It’s no news to any observer that this year’s free agent market is down for players not named C.C. Sabathia or Mark Teixeira. A perfect example is Bobby Abreu. In 2008, Abreu hit: .296/.371/.471 with 20 HRs and 39 2Bs for the New York Yankees. Abreu wasn’t the same hitter he was with the Phillies from 1999-2004, but his bat… Read more →
Bear with me, it’s another sloooooow Thursday afternoon. Thankfully, we’re just 16 days away from pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training. Mid-to-late January is probably the worst time of the year for baseball, the offseason is still trudging along, but you can almost see baseball in the distance. Just a few more weeks and we’ll be even closer. Despite… Read more →
Click here to find out how terrible Dave Roberts is!
Giants news has slowed down some lately and unless you count the faux-Manny rumors du jour, not much has been happening. Probably the most recent news item is that former Giant, Tyler Walker, has found a new home with the Seattle Mariners. From the MLB.com Mariners website: “Tyler is a pitcher we had identified early on as a guy who… Read more →
Projecting the 2009 Giants team with Wins Above Replacement.
The Giants have signed Randy Johnson to a 1-year, $8M contract. What a nice surprise to find waiting for me and other Giants fans after coming back from the holiday weekend. In 2008, the 44-year-old Johnson (he’ll be 45-years-old in ’09) showed the world that he had plenty of gas left in the tank. Last season Johnson threw a total… Read more →
I wanted to do a quick Wins Above Replacement post on Joe Crede and Pablo Sandoval. I’ve been pro Crede this offseason for a couple of reasons. He’s essentially a league average hitter with plus-defense that’s battled injuries over the past two seasons. Because he’s been stuck in the trainers room so much lately, he might sign a short-term —… Read more →
This past week the Houston Astros decided to non-tender Ty Wigginton rather than extend a contract to him and increase his salary through arbitration. The Chron article that I just linked to suggests that after arbitration, Wigginton would have been looking at a salary around $6M. He made $4.35M last year. Because the Astros did not tender Wigginton a contract,… Read more →
You should probably like them a good bit more now: The Royals are closing in on a two-year deal to sign right-hander Kyle Farnsworth as a setup reliever, MLB.com has learned. Also, the Royals announced on Thursday they signed right-hander Doug Waechter as a middle reliever and left-hander Horacio Ramirez as a starter, both to one-year contracts. The Ramirez deal… Read more →
If you watched the Giants bullpen last year, well, I feel sorry for you. No person should be forced to watch the bullpen atrocities that were Tyler Walker, Jack Taschner, Vinnie Chulk, and Brad Hennessey pitching in relief*. The good news is that Walker, Chulk, and Hennessey are no longer on the team and there’s a good chance that Taschner… Read more →