Winter of my discontent

Published by on December 21, 2011 | 24 Responses

OK, baseball, here’s the deal: please, for the love of god, do something.

December is a great month for a whole bunch of reasons: winter, holidays, snow (depending on your location), and eggnog (unless you’re one of those weirdos that doesn’t like eggnog, and if that’s the case, shame on you). What December isn’t great for is baseball news. Good lord, the lack of baseball news in December is disturbing.

Or, I should say, the lack of Giants news in December is disturbing.

Friend of the blog, Wendy Thurm, has an excellent piece up on FanGraphs on the Giants offseason and why it’s a head-scratcher. The piece essentially focuses on the Giants offseason and the lack of offensive upgrades that this team so desperately needs. The Giants took the worst scoring team in the National League and added (or kept) Jeremy Affeldt, Javier Lopez, Melky Cabrera, Angel Pagan, Eli Whiteside, and Emmanuel Burris. After keeping those players, the Giants said, “… annnnd done” while walking away and dusting their hands loudly. And that isn’t to say that I hate all the previous players I just mentioned, but each day it’s looking like a real possibility that Carlos Beltran (the guy we traded our #1 prospect for) is going to land a two or three year deal at a pretty reasonable rate. And when that happens I’m going to have a hard time controlling my fan rage.

The Giants are a business, and to succeed businesses need to earn a profit. That point is understood. But it’s hard for me to look at this offseason as anything other than ‘meh’ when last year’s flaws were so readily apparent; we couldn’t score runs.

Thus far, the Giants’ gameplan is this:

1. Hope that Buster Posey can return, after a horrific injury, and be the same guy he was in 2010.
2. Hope that Freddy Sanchez can play over 130 games for the first time since 2008 (!).
3. Hope that none of the starting pitchers get hurt — because, you know, pitchers never do that.
4. Hope that Melky Cabrera is the player we saw in 2011 (121 OPS+) and not the guy we saw from 2005-2010 (85 OPS+).

The 2012 team is officially the team of hope. And please don’t suck. And please don’t get hurt. And please, because things were so bad for us last year, things have to get better, right?

I’m rambling. But, all I can say is that it’s going to be a real bummer when Carlos Beltran signs an ultra-reasonable contract for something like two years and $24 million dollars.

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Harry Peterson
Harry Peterson

I here there is a book coming out with the same title

AndyG
AndyG

There goes Beltran. But to the '11 champs, not the '10 (Espn reports)

Bonds-James Bonds
Bonds-James Bonds

the giants are not cheapskates or it may seem, they just spend the money on the wrong players. the only big contract they signed anyone to and was worth it was bonds....zito, a waste, rowand, a waste, derosa, a waste, tejeda, a waste, renteria, a waste, but i always cut him some slack because he was the w.s. mvp, thats gotta be worth 18 mil over two always hurt years.......

DTF24
DTF24

Giants are fast becoming the cheapskates of the Major Leagues, especially with their high attendance numbers.

BruxB
BruxB

Are they saving something for the trade deadline? Is that even something that makes sense? Does anything make sense with this team lately? Aggguhhhhhhh

Walt
Walt

I'd say that most of the moves make good baseball sense so far this off season. A lot of fans expected more than they should have last season after the World Series. There were a lot of guys on the team who were having fluke offensive runs at the end of season in 2010. Huff was hitting out of his mind, Ross came out of nowheresville, and Torres had been (and will probaly go back to being) an every-other-day journeyman. Factor in Uribe's and Renteria's departures--which was clearly the best move--we lost a lot of offensive producers between the 2010 and 2011 season. That said, I think it's important to remember what the heart and soul of the SF Giants team is. The identity of the Giants is not powerhouse hitting club, it's built on solid pitching with limited run support. As nice as it would be to have a guy who can get some more runs across the plate, it's much more important for our pitchers to have a solid, holeless infield behind them.

Paapfly
Paapfly

No executive's plan should ever include "limited run support." Ever.

Walt
Walt

Paap, I hear you and I agree but it's clearly the strategy that Sabean has gone with and, like it or not, it's the strategy that brought SF the championship. We're in the well documentend age of the pitcher and I feel like the mentality is that if the squad signs and keeps around decent bats it'll have the opportunity to squeak out enough wins if it centers itself on solid defensive players and its steller starting and bullpen pitching core. Again, most of me wants to see a hot pickup but there's a twisted, self loathing side of me that loves the low run affairs that Giants games inevitable turn into.

Speedforthewin
Speedforthewin

I agree with you in that Sabean has resisted the urge to sign any long term horrible deals *knock on wood*. You could argue that other teams have helped him out there, but the only deal that has hurt the franchise long term is the Huff contact, and even that is only 2 years.

Speedforthewin
Speedforthewin

Oh, I never took offense with the Huff contact as a good will from the WS. I'm just saying that him and his 10M salary has led to the team not making the best baseball decisions on the field, i.e. Huff in RF, Belt sitting on the bench or in Fresno all year.

Damon
Damon

Yeah, it's only 2 years, and only one of them has occurred thus far. I don't think it's fair to pass judgement on his contract as a whole until after at least a good chunk of 2012. Besides, with the huge performance we got out of Huff for $3m in the World Series year (a bargain), everybody knew that his contract was to some degree a "thank you."

