OGC, >> I’m very sorry that I was jerky, but please, read over what you wrote, you were writing like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread that salaries were available. This has to be the dumbest thing ever to argue about, but I merely called it "cool", which it is. Tell me, since when is calling something "cool" the same as acting like it's the "greatest thing since sliced bread"? eh? >> Plus, as much as I like the Yabu story, the history of relievers who do well and fizzle out are as long as the history of baseball, it is too soon to annoint anything regarding his performance, due to the small sample problem with relievers, other than to enjoy it and hope it continues. Again, that's very strawman-ish. No one "anointed" Yabu anything other than a reliever who is making little salary and performing well. Whether or not you can think he can sustain his perfomance is another blog post entirely. >> My understsanding of the contract negotiations was that the Mets had offered 6 years at an average $18M and that the Giants won him by adding a year. So, based on that, I don’t think that you can blame the Giants for raising salaries, it was going to happen with Zito with or without the Giants. I have ALWAYS heard that the Mets stopped at 5 years as a MAXIMUM offer and it was around $78M. ESPN has a blurb on it, here. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=27033... The Giants exceeded that offer by 2 years and $48M. >> Zito was a PR gamble by Magawan, much like his Barry Bonds signing, and he was hoping to catch lightening in the bottle twice. You don't know that. More speculation that is not backed up by any source of information. This is the #1 argument for the Zito signing from guys that really like Sabean, and it's a sneaky and dishonest one. >>...you should have put it up above where you are talking about that cheap rotation. >> ...you didn’t mention how good it is that Sabean had put together such a cheap AND good rotation together. >> ...There is enough negativity out there on him, people tend to forget that there is a lot of good that he has done too, I feel that is something people need to remember too. This is my favorite part, where you tell me how to write my blog. Here's the crazy thing, I can write these posts how I want. You know why? Because I pay for this site, I buy my server space, and it's my views on this site. I've always been objective and I've never once criticized Sabean undeservedly. It's not my job to try and dispel the "negatively" that surrounds the man. If you want, you can try to do that on your blog, where I won't tell you how to write. >> And on what do you base your opinion that Bowker is a better hitter than his stats indicate right now? Many could probably have said the same about Linden after his one good year in AAA a few years back, but I think it says something that he hasn’t been able to latch onto a MLB roster still. See post entitled "Is John Bowker Unlucky?" he's hitting a bunch of line drives and his BABIP is very low for what it should be. Linden has nothing to do with Bowker, they aren't mutually exclusive. >> About Roberts: I read on sfgiants.com in a piece on his progress that he’s been sitting in the dugout, helping out the young players. He would be the perfect coach for basestealing for the Giants once he retires. I know I haven't seen him once in the dugout during games. Maybe I missed him. He would be an awesome coach, it just sucks that we're paying $13M over the next two seasons for a great coach. >>But Horwitz is making a name for himself right now, so things might move faster if he gets hot enough. Maybe it's too soon to anoint Horwitz, since he's had all of 14 at-bats. He never hit for power in the minors and is basically a 1-tool player. He hits for a little average, is confined to a corner OF spot (most likely LF), doesn't run well, and is probably average at best defensively. >> About salary, here is what you wrote: “To my immediate knowledge, there isn’t a whole lot on the FA market this coming offseason that the Giants can apply the $17M that they’ll be getting with Durham, Aurilia, and Omar coming off the books.” If a lot of the $17M is taken, then how can they apply it to any free agent? After raises, the Giants will have about $7.9M to apply to a FA if they want. I'm sorry that tripped you up, wasn't my intention. >> Hence why I like the pitching first approach of the past decade, when one falls down, hopefully you have two ready to take over. You realize this flies in the face of the Zito signing. If our approach is to develop young pitching, which it has been, you don't drop 7 years and 126 million on a starter on the free agent market. You just don't. >> A rotation of Cain, Morris, Lowry, plus two question marks is not a rotation that you take into battle for playoff contention, and that is what the Giants was trying to do with Barry’s 2007 season. Obviously, it didn’t work. And the Giants are/were/still are delusional if they thought all they needed was Zito to "take them over the top" and into a "battle" for the playoffs. Thanks for writing, as always.

