Brandon Belt Makes the Cut

I'll admit that I was pretty apathetic about the whole "Will Belt start the season in AAA or in the big leagues" thing. If he made the team, great. If he was sent back to AAA, fine, a little minor league seasoning wouldn't hurt and the Giants would probably be fine for a month or two without him. Well, today Belt made the cut, and I am very, very excited. If nothing else, there's always a lot of anticipation involved with a top prospect making their debut and thinking about that prospect carrying your favorite team for years to come. It's also pretty refreshing to see a team ignore all the arbitration clock crap. Don't get me wrong, that stuff is important, but it shouldn't affect putting your best team out on the field. The Giants thought Belt was ready, they wanted him on the team now, and they aren't worrying about how much more money he'll make in a few years.

Of course, as the Giants set their 25-man roster today, there were other roster moves made. To make room for Belt, the Giants designated Travis Ishikawa for assignment. That was no surprise as Ishikawa becomes sort of redundant and inferior with Belt on the roster. The interesting thing to see will happen in a few weeks when Cody Ross comes off the disabled list. If the Giants are rolling, Ross is probably staying on the bench, at least initially. But if Burrell struggles or maybe even Torres starts slowly, they might be the ones losing their starting spot. And who gets cut? Every Giants fan and their mother wants Rowand and his $24 million slary cut, but it could be Nate Schierholtz.

The last bullpen spot was given to Dan Runzler. I'm not sure what that means for his attempted transition into a starting pitcher, but it does mean that Ryan Vogelsong and Marc Kroon, both longshots to make the roster, are headed for the minors. Guillermo Mota was also given a bullpen spot, and one of he and Runzler is likely gone once Brian Wilson comes off the DL.

Here's what the final roster looks like:

Starting Lineup

Torres

F. Sanchez

Huff

Posey

Burrell

Sandoval

Belt

Tejada

Bench

DeRosa

Schierholtz

Fontenot

Whiteside

Rowand

Starting Rotation

Lincecum

J. Sanchez

Cain

Zito

Bumgarner

Bullpen

Ramirez

Mota

Runzler

Lopez

Affeldt

Casilla

Romo

I also wanted to do a small division preview type of thing. We have been absolutely terrible offseason bloggers, and we really have no excuse. But by tomorrow night we will be doing recaps for every game and hopefully featuring more content in general. I think the regular season and watching actual games motivates us to write. Anyway, even though this should've been done in a different, more comprehensive post, here are my thoughts on the division.

I have the Giants finishing in first place, and if I get anyone telling me a homer, I might kill myself. The Giants are simply the most complete team in a pretty weak division. But as we've outlined before, they do need a lot of things to go right, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if the Rockies or even the Dodgers *shudder* came out on top. The Rockies usually hit a lot, but I really only see 2 dangerous hitters in their lineup, Tulowitzki and Gonzalez. Their rotation is pretty solid, but nothing spectacular. I have them in second place. The Dodgers finish third, mostly because their offense could struggle to score runs and their staff is deep, but also not spectacular. The Padres don't have much going for them, but the Diamondbacks are terrible, so they'll finish in fourth place. The Diamondbacks are terrible. Fifth place. I'm not going to make any kind of World Series prediction because I don't want to pick against the Giants but I don't want to pick them either. There's my beautiful season preview.

Tomorrow is opening day. Opening day would be exciting enough, but it's Opening Day with the 2010 World Series Champion San Francisco Giants facing the enemy LA Dodgers. And Brandon Belt is making his debut. It doesn't get much better than that.

Jenkins on Zito: "Definitely Not Safe"

Barry Zito took the mound for his first spring-training start on Monday and walked the ballpark. It wasn't exactly what the Giants had in mind, and here's a message to all those fans who have seen enough of Zito: He's walking a very fine line within the organization.

This beginning excerpt of Bruce Jenkins' article from Tuesday introduces the theme of his piece throughout: the front office is not happy with Barry Zito. The article caused a stir on Twitter last night among Giants fan, and this morning it has gone national. Jenkins goes on to write:

A source close to the team indicated Tuesday that there is "exasperation" with Zito, that his status as the No. 5 starter is "definitely not safe," and that the team would even consider buying out his expensive contract before Opening Day if that's what it takes to say farewell.

