball diamond and being any good at it. So, he’s a designated hitter/occasional first baseman type who might be able to fool a team into believing that he can “help out” at third.
Huff’s big problem is that he had a big season one year too early. In 2008, Huff ranked 16th in VORP among all major-league players (as a DH!), while posting a spiffy .304/.360/.552 line and 32 home runs. In 2009, his performance fell to .241/.310/.384 and 15 HR. Which one is the real Huff? More to the point, which one will be the 2010 Huff?
Huff’s agent will no doubt try to sell a team on those 32 homers in 2008 and get them thinking about how it could happen again. It’s not likely. In 2008, Huff, who had been a pretty steady 46 percent ground-ball hitter saw his GB rate drop to 40 percent. The extra air balls, combined with a spike in his rate of HR/FB led to a 30-homer season. In 2009, his ground-ball rate returned to normal and his home-run total came down. It’s hard to hit a lot of home runs when you hit almost half your balls into the ground. But an odd thing happens once you’ve logged a 30-homer season; it’s kind of like logging 30 saves. At that point, you are a “proven power hitter,” which is much like being a “proven closer.” That word “proven” does strange things to people, who seem to mistake it for “guaranteed to repeat.”
There’s one other curious thing about Huff that is worth noting. When Huff played in Tampa Bay from 2001-06, he would swing at 68 percent of pitches he saw in the strike zone, and about 22 percent of the pitches outside of the zone. When he got to Baltimore in 2007, his pattern shifted notably. He began swinging at fewer pitches in the strike zone (~63 percent) and more pitches out of the strike zone (~26 percent). Sometimes a player will make a conscious effort to swing more or less overall, but in this case, it looks like Huff fell into some bad habits (or was getting some bad advice). His out-of-zone contact rate did jump from 53 percent to 63 percent, but in his 2 ½ years in Baltimore, his batted-ball profile didn’t change, and his strikeout rate went up. All that swinging wasn’t doing much positive for him.
Aubrey Huff is a textbook case in a player who looks better when you describe him in four lines than when you study him up close. So what sort of team might go for him? He won’t cost a draft pick, so that’s not a concern. It’s hard to figure out. His lack of a true defensive position makes him better suited to an AL team, but his “versatility” might persuade an NL team to give him a shot. His numbers in 2008 garnered him a few MVP votes, while his numbers in 2009 put him below replacement level as a DH. He’s the sort of guy that really should start only on a bad team and come off the bench for a good one. But he’ll probably demand the sort of money that a team wouldn’t justify spending on a bench player with no defensive value and probably would be a little rich for a rebuilding team. Might the Royals take a swing at Huff? After non-tendering Mike Jacobs, they are short a veteran DH/1B type if they get nervous about handing the job to Kila Ka’aihue. Huff could provide them with some pseudo-comfort.
Any way you slice it, though, Aubrey Huff is a bad date waiting to happen. It’s not that he’ll be completely worthless. He’ll probably do some useful stuff, play with the kids, and have a few nights where he’s just magic. He’s probably not the scary stalker type, but he’s the sort of signing that really only ends in heart-break for everyone involved. Just like most of those online personals.
Disappointingly, this sounds correct. I will hope for better. Hope’s good right?
And you guys thought I was kidding when I wrote this:
The Intercontinental Ringling Brothers and Barnum Bailey Railroad is now complete. Washington DC., Pittsburgh, Houston, Kansas City, San Francisco.
When the going gets tough, the tough spend even more stupidly. Brian Sabean must have a secret desire to be a U.S. Senator. Never has so little been accomplished, by so few with so much of others money. With possibly the exception of Congress.
Chip,
Took a three month hiatus from OBM. Needed the break….and baseball is in the blood again.
Great post. All good points…and well documented.
DeRosa and Huff are marginal additions at best…and are just typical moves bu “The Idiot”. Why should anyone be surprised or expect different….two old utility journeyman. Nice. Doing nothing and standing pat…would’ve been better. At least give the kids a year to develop.
I do like bringing Uribe back…and think he adds value.
Somehow, DeRosa nad Huff remind me of Garko. Old slow white guys. Perfect Sabean players.
Brian and the Beanstalk
Who is going to be the Giants catcher? Who is going to be the Giants number 5 starter?
Did Brian forget his shopping list?
So far this off season reminds me of the beginning of the fairytale Jack and the Beanstalk, where Jack goes to the market to sell the cow and comes back with a handful of beans.
The Giants don’t need another utility player. The Giants don’t need another infielder. They certainly don’t need to spend money on additional infielders, particularly when those infielders are old and hideously average in every way.
It seems like every time I read the news Sabean is signing another over the hill infielder.
What about a catcher? Who is going to be on the receiving end of this four man rotation? Oh, yeah, and what about another starter? Does Sabean think the young arms are going to go a full season with 20% less rest? These are the pressing questions. These are the team’s real needs.
Jack’s mom was pretty pissed off when he came home with a handful of beans. She threw the beans out the window and called Jack a fool. The rest of the story turned out rather well, but that’s what makes it a fairytale; something about a castle in the sky and a goose that lays golden eggs. I really don’t see that as a likely scenario at Third and King.
I think Sabean’s great. Of course, I’m a Dodger fan…
John, did you see that Rob Neyer linked to your blog in his “Monday Mendozas”?
I confess I thought you were too hard on Sabean for signing DeRosa, but the Huff signing is just so depressing that I guess you were right all along. I think B has this one exactly right: what dos Huff offer that Ishikawa doesn’t, except 7 more years of age, and worse defense, and a higher salary? There’s just something about a 33-year-old mediocrity than Sabean can’t resist.
No, I hadn’t. Thanks for the hat tip.
It’s still really cool to see that the big-time guys still read my site, even though I criticize them all the time.
a fact: if you want your website to make you money, generate leads or get subscribers you have to advertise in order to drive traffic to it. Of course this is true for any business, but it is absolutely essential for online business.
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Now that Adam LaRoche has taken $5m/1yr from the Diamondbacks, the question must be asked: Was he unwilling to accept the same offer from the Giants after turning down their insane multiyear offer, or were the Giants unable to offer it to him after throwing money at DeRosa and Huff? Seems like bad strategy on everyone’s part.