I'm very sorry that I was jerky, but please, read over what you wrote, you were writing like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread that salaries were available. I did not get any indication it was the format you enjoyed, as that's something else. And I should have known better, so my apology on that too. Yes, the Padres are a pretty good example, I'll grant that, but I think that, just like Moneyball's focus on OBP, the efficient marketplace is filling the gap on that supply-demand imbalance. That's already happening with Japanese relievers that SD started, with LA and Boston picking up good guys, and I think the Brewers too, maybe somewhere in the Mid-west. Plus, as much as I like the Yabu story, the history of relievers who do well and fizzle out are as long as the history of baseball, it is too soon to annoint anything regarding his performance, due to the small sample problem with relievers, other than to enjoy it and hope it continues. As much as we like to rib GMs, there are not all stupid either, anytime I hear that there is some market inefficiency that can be exploited, the economist in me tells me that the invisible hand is already working to put things in balance. I just don't think there is a lot out there, I mean, Sabean has done it for years himself, picking up Embree, F-Rod, Eyre, from what I can remember, he was doing it before the Padres were but got away from that in recent years. Yes, about the cheap rotation, you did mention that later, much later, when you should have put it up above where you are talking about that cheap rotation. Again, read over what you wrote in that one section, all you spoke about there is how cheap the rotation is, you didn't mention how good it is that Sabean had put together such a cheap AND good rotation together. And not once in your piece did you say that Sabean has done a great job of putting together our pitching staff. There is enough negativity out there on him, people tend to forget that there is a lot of good that he has done too, I feel that is something people need to remember too. Zito was a PR gamble by Magawan, much like his Barry Bonds signing, and he was hoping to catch lightening in the bottle twice. I don't blame Sabean for this one. It was a calculated gamble, even the diminished Zito prior to signing with the Giants was still pretty good, a high 3 ERA is actually very good for the AL, and he would have been moving to the NL where you get 2-3 easy outs with the pitcher (when you are not walking them), so it was logical to think that he would have been OK for the Giants in the near term and then you cross your fingers regarding the long-term. Unfortunately, Zito was not as zen as he appeared to be or made himself out to be, and the contract got inside his head. My understsanding of the contract negotiations was that the Mets had offered 6 years at an average $18M and that the Giants won him by adding a year. So, based on that, I don't think that you can blame the Giants for raising salaries, it was going to happen with Zito with or without the Giants. About Aurilia: it was you who said he was deadweight. If you didn't care about him because he won't be here next year, that's another thing, but you called him a deadweight. A true deadweight was Edgardo Alfonzo and Benitez, salary paid and nothing gained. Aurilia is earning his salary right now. Now, is he blocking Bowker? Yes, but that's another thing. And on what do you base your opinion that Bowker is a better hitter than his stats indicate right now? Many could probably have said the same about Linden after his one good year in AAA a few years back, but I think it says something that he hasn't been able to latch onto a MLB roster still. I like Bowker, but he's already getting the vast majority of the starts against RHP, except that Aurilia gets the tough ones. And when the vets are hitting around .900 OPS, unless Bowker is hitting like a superstar, I don't see any great reason to start him, just to start him. There has to be some accountability for performance. That said, he had a really nice weekend, perhaps he's finally adjusting to the pitcher's adjustments, hopefully he can continue the momentum. If he's hitting well, I would hope he gets a lot more play. About Durham: fair enough, but he hasn't been a deadweight this season, and that was your point of contention. About Roberts: I read on sfgiants.com in a piece on his progress that he's been sitting in the dugout, helping out the young players. He would be the perfect coach for basestealing for the Giants once he retires. Thinking about him, I think that's why Schierholtz hasn't been brought up yet, they will need a spot in the OF once Roberts returns, and he will be untradeable at that point, so then Winn would become the logical target to move out, which frees RF for Lewis to play while Roberts returns to LF. After Roberts shows some health and productivity, then they can think about trading him away in the off-season. But Horwitz is making a name for himself right now, so things might move faster if he gets hot enough. About salary, here is what you wrote: "To my immediate knowledge, there isn’t a whole lot on the FA market this coming offseason that the Giants can apply the $17M that they’ll be getting with Durham, Aurilia, and Omar coming off the books." If a lot of the $17M is taken, then how can they apply it to any free agent? About Zito, yeah, very unfortunate, particularly in light of how well Sanchez and Correia have done, but those are not things you can rely on when you are making roster decisions before they showed that they are capable of doing this. It was never a foregone conclusion that either would succeed, same for Lincecum, and given the unfortunate example of Lowry, you never know when it's going to end. Hence why I like the pitching first approach of the past decade, when one falls down, hopefully you have two ready to take over. A rotation of Cain, Morris, Lowry, plus two question marks is not a rotation that you take into battle for playoff contention, and that is what the Giants was trying to do with Barry's 2007 season. Obviously, it didn't work.

