Some various Giants-related links this morning that might catch your eye:
~ Dan Szymborksi of BBTF has released his 2009 ZiPS projections for the Giants — do yourself a favor and avert your eyes from the Burriss projection. ZiPS is one of my favorite projection systems so I’ll definitely be going back over them later this week. I’m thinking of doing another hitters chart like I did with Marcel, but I might wait until PECOTA and a couple of other systems make their release.
~ The Giants have signed 3B Jesus Guzman to a minor league contract. The 24-year-old Guzman, who was in the Oakland Athletics farm system, destroyed AA Midland this year, posting a .415 wOBA in 375 ABs. Guzman owns a career minor league line of: .295/.366/.463 and could prove to be an attractive option for the Giants at third depending on how the roster takes shape. I’m not sure, but I think it’s possible that despite the Giants signing Guzman to a minor league deal, a team could take a chance on him in the Rule 5 draft next month. If he starts 2009 in the Giants system, he’s probably a top option at 3B on the depth chart.
~ The Giants continue to nibble here and there on the free agent market. Latest rumor has the team exchanging contract proposals with free agent SS Edgar Renteria. The 33-year-old Renteria is coming off a weak year in Detroit. His already suspect glove took a step back last year — plus/minus of -9 for SS — but if Detroit refuses to offer him arbitration, he could be an attractive solution for SS. The boys over at RMC are wondering about the possibilities of Renteria in orange and black.
~ With the due date for adding players to the 40-man roster passing this last week, the Giants added four more players to the team’s 40-man roster. Failure to add these players to the 40-man would have made them available in the Rule 5 Draft. The team chose to add LHP Jesse English, RHP Joe Martinez, RHP Henry Sosa, and RHP Waldis Joaquin. Baggs has more information on the recent additions on his blog.
I like this Guzman option. It is good to see the Giants looking for these guys who seem to have fallen through the cracks in another organization. Kevin Frandsen has a little better minor league line, but he’s two years older. Maybe Guzman is just coming into his own and we can get a serviceable ballplayer on the cheap.
And speaking of ZiPS, I failed to avert. What are we going to do at short? Hand it to Burriss and hope for the best?
I think if Guzman makes it through the Rule 5 unscathed, he’ll be our best 3B option not named Sandoval. Nice little find.
Shortstop is tricky. I think the Giants are going to sign one of the Furcal, Renteria, Cabrera trio and try to play Burriss at second. That has it’s own problems and unless Burriss can defend at 2B like Mark Ellis does, he’s going to have a hard time cracking replacement level production. Burriss fits best at SS but he’s still got a lot of question marks.
Awesome stuff Chris.
Graph’s 2 & 3 make me think is a rougher AB then I thought. That’s a real tight grouping between is change and if fast ball and since he get almost 2 ½ time the swing throughs (12%) on that change compared to how often he throws it (5%) makes me think the sight lines , even for a mlb batter, is realy poor. I am really digging this move.