Back in January when the Giants signed Huff, I summed up my feelings:

Final Verdict: Meh. You can’t argue with the money spent but I don’t like what the Giants bought. Huff doesn’t seem to fit the park well. Also, Huff has played some 3B/LF in his career making him a prime candidate for the VERSATILE! tag — meaning that Bruce Bochy’s constant lineup tinkering in 2010 has a very good chance of becoming crazily annoying.

In an effort to prove me wrong and make me look silly Huff is having a brilliant season. Since the year began, Huff has gone on, at 33-years-old, to compile the beginnings of his best season ever. His current wOBA (.402) places him 8th in the NL, among such sluggers as — Ryan Zimmerman, Scott Rolen, Adam Dunn, and Josh Willingham. Every asset of Huff’s offensive game has been terrific. He’s walking (12.5% walk rate), hitting for power (.227 ISO), and even playing acceptable defense (+2.1 runs above average). Total it all up by WAR, and he’s been a 2.2 win player for the Giants thus far.

And that’s coming off the heels of a disastrous -1.3 win season for the Orioles and Tigers. To a point, Huff’s great start on offense has helped the Giants offset some of Sandoval’s sputtering start.  Aubrey Huff might have been the Giants 3rd or 4th choice for first base. The team made efforts to sign Nick Johnson and Adam LaRoche — both turned down offers for other teams. The Giants picking up Huff and him having his best year ever seems like something of a happy coincidence, but one the Giants should feel great about. And, Huff seems like a really nice and genuine guy.

Our next question should be: “Where does Huff go from here?” If you believe in stat-dipped projections via the ZiPS monster, we can get a couple of updated projections for Huff. For the rest-of-the-season, ZiPS has Huff posting a .356 wOBA, which makes him closer to average offensively as a 1B/LF. His updated seasonal projection has him at a .376 wOBA which would be a terrific season for Huff — just slightly under his 2008 (.387) and around his 2002-2003 years in Tampa Bay (.378 and .382 respectively).

No matter how Huff finishes the season, he’s been a great sign for the Giants and a good reminder why sometimes bargain signings of veterans with previous success make sense.

According to a tweet from MASN’s Ben Gosseling, the Nats have released Elijah Dukes and, shockingly, it has nothing to with off-the-field issues. Dukes was expected to start the season as the right fielder for the D.C. club but now he’ll look for a new team.

Dukes’ story is pretty well known, but here’s the highlights: drafted in the 3rd round of the 2002 draft by Tampa Bay, in 6 minor leagues seasons he owns a batting line of .280/.369/.451, had off-the-field issues in 2007, was traded to the Nationals in December of ’07 for LHP Glenn Gibson, and had a breakout season in 2008 followed by a down year in 2009.

In 970 plate appearances in the majors while mostly playing right field, Dukes owns a career wOBA of .335 — making him a slightly better than league average hitter. He walks at a better than league average rate (13.3%) and hits for above-average power (.180) while striking out more than your league average hitter (23.9%). On defense, he owns a career UZR/150 of +2.8 runs in RF over 1152.1 innings. He’s played some CF in the majors, too, but profiles better in the corners.

CHONE has Dukes projected at a .354 wOBA, which if he played on the Giants, would make him the 2nd best projected hitter on the team behind Sandoval. That’s a projection of nearly 20 points better than Aubrey Huff. Dukes’ main knock, besides any off-the-field issues, is his durability. He missed a large chunk of the ’08 season with hamstring, calf, and knee problems. He had hamstring problems again in ’09. He appeared in just 81 games in ’08 and 107 games in ’09.

Even if you consider that he’s an outfielder and the Giants roster is crammed with outfielders, few represent the upside that Dukes has. He’ll be just 26-years-old next year for the 2010 season and his track record in both the minors and majors suggests that he can hit at league average — for the Giants, that would be quite the boost. The more I think about it, the more I think that it wouldn’t be all that crazy to try and sign Dukes and play him at first base. It would be an unorthodox move for the Giants, and unlikely to happen, but Dukes’ profile is much better than Huff — an already bad fielder at the position with declining offense. Of course, it’ll never happen. The Giants seem much more likely to try Bowker at first base again before ever signing someone like Dukes. The money they’ve already spent on Aubrey Huff (try reading that without tearing up) insures that he’ll play first for at least the first 2-3 months. If he struggles, we’ll he’s a veteran that knows how to play and he’ll be sure to snap out of it. If he succeeds, or appears to succeed by being “a good RBI guy“, then he’ll be cemented at the position.