Frandsen's GORP (Grit Over Replacement Player) was huge. Eyeblack, dirty jersey, "plays the game the right way"? GAMER.

Glad to be here! I never thought that highly of Franny before the injury, although his Grit metrics are off the chart. However, agreed about the timing of the injury: this woulda been the year that he would have had the chance to prove me wrong.

Hey Delorean, Good to see you here, on my little corner of the Interweb. I'm just skeptical about Frandsen because of his age -- he'll be 27 next year -- and the injury he suffered. I chatted with Will Carrol of BP a few months ago and he assured me that most players come back fine from an Achilles rupture, but maybe with less lateral movement. I believe he gave me an example of Gabe Kapler who came back from something similar. Is Frandsen even off crutches yet or doing baseball activities? I don't know. I don't think he's a starter at 3B, maybe at 2B, but I think his ultimate destination will be utility guy. It's a shame that he got hurt this year because it was his year to find out what he could do and the Giants needed that evaluation period.

Solid insights, Chris. I also appreciate the Frandsen comment -- I’m not counting on Frandsen for anything right now" -- it seems like some fans have this romantic recollection of the pre-injury Frandsen, as though he were something other than a *maybe* league average utility guy.

>> I guess you missed it, but El Lefty Malo has had the salaries of the players with contracts on the side of his blog for years now, plus has a link to Cots, which has the full contract details for major leaguers. In addition, ESPN has had the salaries for teams for years as well. Welcome to the 21st Century! I've seen Lefty's presentation and I use Cots regularly, I just liked the presentation of this specific tool. Thanks for the welcome, I've been here awhile, but no need to be jerky about it. >> And by extension, are you saying that once a player proves himself as a good closer, like Mariano Duncan, you let him go because you can find a cheap and free closer somewhere else? That's a straw man as I never said anything even close to that. If you want examples of cheap and/or/free relievers, look at the Padres, they've been doing it for years. Elite relievers -- Rivera, Papelbon, F-Rod -- are rare but for most relievers, they tend to bounce around between seasons and because of that, unless they're elite, I wouldn't drop piles of cash on them. >> Cheap and free rotation does not mean that it is a good rotation. That’s a function of good player acquisition. The Pirates, Royals, Rays, any historically bad teams often have a very cheap rotation, but they weren’t very good. What is your point? You appear to be lauding Sabean here, is that your intent? Because it was he who put together this cheap - and most importantly, productive - pitching staff. First of all, I quantified them as "good" if you read the entire piece. I'll quote it again. The Giants are getting some really cheap and good starting pitching, but Zito’s deal almost cancels it out. That’s a bit of hyperbole, but how unfortunate is it that you can get 4 pretty good starters — Cain, Lincecum, Sanchez, Correia — for under $10M combined So, yes, I'm lauding Sabes. Building a cheap, decent rotation, is a good thing. >> It is not overspending for pitching, it is what the market will bear. If the teams could not afford it, they would not be spending it. With rising revenues, particularly from their internet business, they can afford to pay more, the industry has been in an high inflationary period for a long time now. Baseball is growing, but nobody but the Giants are paying $18M -- or if you want to split hairs, $14M this year -- for a below league average pitcher, which I think Zito could turn into or he already is. He's given very little indication -- besides a boost in his K% in May to average -- that he can be a league average pitcher. The Giants locked up a pitcher for 7 years and $126M when he was maybe worth $43M over the next 7 seasons, that's the valuation from PECOTA, at least. The market might pay more, and it did because the Giants signed Zito, but noone else was going to approach the Giants offer in terms of years and salary. So either the Giants over payed, or they don't understand the market. I'm not sure which is worse. >> Likewise, Aurilia since his low OPS on April 19, has hit .299/.380/.514/.894, with 5 homers in 107 AB. Bowker since the same date: .225/.279/.357/.636, with 4 homers in 129 AB. I think Bowker is a better hitter than his slash-stats indicate right now. I don't care too much about what Aurilia is hitting right now because he won't be here next year, at the very most, I can only be slightly excited because it might boost his trade value, which I'm certain is near non-existent. >> Durham is not only “playing better lately”, but he’s been raking - .347/.431/.465/.896 - and he’s been doing it since the end of April, over 6 weeks ago. In other words, he’s been doing it for most of the season. Durham had a nice May and I've happy he's hitting but his BABIP was near .380 and I'm not ready to crown him yet. Let's see what happens. Hopefully he's traded, who knows if anyone wants him. >> The key thing is that he appears to have learned something with Roberts around That's pure speculation because you have no idea if Roberts has told Lewis anything. Is Roberts even around? I haven't seen him in the dugout. Maybe it was Roberto Kelly. >> What you are not accounting for is where some of that $17M is going to next year. Check out Cots via ELM, the contracts are all there, you even note salary raises above, about $4M is gone to Zito’s bump to $18M, a bump of $2M to Lowry, Cain will get a bump, and Lincecum whether through signing with the Giants or getting a raise for being the best pitcher around, should get a big bump as well. Add in Sanchez and arbitration, I believe, plus perhaps Castillo, and you imply a raise for Rowand, and much of that $17M is accounted for already. You're right that a good portion of the $17M will be taken up by such things, I never said other wise and I was talking in the most basic of terms with regards to the salary. It makes the Zito contact look even more unfortunate when you consider it's even more expensive for the next year and the remaining life of the deal.

