Thawing Out

Published by on December 13, 2009 | 3 Responses

Hi Blog,

I know I’ve been away for awhile but I’m back. Packing, moving, and tackling all the tasks that come with buying a house has been time consuming to say the last. But, here I am. It’s good to be back.

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Turing yourself off to Giants’ news for a few weeks and then coming back to read SFGiants.com is like being locked into a deep freeze time capsule for a few centuries. “They did what with Garko? We’ve offered a deal to Adam LaRoche? Dan Uggla? Nick Johnson? Wahhh?” It’s like waking up in the future. Except flying cars still don’t exist. And Brian Sabean’s frozen heard-in-a-jar is still the GM. It’s the year 20XX and the Giants still can’t score runs. Some things change, some stay the same.

I can’t tackle all the news I missed while I was away but I’ll talk about Garko a little.

A questionable trade just got worse. At the bare minimum, even if you don’t like Scott Barnes chances of pitching in the major leagues, I think even the most die-hard Sabean supporter would say that the trade to Cleveland that landed us Garko ended up to be a very poor use of prospect resources. Barnes, a player that would most likely still be ranked among our 10 best prospects, was cashed in for Ryan Garko. Garko, a defensively challenged LHP masher, never hit for the Giants and, as the Giants sometimes do, locked themselves into the small sample room and made a grand decision of what Garko would be going forward based on 100-something at-bats.

Garko is no prized jewel but he’s pretty close to being a +2 win player in the NL. He crushes LHP but isn’t anything special against RHP. He’s got a career wOBA of .347 and can’t play much defense at first base. It’s not that Garko would have been a key cog of the 2010 team, but why trade for a player (and using a pretty good prospect, too) when you’d rather non-tender him at the end of the year? It begs the question: if the Giants didn’t like Garko enough to tender him a contract, what exactly did they see in him last July?

Oh, and here’s the punchline: Adam LaRoche and Ryan Garko are really very similar. Gakro career wOBA .347. LaRoche career wOBA .353. And neither plays a good defensive first base. If the Giants replace Garko with LaRoche they haven’t improved the team one bit. It’s easy to say, it’s called a lateral move. Only LaRoche is going to cost more in both years and salary.

Now, back to unpacking.

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marcello
marcello

Yeah, I think I was/am higher on Barnes than most. The non-tender shouldn't affect the judgment of the trade, but it does because it just calls into question the front offices' process.

Chris
Chris

Using the way-back machine! <cite>Which begs the question: Did the Giants really need to trade for a platoon bat at first base? Isn’t there like 10 guys floating around the minor leagues (or are otherwise easily acquirable) who can play -5 run defense at 1B and mash LHP? For the price, Barnes seems a little steep to give up for a left-side of a first base platoon.</cite> I wasn't as brutal as you were, but I was pretty uneasy after the deal, too. I wasn't a huge Garko fan but he would have been nice injury insurance for Nick Johnson. I guess the team is committed to keeping TI?

marcello
marcello

If you didn't have so much Anti-Sabean bias, you would realize that he and the Giants scouts did their due diligence and realized the team would be better without tendering Garko. Anyways, my position on the whole Garko situation, from day 1, is relatively well known, so I'll add nothing else. Good luck with getting your house in order.