“We’re extremely excited to add a player of Aubrey’s caliber,” said Sabean. “He’s a middle of the order presence, who has proven to be a top RBI producer.”

The Giants have a lot of options in the outfield, but none of them are really long-term pieces. Rowand will start in center because he’s getting paid, but the corners should be open for someone like Dukes. It’s likely that he could end up out-playing Schierholtz in RF while costing the league minimum. He doesn’t fit The Giants Way ™ or the team’s historical precedent of player acquisition, but that doesn’t mean the Giants shouldn’t kick the tires on Dukes. A team this weak on the hitting side of things just can’t afford not to pick up league average production on offense when given the opportunity.

1B/DH Jesus Guzman, who was DFA’d late last month, has cleared waivers and will be outrighted to AAA Fresno with an invite to Spring Training. Guzman has generated a lot of interest among Giants fans because of his 2009 season with the Fresno Grizzlies when he hit: .321/.379/.507 in 452 at-bats. I’ve written a little about Guzman on this site before, but he’s essentially a .750 OPS hitter (best case scenario) in the majors with a poor glove at first by most scouting reports.

In other words, he’s probably not that much different than Huff.

He’ll get shuffled back into the mix of other options at first base: Ishikawa, Guzman, Huff, etc. I except that he’ll start the year back in AAA.

#diamondbacks deal with adam laroche will pay him between $4 mil and $5 mil, sources tell si.com. good job by dejan getting scoop on AZ.

Oh, right. A division rival will sign a much better player to a better deal. Reports surfaced last week that LaRoche turned down a 2-year, $17.5M deal from the Giants because he wanted 3-years. He ends up signing for 1-year and $4-5M. When it comes down to it, LaRoche is probably 1.5-2 whole wins better than Huff over a full season at first base. That smarts for the Giants. Either LaRoche has the worst agent in the history of baseball or he has an irrational fear of garlic fries.

According to Baggs, the Opening Day lineup for the G’s should look something like this:

1. Rowand CF
2. Sanchez 2B
3. Sandoval 3B
4. Huff 1B
5. DeRosa LF
6. Winner of RF job
7. Renteria SS
8. Catcher

Update: KNBR reporting that the Giants have just placed fastball-fastball-fastball on waivers to make room for Huff.

It’s not that Aubrey Huff doesn’t have some small role to play on the 2010 Giants — he does — but one has to wonder what the point of Huff is? Yes, he’s left-handed but do the Giants really need a league average batter just because he’s a lefty? Also, he’s in his early-30′s, and he’s coming off the worst season of his career, and he’s a below average fielder, and the list goes on.

If Huff doesn’t crater (or as the kids are calling it these days: Renterizing) then the Giants have a below-average defender at first base who’s a league average hitter. That’s most likely the best case scenario. Fans hoping that Huff will return to his fantastic 2008 season are going to be disappointed. Like every other player in the game, Huff’s ability to hit for power is related to his HR/FB% — or how many of his flyballs land in the seats. His ’08 in which he posted a .387 wOBA was a fine season. But it was entirely related to Huff hitting 14.9% of his balls in the air over the fence. His walk and K rates have largely remained static meaning that Huff is going to live and die by the home run. If his HR/FB% drops to low levels — such as his 9.1% in ’09 — then he’s going to be hurting like any hitter.

Get ready for the most ‘duh’-worthy graph, ever.

By StatCorner’s park factors, AT&T Park’s HR/FB park factor rated at 86.1. In park factors, a score of 100 is neutral. All that means is that the Giants’ home park was one of the tougher parks last season to hit HR’s in. By comparison, Arizona’s ballpark had a HR/FB of 115.3. I would wager that for right-handed batters, AT&T would play close to neutral for hitting HR’s. But lefties are going to have a harder time hitting them out to right field. It seems like common sense, but Huff being a left-handed batter that relies on pulling the ball and hitting it out (6 of his HR’s in Baltimore classified as “Just Enough”) of the yard might have some issues with playing half his games at AT&T.

It also seems odd that the Giants would rather pay Huff $3M to play 1B than Garko $2-3M. Garko projects better as a hitter, fits the park better being a RHB, and is younger.