I guess you missed it, but El Lefty Malo has had the salaries of the players with contracts on the side of his blog for years now, plus has a link to Cots, which has the full contract details for major leaguers. In addition, ESPN has had the salaries for teams for years as well. Welcome to the 21st Century! About Lincecum, tell us something we don't know. Again about the cheap and free, I suggest you back it up with examples of these purported cheap and free relievers. And by extension, are you saying that once a player proves himself as a good closer, like Mariano Duncan, you let him go because you can find a cheap and free closer somewhere else? Cheap and free rotation does not mean that it is a good rotation. That's a function of good player acquisition. The Pirates, Royals, Rays, any historically bad teams often have a very cheap rotation, but they weren't very good. What is your point? You appear to be lauding Sabean here, is that your intent? Because it was he who put together this cheap - and most importantly, productive - pitching staff. It is not overspending for pitching, it is what the market will bear. If the teams could not afford it, they would not be spending it. With rising revenues, particularly from their internet business, they can afford to pay more, the industry has been in an high inflationary period for a long time now. Every team has deadweight, I know it's exciting to see the salaries but they have been around if you looked for it since at least 2003. And if you go through most teams who actually keep and pay their players, there will be deadweights, there are always deadweights, it is the degree that differs. That's why I would prefer that teams just go with one-year contracts, so that such situations don't happen long-term. But unfortunately players take that as an insult and then they leave. For example, Lowry's contract looked good when he signed it, but now you consider it deadweight. God forbid it happens, but Lincecum could be signed to a big contract a la what the Brewers did with Braun or Rays with Longoria but then have physical problems making his contract a deadweight. So are you advocating for Lincecum to be signed long-term and risk him being a deadweight or just do year to year contracts with him. There are long-term consequences to statements you make. Durham is not only "playing better lately", but he's been raking - .347/.431/.465/.896 - and he's been doing it since the end of April, over 6 weeks ago. In other words, he's been doing it for most of the season. Likewise, Aurilia since his low OPS on April 19, has hit .299/.380/.514/.894, with 5 homers in 107 AB. Bowker since the same date: .225/.279/.357/.636, with 4 homers in 129 AB. It is the play of Durham and Aurilia, as well as Rowand and Molina, that has kept the Giants afloat for the past six weeks. And I would be remiss if I don't give a big tip of the cap to Jose Castillo too, horrible April but since then, .305/.359/.534/.893 with 5 HR in 131 AB. Lewis has been OK since his hot start the first two weeks of the season, .254/.338/.420/.758, which is about what Roberts has done, so yes, he's deadweight now. The key thing is that he appears to have learned something with Roberts around, he was horrible his whole minor league career in stealing bases, never broke 70% when most experts say 75-80% is the breakeven point. This season, he's at 84%. What you are not accounting for is where some of that $17M is going to next year. Check out Cots via ELM, the contracts are all there, you even note salary raises above, about $4M is gone to Zito's bump to $18M, a bump of $2M to Lowry, Cain will get a bump, and Lincecum whether through signing with the Giants or getting a raise for being the best pitcher around, should get a big bump as well. Add in Sanchez and arbitration, I believe, plus perhaps Castillo, and you imply a raise for Rowand, and much of that $17M is accounted for already. In addition, the total budget is around $87M if I remember right from KNBR radio, so a $17M drop would be significant drop, about 20%, not a slight drop. Lastly, I would add that I hope the Giants use some of this freed money on their farm system, get a few more instructors, get a few more scouts, put the teams in parks that are good situations, instead of crappy ones like Dodd Stadium and, even, San Jose Municipal, though I read that the owners are preparing for a new stadium at some point near-term.