Well where to start? I don't know what Bruce or the source mean by "buying out", all contracts in baseball are guaranteed, so what I'm going to assume is being implied here is that the Giants would cut Zito. Jenkins' source is the only place we have heard of Zito possibly being cut, most likely because the idea is about as insane and ludicrous as things get.

Zito isn't a great pitcher. He hasn't been since 2002, maybe 2003. It was the Giants' inability to recognize this that led to the awful contract they gave him in 2007. With the Giants, he had a pretty terrible season in 2008, and has been average in all other seasons, never being hurt (an important fact to remember when we get to another point in the article), while being paid like an ace. An unfortunate situation, but one which most everyone has accepted has no solution. After all, what is the solution that Jenkins seems to imply the Giants are considering? That they will simply cut him from the roster. Well, this is stupid as hell, because then they would still be paying the entirety of the contract. There's only one way that would maybe be the thing to do, and that would be if Zito was a terrible pitcher, which seems to be precisely the fallacy Jenkins is believing.

...and he wouldn't be anywhere near the Giants' roster this spring were it not for his contract: $18.5 million owed this season, another $39 million through 2013 and a $7 million buyout for 2014.

I saw a tweet this morning from a Yankees fan, saying that if the Giants cut Zito, he'd be worth a look at the league minimum. Our perception of Zito and the fact of him being so overpayed has led a lot of people to think he is somehow worthless. Know this: if Zito were to be on the open market today, he'd probably be offered half of what he's being payed now per year. That's a lot of money, but league average pitchers that you can count on to start every game of the season cost money. The league minimum contracts are reserved for oft-injured pitchers who had some good seasons but have been terrible recently (the Yankees have a bunch right now). The Giants have one of those guys in fact. His name is Jeff Suppan.

Meanwhile, the Giants will take a close look at 16-year veteran Jeff Suppan (3 shutout innings against Milwaukee on Monday), Class AA left-hander Clayton Tanner and other options for the No. 5 slot.

It's bad enough to imagine Suppan pitching at all this season; him as the 5th starter would be as bad as Todd Wellemeyer last year; now imagine cutting Zito, still paying Zito, and having Suppan replace him, while paying Suppan $1 million. That's exactly what Jenkins is suggesting the Giants are thinking of. I refuse to believe it.

...there's a healthy sense of urgency in the world champions' camp. They didn't clinch a postseason berth until the final game of the 2010 season, and they realize that just a single loss - something that could be avoided - could cost them a chance to repeat this year.

The Giants did win the World Series last year, and I would hope their sense of urgency is enough that they know to use their best pitchers. It's important to note that their is a player on the Giants with a large contract who could be cut: Aaron Rowand. Rowand, unlike Zito, does absolutely nothing for the team. His status is just as a roster spot occupier.

This last excerpt from the piece is where I really take issue with Jenkins:

There is concern that Zito hasn't been properly diligent in maintaining his physical conditioning...

Concern from who? The source (and therefore the Giants)? Yourself? People in general? I've never heard of any complaints about Zito's work ethic, and as mentioned before, he has never had injury trouble. "There is concern" sounds like a version of that infamous cable news phrase "some people say".

Pablo Sandoval and the 2011 Giants Offense

A few weeks ago, the Giants re-signed Guillermo Mota to a minor league deal. Lou Piniella is joining the organization as a consultant. Oh, and Jeff Suppan signed a minor league contract as well. Bruce Bochy and Brian Sabean got their options for 2012 picked up. And just yesterday, the team gave another one of those minor league pacts to Mexican Pacific League star Justin Christian. None of this news has been blogged about on this site because we suck (And really, who cares about Jeff Suppan?). Sorry about the lack of Justin Christian analysis, though. I guess I've gotten caught up in following the pathetic seasons of the 49ers and Kings and put the Giants on the back burner, which is absolutely shameful. But FanFest was yesterday, and while it's a chaotic event that I will never ever attend again, it's pretty cool that it was so crowded with fans that the team had to tell people to STOP coming. So, I'm starting to get pumped up for baseball to start again.

Not to mention that the subject of this post, Pablo Sandoval, has started a Twitter account and it's been great. Whether it's pictures he's posted, tweets explaining his intense workout regimen, or visual accounts from various people, all reports are that Pablo looks great and has lost about 30 pounds of fat while adding lean muscle. This is HUGE news.