If we use CHONE’s projections, we can project Huff like the following:

Batting Wins Above Average (.334 wOBA, league wOBA .332): +0.12 wins
Defensive Wins Above Average: -0.4 wins
1B Positional Adjustment: -1.25 wins
Replacement Level: +2 wins
—————————————–
= .47 wins * .8 (or about 560 PA’s for PT) = +.37 WAR

That’s not so hot. I think it goes to show that unless you can really thump (or at least play mind altering defense) 1B is a harsh mistress. Huff is probably a half-win player in the NL which makes his contract fair at $3M. If you wanted to add in baserunning, you can dock Huff a couple of runs. Huff has hit RHP well over his career but he’s been vulnerable against lefties. Because of that fact, I’m not sure that Travis Ishikawa is a great platoon match. The Giants could shift Pablo back and forth across the diamond depending on who’s pitching, but I’m not sure I like that idea much.

Final Verdict: Meh. You can’t argue with the money spent but I don’t like what the Giants bought. Huff doesn’t seem to fit the park well. Also, Huff has played some 3B/LF in his career making him a prime candidate for the VERSATILE! tag — meaning that Bruce Bochy’s constant lineup tinkering in 2010 has a very good chance of becoming crazily annoying.

The Yankees were on the verge of bringing Nick Johnson back to the Bronx Thursday night on a one-year contract worth about $5.5 million, a move that could mean the end of Johnny Damon’s time in pinstripes

This is a pretty big bummer for the Giants. I’ve written a little about why I liked the addition of Johnson to this team. For a hacking team, Johnson would have added a nice dose of patience to an otherwise impatient lineup. And, if he can stay healthy, or at least healthy enough for 450 PA’s, he would have had some nice upside. It’s hard to believe that the Giants couldn’t top a 1-year, $5.5M deal but it’s also possible that playing in New York might have more allure to a player than playing in San Francisco. Also, water is still wet.

In a worst case scenario, losing out on Nick Johnson is the first domino to fall in a horrible set of events to come. I don’t like the idea that an offer to Adam LaRoche is still out in the open and the Giants are obviously trying to upgrade at first base. I don’t like the idea that the team might be looking at Johnny Damon to play LF.

On the topic of Damon.

Damon had a very nice 2009 season with the Yankees. Playing in the launching pad in the Bronx he, like many other Yankees, posted a career high ISO of .207. He belted 24 home runs, walked in 11.4% of his PA’s, and posted a wRC+ (think of this as the wOB based version of OPS+) of 130. All fine components of a fine season. On the total, Damon’s ’09 was worth +3 wins to the Yankees. A solid, above-average season.

There are some concerns with Damon as a FA signing. He’ll be 36-years-old for the 2010 season and even though his player-type has tended to age well, there should some expected slow down despite what Scott Boras would like you to believe. How much power Damon would hit for while playing half his games at AT&T is also another question. Damon’s power is all on his pull-side to RF. Check out this graph from Hit Tracker and tell me how many Yankee Stadium HR’s would either bang off the RF wall or turn into outs? We don’t have park factors for the new Yankee Stadium but it’s surely a hitters park. AT&T has played more as a neutral park over the past few years and it’s going to be tougher on hitters who hit all their HR’s to RF.

Damon’s defense is also another concern. He posted a UZR in LF last season of -12.1 runs prorated to 150 defensive games. He got dinged pretty badly on his terrible throwing arm (-4.2 runs) and his range and error components of UZR were also below average. Damon’s throwing arm is one of the worst in the game. He’s no longer a CF and thus should be cemented in LF. The good news is that over his career he’s been an above-average defender in LF (career UZR/150 of +2.9 runs) but for a former CF, you would hope that he would rate better in LF against a much slower peer group.

If we roughly project Damon as a .360 wOBA hitter next season in the NL and a +2 run defender in LF, he should look like the following:

Batting Wins Above Average (.360 wOBA, league wOBA .332): +1.6 wins
Defensive Wins Above Average: +.2 wins
LF Positional Adjustment: -.75 wins
Replacement Level: +2 wins
—————————————–
= 3.07 wins * .8 (or about 560 PA’s for PT) = +2.46 WAR

If you still consider him an above-average baserunner next season, you can chip in a couple of runs to his total, pushing to essentially a 2.5-ish win player. With super-agent extraordinaire, Scott Boras, how much money will Damon get? Not to get all Fred Lewis on you, but I’m not sure Damon is that much of an upgrade over Lewis. Sure, he’s the better hitter, but Lewis is a better baserunner and his defense could play better in 2010. They aren’t that far apart as players. If you do a quick 5/4/3 weighting of Damon’s last three years in the field by UZR (which he’s going to get penalized a little more heavily for his time in CF in ’07 and ’08) his defense rates out around -2.5 runs. If we call Damon a -2.5 run defender with the same hitting stats and adjust him for 560 PA’s, he rates right around a 2.1 win player.