Damon
Damon

After reading Wendy's article, I think I ask a very simple question: Where the hell is that money? That is more than enough cash to not only have re-signed Beltran, but also a contingency at SS. And to top it all off, we wouldn't have needed to trade Jonathan Sanchez for Melky Cabrera. (And I'm sure Cody Ross isn't too happy with being told that "there's simply no money.") Is Sabean insane? Pulling the biggest bluff of all time? Or are the Giants just saving $20m for a rainy day fund in case the pitching staff's arms fall off?

Speedforthewin
Speedforthewin

it's hard to know exactly how much money is left in the budget until the arbitration cases are settled. And you have to imagine the Giants are trying to negotiate long term deals with Lincecum, Cain and Sandoval (whether or not they are successful in signing them to extensions is another matter), so the hard truth is we just don't know what the front office thinks will be spent on each player on the roster. It could be that the Giants are in a hold pattern until the arb cases are settled, or they just assume the money left over is negligible (2-3Mil).

Damon
Damon

You're right of course, but it seemed to me like Wendy was assuming pretty generous numbers for arbitration while still coming up with about $20m left. She budgeted: - $20m for Lincecum - about $2m each for Pablo, Schierholtz, Romo, Casilla - $5m for Vogelsong (contract) I just don't see another $20 mil spread out among those guys unless Sabean is feeling like Kris Kringle.

rog61
rog61

I believe it's $17m, though some growing portion of that is just a paper transaction since there are some significant tax breaks and amoritization attendant to it. Forbes estimated last year that they were working with an operating income of about $30m which is a very decent amount of liquidity. The thing that makes their finances almost entirely opaque is that they can do a lot of funny bookkeeping with the 30% equity they own in the Bay Area Comcast network: a time honored way for sports franchises to cook their books.

@maswift1
@maswift1

Lets not all forget about the mortgage on ATT...it's 20M right?

Speedforthewin
Speedforthewin

yeah, I could argue that a Pablo extension could push that number up significantly, but not 20M. I read Wendy's article, but I don't remember seeing salaries budgeted for Melky and Pagan. Aren't both arb eligible? if so, that would cut that number to single digits combined with a Pablo extension.

TSF
TSF

It's maddening that the Giants haven't made any major free agent signings this Winter, especially with Cain's free agency looming. From what I read about the Pujols deal, Albert didn't jump ship because of money alone, he (or his wife) felt severely under-appreciated by the Cardinals management after all they went through together. We have a similar if more severe problem with Cain - the Giants are going to have payroll tied up again in 2013 with Zito, Lincecum, Sandoval and Posey, so chances are there will be some other team out there that is willing to pay more for Cain than the Giants. Everything I've read that was said by Giants management this offseason seems to characterize Lincecum/Cain's contracts as purely a money issue. Well, if money is the only relevant factor, why should Cain refuse an extension and test the free agent market? The Giants have no leverage against Cain - he has two losing seasons and several where he's barely above a .5 winning percentage. If the Giants don't show to Cain that he is valued, like upgrading the offense enough so his stats don't look so pedestrian, he has all the incentive to play for a team that pays him, helps him win, and helps him get to championships (i.e., Texas). Losing Cain severely hurts the Giants' ability to make the playoffs in 2013, and suddenly we're faced with the same problem concerning Lincecum. This Beltran dance is ridiculous - weighing the $10-12M cost of Beltran per year, even with the injury risk, against the expected return of one if not multiple playoff berths should be convincing enough to any sensible investor to reach into the rainy day fund. Even if Beltran is injured, we have outfield flexibility with Belt, Huff and Nate, but the commitment the Giants made to improving the offense remains. It shows to Cain that San Francisco values him enough to build a team around him. This assumes Beltran is going to get $10-12M/year on a two/three year deal, though. If the Giants get blown out of the water there's not much left to say.

Robert Haymond
Robert Haymond

I've been saying this in my comments (and have included Tim) but you have been more articulate and your explanations more intricate. Thanks.

Walt
Walt

Isn't there still a reasonable shot that Beltran will sign with the Gyros? There's only three dedicated outfielders on the roster and three and a half first basemen--I'm assuming that Pill will make the roster to add a right handed bat with pop potential and Posey should count as a half of a 3 when you factor in the amount of games he'll probably be kept in the lineup at first when he's too sore to crouch down behind the dish. Barring a successful attempt to locate and retrieve the Holy Grail, Huff should be limited in the outfield. What I saw from him out there last season was excrutiating at best and not in a funny, "oh look at those Giants, it sure is torture. Ha ha" sort of way. Belt is hands down the best option as a fourth outfielder but he's only got a few months experience under his belt, so to speak. I'm still hoping--and people are starting to call me delusional--that Sabean has been playing a game of chicken with Beltran and is somehow working to drive down the purchase price in a signing coupe that will solidify a real solid defensive outfield with great offensive potential.

Speedforthewin
Speedforthewin

I think that if the Giants are in on Beltran, it will end up being a panic-driven bad deal. Sabes swoops in at the last minute and gets Beltran for 3/45 when it seems like 2/24 is a real possibility. In that scenario, would you be happy the Giants retained Beltran, or unhappy that they overpaid?

rog61
rog61

According to MLBTrade Rumors, Beltran is expected to make a decision this weekend, so prepare for Def Con 5 Fan Rage to coincide with Christmas morning. You're welcome.