Something lost in all of the post-World Series win euphoria has been the fact that the Giants did not have a very good offense in 2010 and haven't really done anything to improve it, which means improvements will have to come from within. Maybe that will come from top prospect Brandon Belt, but he's not likely to start the season with the team and not all rookies can impact a team like Buster Posey did. Speaking of Posey, having him for a full season should help, but there's no guarantee he'll outperform his pretty great 2010 numbers. Miguel Tejada as an improvement over Edgar Renteria/Juan Uribe? It's quite likely that that is the opposite of an upgrade.

Let's consider a few more areas where the Giants may actually regress in 2011. Andres Torres is somewhat of an unknown, as he's really only had 1 full season of playing time. He had a great 2010 and was crucial to the team's success, but he struggled some later in the year, carrying just a .303 OBP over the second half of the season, which is not ideal production from your leadoff hitter. Aubrey Huff was perhaps the Giants' offensive MVP in 2010 and they are expecting that he'll be an extremely valuable part of the offense in 2011, which is a little scary. Huff is another valuable piece from 2010 who we can expect some regression from in 2011. Just one year removed from having an OPS+ of just 81, it's entirely possible his 2011 production won't approach his 138 OPS+ of 2010. After August 1st, Huff batted just .255/.360/.426 for the rest of the season. That's not bad, and maybe it was just a late-season slump, but considering Huff's inconsistency over the last few years, it's still cause for concern. Huff is 34 and if the later part of 2010 represented a true regression, it's not going to be good enough for the middle of the order hitter the Giants are expecting him to be. We also need to remember that despite his postseason heroics, Cody Ross had a regular season OPS+ of just 93 in 2010. Pat Burrell is getting older and his 2010 with the Giants may have been somewhat of a fluke, considering his 2009 and 2010 with the Rays. I've already mentioned how maybe expectations for Buster Posey and Brandon Belt should be tempered. Basically, this offense doesn't seem to have much upside for improvement.

Enter Pablo Sandoval, the Giants' best chance at a significantly improved offense. Fans have been begging Sandoval to lose weight for a long time now and the Giants even threatened him with a demotion to the minors if he didn't get in shape. I've never bought into the idea that losing lots of weight was going to help Pablo's offense. Sure, it'd help with his agility and range, which would improve his defense, but he's always been a big guy and his weight didn't seem to affect him at all in 2009. But losing weight and adding muscle can't HURT his offense and the most exciting part about this is the dedication he seems to be showing. If you believe Sandoval, he's been working out 6 times a week, twice a day for a couple of months now, while laying off the soda and chips. And not only is he working out, but he's been talking to Barry Bonds about improving his plate discipline, which was the real reason for his struggles at the plate. If this news doesn't get you really excited, I don't know what does. So soon people forget that Pablo Sandoval posted an OPS+ of 144 in his first full major league season, at the age of 22. He struggled in 2010, posting an OPS+ of 95 and batting just .268/.323/.409, but that happens to young players. At age 24, Sandoval is still extremely young and has a ton of time to get back to how he was playing a year ago. As a fan, you have to at least appreciate that he looks willing to do whatever he has to do to reach his potential. And most importantly, if all of this offseason work pays dividends on the diamond, the Giants could be adding a legitimate middle of the order bat without even making a transaction.

I guess the post turned into more of a depressing, worst-case-scenario look at the Giants' offense instead of an optimistic Pablo Sandoval commentary. Or maybe it can be both. That's just it, as an objective fan, I look at the team and I worry about that offense a little bit. Remember, the Giants barely got into the playoffs despite GREAT pitching. The offense can't afford to get any worse. So Pablo Sandoval will be huge in 2011. In all likelihood, he won't get back to being one of the league's best hitters in just one year, but his progress and commitment are extremely exciting. And if he does return to form, the Giants could have a very good offense for a long time. Think about a Posey-Sandoval-Belt heart of the order for a second. It's a wonderful thought.

Kevin Brown: More Than A Borderline Hall of Famer

If we were to define the previous era of baseball as having begun around 1986 and ending around 2006, who would we say are the best pitchers of that era? 4 names immediately jump to the front: Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, and Pedro Martinez. In fact, this era, which is most notable for the offensive numbers its hitters put up, is probably rare in that it has 4 all time great pitchers who were in their prime and pitching at an amazingly dominant level, all at the same time. All 4 are not only Hall of Famers, but candidates for inclusion in the "top 10 pitchers ever" list (Clemens and Johnson are easily on that list, in my opinion). This got me thinking: what other pitchers from the "Clemens era" are Hall of Famers? The other 2 Atlanta pitchers, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz, came to mind. So did Curt Schilling, who I wrote on last week. And so did Kevin Brown. In my Schilling post, I didn't really elaborate on the Kevin Brown comparison, and even though I considered him a possible Hall of Famer, I can't deny that it just didn't feel like Brown was as good those 7 other pitchers. Maybe there were only 7 Hall of Fame pitchers from the Clemens generation.