Since the Giants hate logic and have publicly stated that they are ready to enter into 2010 with a combination of Velez/Torres in LF, signing Damon would prove to be good Velez/Torres insurance. Still, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to pay the market price for wins that are already sitting on your roster.

The good news is that if the Giants sign Damon, we can all marvel at his rocket arm. Johnny Damon makes Barry Bonds’ throwing arm look like Ichiro.

Comment Starter: Why do the Giants hate Fred Lewis so much?

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.

From 2006-2007 LaRoche posted back-to-back 2.5 win years with the Braves and the Pirates. He owns a career major league wOBA of .349 (league average tends to be around .332) and most will remember him for the 32 home runs he launched in ’06. But, while he’s generally been an above-average offensive player, he owns a career UZR/150 of -4.8 runs at first base. Defensively, he won’t embarrass at the position but he’s a below-average defender. Much like Ishikawa, he should be platooned and only allowed to hit off of RHP.

On the other side, Ishikawa is probably a below-average hitter with very good defense at 1B. In 774 career innings at first base Ishikawa has a UZR/150 of +10.2 runs or about 1 win.

By using ZiPS rest-of-season numbers and some defensive guesstimates, we can get an idea of the differences in value between Ishikawa and LaRoche. ZiPS has LaRoche projected as a .352 wOBA hitter over the rest of the season and Ishikawa a .317 wOBA hitter. Defensively, LaRoche has logged over 6,000+ innings at 1B in his career, so we can pretty much assume his true talent on defense is around -4 runs per a full season of baseball. Ishikawa, on the other hand, is a little tougher to peg. In 700+ innings he’s rated around +10 runs over a full-season, but his sample is smaller than we’d like. He does have the benefit of scouting well during his minor league career. For this purpose, I’m docking him a couple of runs and calling him a +8 run defender over a full season.

Now, let’s do some WAR math with ZiPS’ RoS projections and our defensive guesstimates.

Ishikawa:

Batting Wins Above Average (.317 wOBA, league wOBA .332): –0.87 wins
Defensive Wins Above Average: +0.8 wins
1B Positional Adjustment: –1.25 wins
Replacement Level: +2.25 wins
-——————————————————————-
= .93 wins above replacement * .4 (or 40% playing time ie: 280 PA’s) = +.372 wins over the remaining season

LaRoche:

Batting Wins Above Average (.352 wOBA, league wOBA .332): +1.16 wins
Defensive Wins Above Average: –0.4 wins
1B Positional Adjustment : –1.25 wins
Replacement Level: +2.25 wins
-——————————————————————-
= 1.76 wins above replacement * .4 (or 40% playing time ie: 280 PA’s) = +.704 wins over the remaining season

LaRoche (.704) – Ishikawa (.372) = a difference of .332 wins for the rest of the season.

It turns out that the difference between the two first basemen is about 1/3rd of a full-win. Ideally, I’m not crazy about trading away two prospects for .3 wins. Diaz was rated as grade C+ prospect by John Sickels before the ’09 season and Strickland didn’t receive a grade. Strickland looks like a relief prospect — though he’s starting right now in AA for Boston — at the major league level.

Here’s Strickland’s scouting report courtesy of SoxProspects.com:

Scouting Report: Tall righty with projectable frame. Fastball sits about 88-91 mph, topping out around 93.  Fastball is a little flat, but shows some good movement when he takes something off of it.  Strickland has a slow, easy delivery without much explosion at the moment. Good balance. Also works in a 79-82 mph slurve along with a change that sits at 83-85 mph. Changeup could stand to have some more separation from his fastball, look for that to be an area of improvement in 2009.Repeats delivery well, needs to work on his release point to improve his command. His father played in the Tigers organization.

By Sickels’ grades, a comparable trade package would be SS Ehire Adrianza and one of Kevin Pucetas, Aaron King, or Mike Loree. If the Giants are dead-set on trading for position players, I think you’ve got to set the improvement bar at +1 wins over our current inhouse options. Otherwise, I’m not sure what the point is.

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Comment Starter: Was LaRoche on your Wish List?

From SFGiants.com:

Adding potential depth Monday, the Giants signed first baseman Josh Phelps to a Minor League contract with an invitation to big league Spring Training.

