Balloons! Cotton Candy! JT Snow?
The team signed Snow to a one-day contract so he can wear No. 6 a final time and retire as a Giant, providing the closure that eluded him as his career ended quietly with Boston in 2006. Snow hesitated before signing the contract at a news conference Wednesday, saying, “I need to check. Maybe it says ‘a year.’ ”
It is a real contract, not ceremonial, that will pay him about $2,100, a one-day portion of the big-league minimum.
Snow, who works for the Giants as a part-time coach and broadcaster, said it will be a “neat feeling” to take the field again. Even though he can still pick it at first base during batting practice, he has no intention of playing an inning.
The Giants are signing JT Snow to a 1-day contract, letting him take the field in uniform as the game starts, and then pulling him before the first pitch. Is this not the weirdest thing ever? I’ve never heard of a team doing this before. Snow last played for the Giants in 2005 and actually finished up his career with the Red Sox when he briefly collected 44 AB’s with them in ’06 before being let go.
Since then, Snow has worked as a roving instructor with the Giants and he’s made his way into the announcing booth, occasionally doing radio games, maybe some TV games, too. He’ll be taking the field (momentarily) on Saturday night against the Dodgers. In the history of baseball promotions, this is actually pretty tame, but it still strikes me as cheesy. Snow has always been a fan favorite, but do fans really care about him in 2008? And if the Giants wanted to send him off like this, why not sign him at the tail end of 2006? The whole thing comes off as weak, maybe good intentioned, but as a silly way to sell some extra tickets.
If the Giants really want to send off ex-players that want to retire in the orange and black, here’s a list of some guys I would like to see: Kevin Mitchell, Will Clark, Matt Williams, and maybe even Glenallen Hill. I always liked Hill, even if he couldn’t catch a flyball it was worth it to watch him hit. Every so often he would hit a ball about 500ft.
From 1997-2005, JT Snow hit .273/.369/.438 with the Giants. That includes 124 HR’s and 4 consecutive gold glove awards from ’97 to ’00.
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Noah Lowry had another setback recently, experiencing discomfort behind his throwing elbow.
From SFGiants.com:
Bochy said that Lowry, who will undergo further tests, won’t participate in the early portion of the Mexican Winter League schedule for Mazatlan, as he had planned. Bochy didn’t rule out Lowry’s participation later in the season.
I really feel for Lowry, but I can’t see him coming back. I must have written that past sentence at least 10 times this year. I can’t tell you how many ‘rosterbations’ that I’ve read online that include plans for Lowry. Just stop it. ’09 is his last contract year with the Giants and his condition is still a mystery. I don’t think he’s coming back and to expect anything from Lowry isn’t smart. Whatever he gives the Giants is a nice bonus, but other than that, the team should have low expectations. Staying healthy is a skill and it’s one that Lowry has had trouble with.
Some off-the-cuff ramblings after last nights game. Could the Giants non-tender Kevin Correia at the end of the year? He’s making $1.075M this year and the rules of arbitration state that the Giants can’t offer him less than 80% of his current salary. Meaning that to bring back Correia, the Giants would have to pay, at minimum, $860K. Kevin will turn 28-years-old next year and he rather forget his 2008 season. He’s given up 141 hits in 110 innings this year and was torched last night for 7 earned runs in 2 innings pitched. He could very well join Brad Hennessey in the non-tender pile. The Giants would save themselves a little over $2M if they non-tendered Correia and Hennessey and they probably wouldn’t lose any performace.
Comment Starter: Do you care about JT Snow enough in 2008 to buy a ticket to see him run onto and off of the field?
Thanks for letting me know what happened! Love the title!!! First good laugh of the morning!
Totally agree, especially for Clark, Williams, Mitchell. Hill I can go either way, I only really remember him for cutting himself up when he had a dream about spiders and went through a pane of glass. I would throw out John Burkett as a name I wouldn’t mind seeing retire as a Giants player, I can still remember going “who?” when he came out for his first appearance in a game, he was paired with a rookie catcher too, can’t remember if it was Manwaring or someone else.
Yeah, I harbored some hope during spring training, but once Lowry hit all those setbacks early in the season, I pretty much wrote him off for 2008 and had him questionable for 2009. It’s not good when the doctors don’t know exactly what is going on and is guessing on how to treat you.
I have to think that both are gone for 2009, for the money plus we have so many young pitchers who look ready to take over, Romo, Hinshaw, maybe Sadler now, plus Misch could take Hennessey’s place as long relief, short relief, spot starter. Correia, I think it was Baggarly who mentioned him going to SD if the Giants release him, which was what I was thinking too since he comes from that area.