But that's ridiculous. After all, other eras in baseball have had more Hall of Famers, and they never had the abundance of top tier greatness that is Clemens-Johnson-Maddux-Pedro. There's plenty of room in the Hall for pitchers, in fact, there need to be more. So the the only question now is whether Brown is qualified for the Hall. The Schilling comparison helps, but a greater in depth look is needed.

Brown pitched for 19 seasons, totally 3,256 innings with a 127 ERA+. That combination is above the Hall of Fame line in my opinion, but admittedly towards the low end (if we forget about Catfish Hunter). He had a couple good seasons in '89 and '90 with Texas, then a bad year in 1991. In 1992, Brown had what would be his career highs in innings pitched and wins (265, 21). A few more average-good seasons followed. In 1996, his phase of dominance began, and it was probably his best year as a pitcher. He threw 233 innings with a historic ERA+ of 217, 20th best in baseball history. Beginning that year, Brown threw 230 or more innings for 5 straight seasons, a total of 1,209 innings that was the most in all of baseball for that stretch. And he did it while posting an ERA+ of 165. Tom Seaver, considered by many to be the best pitcher in the history of the National League, posted a 154 ERA+ in his best 5 year stretch (1969-1973).

A few more statistics to understand Brown's prime of his career: he ended up with 5 seasons qualifying for the ERA title and achieving an ERA+ of 150 or better. Only 13 other players in MLB history (1876-2010) have done that:

Lefty Grove (11 seasons)
Roger Clemens (9)
Greg Maddux (9)
Walter Johnson (8)
Randy Johnson (8)
Christy Mathewson (7)
Pedro Martinez (6)
Pete Alexander (6)
Steve Carlton (5)
Ed Walsh (5)
Mordecai Brown (5)
Cy Young (5)
Kid Nichols (5)

There's the big 4 of the Clemens era again. And every other pitcher on the list is not only a Hall of Famer, but considered by baseball writers to be in the top echelon of pitchers.

Side note: How great was Lefty Grove? My goodness...

From 1993 to 2000, Brown had a total of 55.4 fWAR, or, nearly 6.2 fWAR per season. His fWAR career total is 77.2. rWAR is less kind to him, but he is still in the range for a potential Hall member.

Brown probably should have won 2 Cy Young awards in his career. He placed 2nd in Cy Young voting in 1996, 3rd in 1998, losing to John Smoltz and Tom Glavine, but you could argue he was the best pitcher in the NL both seasons. fWAR loves his 1998 season, giving him a whopping 9.3 wins above replacement.

Is Brown one of the best pitchers of all time, like most of those other pitchers I've mentioned? No, he isn't. But when you look at these statistics, and see his presence among them, it distinguishes him. He's not just a guy with a good career ERA+ and a lot of innings pitched. He's the owner of one of the more dominant stretches of pitching we've ever seen. And sadly, most people will never realize it. Maybe because he was a surly guy (that's what I hear, but I don't care). Maybe because he's incorrectly viewed as a huge contract bust. Maybe because he didn't pitch well for the Yankees at 40 years old? Either way nobody seems to care about him. That's really the only reason why I became semi-obsessed with his Hall case.

A word on Brown's contract: It didn't turn out great, but it wasn't a disaster at all. He provided LA with 2.5 seasons of great pitching, with injuries in the middle years. This also got me thinking: what is a "bad" contract anyway? Do we define it as when a team gets very little value out of a player while paying a lot of money, or when they simply overpay for a player who clearly wouldn't deliver? I'm thinking especially of what happened in the 2006-2007 offseason, when the Giants payed Barry Zito a ton of money for a lot of years, while the Dodgers signed former Giant Jason Schmidt for a 3 year, $45 million deal. Zito has pitched every season so far, while Schmidt pitched a grand total of 42 innings in LA. Which deal was "worse"? Zito is overpayed, but at least he has been somewhat useful to the Giants. Schmidt was a complete waste. But how do you judge the signing? Can you blame LA for not knowing that Schmidt would injure himself like that? A post for another day.