Phelps, 30, owns a .273 batting average with 64 home runs and 244 RBIs in 465 games spanning eight Major League seasons. He also has caught 12 games in the Majors and diversified himself further by playing outfield this year.

We’ve already detailed this one, but great low-cost signing by the Giants. Phelps could potentially address two needs on the Giants. First, he could see time at 1B depending on how the rest of the offseason shakes out. If the Giants find some legit nibbles on the FA market for Bengie Molina, they could always trade him away, move Pablo back behind the dish, and use Phelps and a combination of Ishikawa or Bowker at 1B. Second, Phelps hits LHP and would play well as a bench bat. This is probably the most realistic scenario right now. Phelps might not have the positional flexibility of Rich Aurilia, but he provides nice insurance for that position — player who hits LHP — in case Aurilia doesn’t resign or the Giants think Phelps can beat any future production from Aurilia. Phelps, for his career, has hit LHP well posting a line of: .297/.364/.495 across 560 PA’s.

If Phelps doesn’t make the team out of Spring Training, look for him to take on a Brett Harper / Scott McClain role for the Fresno Grizzlies.

And that’s saying something, I’ve seen a lot of Jose Castillo.

Getting Lincecum and the other young pitchers through this season healthy and ready for ’09 is the prime objective. It’s extremely important to the Giants future. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. Without the young pitching — especially Lincecum, who might be one of the best pitchers in the game right-this-very-moment — the Giants have little to work with. The pitching is the beginning foundation of a nice house. Without them, the Giants have a few bits-and-pieces of construction materials, but nothing substantial.

That’s why in those 0.5 seconds of pure horror, everything put into that burgeoning house came tumbling down. Reports last night are that the x-rays are negative and that Lincecum was walking around the clubhouse afterwards on his own power. Both are good signs.

Now, what the Giants shouldn’t do — this seems painfully obvious — is to not try and push Lincecum into his next start. They surely know how valuable he is and as Andrew Baggarly notes, if he did miss a start it might not be the worst thing in the world for him, he’s thrown a bunch of pitches this year and a breather could do his arm good. I worry that the liner hit Lincecum’s right knee, which is his plant-and-push leg. Lincecum has a great stride, almost springing off the mound, and that leg is what holds up the entire process. The Giants might be short on pitching because they don’t get a day off until August 28th. Lincecum’s next start is on Sunday, August 17th. Make a bullpen game out of it if you have to, maybe let Yabu throw 4-5 innings and then go from there.

Following the same Baggs link from above, we’ve got some rumors that 1B Travis Ishikawa could be on his way up to the majors and John Bowker could be on his way down. Bowkermania was a brief and wonderful time, but his plate discipline has been poor this year and he’s had a really hard time in July and August. I don’t mind Bowker going to Fresno to get constant work in a lower pressured environment but I hope we seen him again in the big leagues. He might not be a starter, but he could be a fine 1B or 4th OF on this team. I still like his upside a good bit.

As for Ishikawa, I wrote about him last when he was in AA Connecticut:

The Giants sent Ishikawa back to AA this year and he’s made some noticeable changes. Firstly, he cut his K% down to 16.1%, signaling to me that he’s potentially changed his swing in order to make more contact. Ishikawa’s swing has always considered to be a little long. He also raised his BB% to an excellent 13.6%. He does have noticeable splits but it’s encouraging that he’s hitting even just slightly at Dodd Stadium. Overall his line currently sits at (.291/.380/.467). Because of his struggles against LHP he will most likely max out as a platoon partner at 1B. But, after where he was heading a couple of years ago, he’s made some nice adjustments to his game. Let’s hope that they carry throughout this season and that the Giants move him to AAA before the year is done.

After writing about Ishikawa in June, he was promoted just a couple of days later to AAA Fresno. How has he done in Fresno? He’s been on a tear. In 171 AB’s he’s hit (.310/.370/.737) with 16 HR’s. His BB% has dropped some — from 13.6% in AA to 7.3% in AAA — but he’s killing the ball when he makes contact with an ISOP of .427, some question how his power will translate to the majors but he’s turned himself around this year. Just how far he’s turned himself around and how far he’ll go is still for debate.

His combined MLE’s from both levels are (.257/.335/.468) which seem to be about what I’d expect Ishikawa’s upside to be in the majors. He has some platoon issues — OPS’ing .642 against LHP this year — but with Bowker struggling, he’s earned the chance. He’s supposed to be a strong defender at 1B and should be a better defender than Bowker right now.