Henry Schulman has tweeted that Juan Uribe’s 1-year deal does not include an option. I’m a little surprised that Uribe couldn’t do better than a 1-year deal without an option. Also, I’m a little surprised that he chose to come back to the Giants with Mark DeRosa on the roster.
Dollars still have not been announced, but Uribe has passed his physical and the deal should be finalized today. I would expect the deal to be worth between $2-3M for a year. Part of Uribe’s return to the Giants makes me wonder how much of a leash the team will give Edgar Renteria? Sabean has stated a few times in the press how much he admired Renteria for playing injured (and ineffectively) for most of the 2009 season. If Renteria’s collapse in ’09 continues next year, could the Giants start Uribe at SS?
Food for thought: Uribe’s UZR scores at SS over the past 6 years.
2004: +4.5 (287.1 innings fielded)
2005: +7.1 (1293.1)
2006: +6.2 (1130)
2007: -2.2 (1305.1)
2008: +0.3 (15)
2009: -1.2 (318.2)
Uribe has no doubt gained some weight since his Chicago days (2005 version of Uribe vs. the 2009 version) and I’m not sure we can call him a +6-7 run defender at shortstop anymore. But, just how would his defense play at short? This post from Beyond the Boxscore has projected UZR scores for 2010 and Uribe projects (with an age-adjustment) as a -1 run defender at SS for the upcoming season. Even if we think that the -1 run projection is a little optimistic — and want to call Uribe something like a -3 run defender at SS — he would project as something like a 1.5 WAR player at SS given almost 550 PA’s playing time and assuming he hits a .320 wOBA.
Edgar Renteria was worth +0.3 wins to the Giants last year. His collapse on offense (worth -19.8 batting runs below average) totally destroyed his overall value. In his 2008 season with the Tigers, Renteria was a 1.4 win player. Outside of Marco Scuatro, the SS market this year was very shallow. It’s possible that my initial reaction of “Why would Uribe come back to the Giants” was wrong. The Giants get a player that, from the looks of it, should still be able to handle SS in a non-terrible fashion. Uribe gets to come back to the team he found success with and, if Renteria crashes completely, he has the best chance to become a starter again.
Update: Salary confirmed at 1-year, $3.25M.