However, I can see as a slight possibility that the Giants resigning him at $1M, he has been good, on and off, both as reliever and starter, and our farm system isn’t brimming with SP prospects ready for the majors at the start of 2009. He would be a cheap insurance policy in case any of the new relievers falter or if, god forbid, any of our starters go down.
In Hennessey’s case, while I see the Giants DFAing him, because of his injury problems, I can see other teams not taking much of a chance on him, that is, willing to pay more than the minimum to sign him, and the Giants offering him a split MLB/MiLB contract that pays above the minimum, making him the insurance policy in AAA that we usually get from other teams scrap heap.
Unless he’s willing to forgo that little extra the Giants give him in order to sign with the team of his boyhood (don’t know which team that would be, though being born and still living in Toledo, Ohio, perhaps the Indians (don’t know my geography that well for cities). With a family (wife, two kids), I think he will have to go where the best money is, though if he’s in the Indian’s AAA team, I think that’s the Toledo Mud Hens, so then he would get to go home to his family after games if at AAA.
dum
I am nervous about dropping BOTH Henessey and Correia.
Who exactly would we use instead? Misch? Palmer? Random FA signing (some crap 5th starter is still going to cost us 4-5m, and not be much better than Correia was this year)?
Correia has had a horrible season but, last night not withstanding, his problems have primarily come the 3rd time through the order. The dreaded 6th inning. His FIP is a full point higher than last year, and it looks to be primarily due to an increase in HR’s as well as a drop in strikeouts. Considering he was primarily a reliever last season, that doesn’t surprise me. I don’t think his talent level has dropped any.
He wants to start, but I think he is miscast as a starter – and by the third time through the order he is not fooling anyone. Unfortunately we are going to need a 5th starter next year one way or another, and personally I’d rather have Correia with the expectation of his only going ~ 5 innings vs. Misch or Palmer.
Henessey I don’t know – He’s been effective since his call up but that’s hardly a large enough sample size to really draw any conclusions. I would be much less enthusiastic about bringing him back.
Adding to the above:
Correia’s OPS against this season in innings 1-3 is .744. Not great, but pretty average. (what do you expect?).
By innings 4-6, it’s up to .921. Ouch.
Approximately the same sample size of 240 PA’s for each set. The sample size from 7-9 is too small to mean anything, but the OPS skyrockets.
From another angle, his OPS against the 1st and 2nd times facing a batter in a game (combined) is .816. the 3rd? .956.
The big difference between innings 1-3 and 4-6 isn’t his control, as his BB/K stays pretty close (.8 vs.7)- it’s his BABIP against. That tells me that, by the time he’s seeing guys for the 3rd time – they have seen all his pitches and are just sitting on them, and hitting him very hard.
This has been a terrible year for Correia, Hennessy and Lowry. Like Fairweather I am very under impressed with what I see as options in the 5-7 starters group if the first two are dropped. Going on the free Agent market for a #4 or #5 starter will cost more keeping these two “projects”. And this team might need 2 stop gap starters if both Correia & Hennessy are dropped. This might be the Joe Castle type move for next season. It stinks but turns out to be the smarter way to buy time to see if any one surprises in the upper minors next season.
I really think Correia’s numbers in the 4-6 innings are partly from him throwing himself back into health after his oblique injury as well.
@OGC
I think I agree with all of your points. I can see the Giants maybe keeping Correia as rotation insurance. I’m just not sure that’s a role that fits him well.
@Delorean
y so negative?! jk
@FairWeatherFan
I’m still a fan of Misch, don’t ask me why, but I think he could be better than either Hennessey or Correia. But, that’s not saying much. Maybe the Giants could try and find a Kyle Lohse-type starter? Someone who might need a 1-year deal to solidify themselves in order to get a multi-year contract down the road?
The Cards signed Lohse to a 1-year $4.25M deal this past offseason and he’s given them 200 innings of 113 ERA+ baseball. Great deal for them. What about Paul Byrd on a 1-year deal? He posted an ERA+ of 97 this year and has been near league average for ERA+ over the last few years. He might come cheap-ish, too. Just throwing some names out. I have no idea how healthy Jason Jennings is, maybe see if he’s looking for a deal.