After that 5 year period, Brown had a good injury shortened season for the Dodgers in 2001, then threw only 63 in 2002 while not pitching well. He had a great comeback in 2003 at the age of 38, going over 200 innings for the 9th and final time in his career, while matching his 2nd highest ERA+ mark at 169. He then went to the Yankees, where he struggled with more injuries and was at times an above average starter, at other times terrible. His last season was 2005.

I was happy that Bert Blyleven got enough votes to be inducted today. But Kevin Brown fell off the ballot for good, with only 12/581 votes. I wouldn't argue that Brown had a better career than Blyleven; Bert pitched many great innings and lasted a long time. Part of his greatness was that durability, which his inane detractors call "stat compiling". But I ask the rational group of baseball minds that campaigned so hard for Blyleven: was he ever as dominant as Brown was, for as long as Brown was? I don't think so. Kevin Brown will never get into the Hall of Fame, and he's more than deserving.

Note: I know I used ERA+ a lot in this article. ERA is not perfect, but neither are the DIP stats, and ERA (or just runs allowed) becomes a more legitimate stat when you are looking at a long career. Also, I think the adjustment that ERA+ uses is key for Brown in particular, because he was pitching in one of the biggest offensive eras ever. Look, I am NOT saying that Brown was better than Bob Gibson (my favorite pitcher who I never saw), but the fact is their career ERA+ numbers are separated by ONE point.

Random Winter Thoughts: Schilling and Brown, Sabathia and Cain

Last week, I tweeted that if voters plan to cast a Hall of Fame ballot for Curt Schilling when he is eligible, they should do the same for Kevin Brown this year. Thanks to a retweet by the great Keith Law, I got a lot of responses to this. Most of them cited the fact that Schilling had many impressive postseasons, memorably beating the Yankees with both the Diamondbacks and the Red Sox (it seemed to be that not only was his playoff performance stellar, but the fact that it came against the Yankees made it even more so, a sentiment that really makes me cringe). I don't think that postseason performance should factor much into Hall of Fame worthiness. I especially don't think a great pitcher should be penalized because of poor postseason starts. But I can appreciate the position of giving credit to a pitcher for outstanding pitching in the games that matter most. However, this only applies to the Schilling/Brown situation if you believe that Curt Schilling is not already a Hall of Famer, independent of his playoff heroics. I think Schilling is a Hall of Famer just based on his regular season performance, and to my surprise, a lot of the people on Twitter did not. So I forgot about Brown almost immediately, and started thinking about Schilling.

I could understand keeping Curt Schilling out of the Hall of Fame if you believed in the idea of a "Small Hall", where only the most excellent players of all time would be. This concept is attractive, but unrealistic, because the Hall of Fame is what it already is. You can think that certain players don't belong there, but once they are in, the standards have somewhat changed. I don't think because Andre Dawson is in that every player who compares favorably to Andre Dawson should be in as well. But to some extent, the "if ___ is in, then ____ should be" is a valid argument. And there are a number of worse pitchers than Curt Schilling in the Hall of Fame. He had a long career, and a good peak, not as dominant a peak as some peers, but extended enough to make up for that. He was never the best pitcher in baseball, but that was because 4 of the greatest pitchers ever (Clemens, RJ, Maddux, Pedro) were pitching at the same time. Strikeout-to-walk-ratio isn't a perfect statistic at all, but it is still useful, and Schilling has the 2nd best K/BB ratio of all time, 4.38. In the "Big Hall", he's a clear Hall of Famer to me.

I think baseball fans who are continually learning about sabermetrics and advanced statistics forget just how large a large portion of the baseball community still judges a pitcher by his W-L record. And this must be the explanation for fans thinking Schilling may not be a Hall of Famer, because he has "only" 216 career wins. There's no need for me to explain why wins and losses are irrelevent; it's been talked about forever, and you either get it or you're just stubborn and don't care about the objective analysis of baseball. Just looking at one season, wins are quite useless. A career is different: wins and losses won't tell us anything that important, but the length of time in a career pretty much guarantees that a "bad" pitcher won't end up with 300 wins. But does that mean a pitcher with 300 wins is definitively better than one with 216? Absolutely not. But the road to 300 wins is a strange one.