Maybe I am wrong again, or still, but I think the Giants pretty much need to sign a Lohse, type free agent next season regardless of what they do with these terrible two. It just makes sense for getting 125 innings off of the Pen‘s shoulders. It makes sense because we still do not know if Sanchez’s body can handle being a starter ( this is were the yo-yoing really bites us in the arse). It makes sense because we can’t realistically expect Zito to go more then 5 innings tell some point well into June. And it makes sense because if the veteran bounces back into shape and we are out of the race we can trade him for a little something useful down the road.
Jennings, Fogg, Pavano, Penny they all could be likely targets for this. I can see I need to spend some time review these guys numbers with the season ending.
A slightly related topic who do the Giants have as candidates in the upper minors that might be able to insert themselves, beside Misch, with a good starting couple months to next season? Nick Pereira, Joseph Martinez or Steve Hammond. Did I miss anyone there?
The problem with a Lohse type deal is that, for every Lohse, there are 10 Wrights or Ortizes.
I really don’t think the Giants need to pay 4-5m for a crappy pitcher in a rebuilding year, we’ve already got two who are much less than that on hand.
I think we should keep Correia because while he may not have much value as a starter, the statistics (and history) suggest that he does have value in a long releif / spot start role, something this team needs.
His troubles this season have not been because he is a bad pitcher – they have been because he is a bad starter. I think tossing him away would be an extremely poor choice.
I don’t think anyone at the AAA level is capable of pitching even as well as Correia has in the ML.
I’d have to look at the splits, but perhaps a Misc/Correia platoon would make some sense in the 5 hole next year.
I am personally more concerned that Sanchez appears physically incapable of pitching a full season.
Jamey Wright wasn’t bad for a 5th starter, frustrating at times, but his ERA+ of 87 is pretty decent from that “rotation slot”. Much better than what Zito has done for most of this season.
Ortiz was worse, but then he was hurt and it wasn’t an issue. The financial commitment to him was so small — league min. with the D-Backs picking up the rest — that I have no problem with these kinds of deals.
And I’ll disagree with you that Lohse was a crappy pitcher, he was a near league average starter.
His ERA+’s since 2002: 105, 98, 89, 106, 78, 100, 103.
His low point was the ERA+ of 78 in 2006. He only threw 126 innings that year, he might have been hurt. I’m not sure. Was he worth a 4/5 year deal at $10M per? Obviously not, the market didn’t pay him that, he had to settle for a 1 year $4.5M deal, but he had some value and kudos to the Cardinals for realizing it. And, realizing that they didn’t have to sign him to a multi-year deal.
I think by and by teams have gotten smarter about signing guys like Lohse. Think of Jeff Suppan type pitchers. Suppan was obviously better than Lohse at times in the past, but not enough in my opinion to justify his 4/42 deal. I think teams are moving away from Suppan-type deals for back-of-the-rotation starters with little upside.
You shouldn’t pay Matt Morris, Jeff Suppan, Jarod Washburn 10+ million over 3/4 years when guys like Kyle Lohse, Tim Redding, Odalis Perez are freely available. The difference in production is non existent. The difference in price and commitment is huge.
These are the types of pitchers that the Giants should look for. Cheap, 1-year commitments to pitchers who might return some value. If they don’t, it’s a 1-year deal and the money comes off the books at the end of the season. There’s value out there, you just have to find it.
I don’t think Hennessey or Correia will sniff Lohse’s “crappy numbers”.
If I had to pick between Correia and Hennessey, I’ll take Kevin. But I wouldn’t loose sleep over the loss of either. Correia is better suited for the bullpen. No arguments there.
Sanchez had a big increase in his workload this year and he handled it decently. He slumped in the 2nd half but whether or not it was fatigue related is anyone’s guess. He’s always probably going to be a streaky pitcher, but I still like the upside of his arm. I think he’ll be able to handle the workload but next season will be a test for him.
For what it’s worth, I’ve always thought that the: “He’s so small and skinny, he’ll never be able to throw a full season!” concerns with Sanchez were unfounded. Pitchers have thrown full seasons before with his body type and it’s not that unusual. He never had the chance to throw a full season because the Giants kept switching roles on him.
@Dave
I think Martinez is probably the best out of the bunch, with Hammond coming in at 2nd place. I’m not a fan of Pereira.
If Martinez responds well to AAA, he could be a rotation option. Hammond would need to pitch better in the PCL than he did this year. Misch might be a better option than all of them but it’s close. I think the Giants will probably leave Martinez in AAA for most of the year to prove himself before they do any promoting.
Several players have done the 1 day contract retirement.
Pretty common in the NFL (Tim Brown, Jerry Rice) and NHL.
Baseball has Lieberthal 08 Glanville 05 with the Phils, and Conine with Florida.