People wonder if we will ever see a 300 win pitcher again. It shouldn't matter, but it would be kinda cool. I think we will, and I think the pitcher currently who has the best shot at it is CC Sabathia. Consider this: Sabathia will be 30 next year, and he already has 157 wins. He will likely be pitching the majority of his remaining career with the Yankees, a team we expect to provide good offense every season. He appears to have a durable body. And he's a great pitcher right now, in his prime. All of those factors demonstrate how CC can get to 300 wins. Most of all, it's that high win total, 157, at 30 years old, very rare for pitchers these days.

From 2001-2005, the start of his career, Sabathia went 69-45, a .605 winning percentage. Yet, he was only an above average to good pitcher. His ERA+ was 107 over that period. By logging many innings, his overall value was good (14.4 rWAR, 17.9 fWAR). But not good enough to post a .605 winning percentage over a 5 year period, at least, not without some very good fortune. Sabathia has been one of the best pitchers in baseball since 2006, but it was his ability to start a career earlier and stock up on many wins at a young age that puts him in position to win 300 games. And it could have been very different. He could have been Matt Cain.

Whether Matt Cain will ever reach the level Sabathia is at right now remains to be seen. But I think comparing Sabathia and Cain in their first 5 seasons is fascinating (I leave out Cain's 2005 season, because he only pitched 46 innings). Sabathia's first full season was at age 20, Cain at age 21. Here are the stats they put up:

Sabathia: 972.2 IP, 4.10 ERA, 107 ERA+, 14.4 rWAR, 17.9 fWAR, 69-45 (.605%) W-L Record

Cain: 1049.1 IP, 3.50 ERA, 124 ERA+, 15.4 rWAR, 18.7 fWAR, 55-61 (.474%) W-L Record

The WAR numbers are pretty close, but Cain is slightly ahead in both. He also threw more innings. And the adjusted ERA isn't that close, relatively speaking. Yet look at those W-L records.

There's no reason really to compare Cain and Sabathia; all pitchers are different, and whether Sabathia "deserves" all that great fortune early in his career is nullified by his now long held status as one of the best in baseball (he currently has 4 straight seasons of 230 or more IP, and his ERA+ over that period is 142) . Cain has yet to reach those heights, and he might never. I said I wouldn't even go into how pitcher wins are useless, but this side by side comparison says it all. They are very close in performance, and Cain is better. Looking at the W-L records, you'd think think the exact opposite. And you'd be so completely, utterly wrong.

Rowand for Fukudome? Yes, Please.

First of all, I'm gonna apologize for not posting anything over the last couple of weeks. With finals going on for both of us, we decided to take a break. But we're back and ready to go with the news this morning that the Giants and Cubs have discussed an Aaron Rowand-Kosuke Fukudome trade, according to Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com.

It's no surprise that Rowand is being shopped - he has a huge contract, isn't good, and as the roster currently stands, it doesn't seem like there is room for him. And this particular rumor is especially appealing because almost everything about Fukudome is better than Rowand. His 2010, which wasn't too far off his career numbers (.259/.368/.410/.778), looked like this: .263/.371/.439/.810 in 429 PAs. Fukudome strikes out quite a bit (20.8% career) but his career walk rate (14.7%) is very good. Rowand had an OBP under .300 last year and has a career walk rate of 5.6%. It's pretty clear who the better offensive player is.

I've always assumed that when getting rid of Rowand, the Giants would have to pay most of the salary and get nothing back in return besides a crappy reliever. As I mentioned above, Rowand pretty much has to go because the Giants have too many outfielders - Burrell, Torres, Ross, Schierholtz, Rowand, DeRosa, Huff/Belt. Getting rid of Rowand for nothing would solve the outfield overcrowding problem. But adding another OF like Fukudome means another outfielder would have to go, most likely Schierholtz. Luckily, Fukudome isn't terrible on defense and defense is really the only reason Nate is still around. As a right fielder, he's fared pretty well according to UZR, with scores of 6.0 in 2008, 7.8 in 2009, and dropping off a bit in 2010 at -4.4. He is 33 and isn't likely to improve much on defense, but he won't clog up the outfield either.

I thought maybe the only other player the Giants could get in return for Rowand would be one with a bad contract. While Fukudome does make $13.5 million (way too much), it's only for one more year and his contract is actually better than Rowand's, which has 2 years and $24 million left. For this reason, I can't understand why the Cubs would do the deal. Crasnick does say the trade is a long shot. Maybe the Cubs want to save money this year? The Giants would probably throw some money into the deal, but it still seems weird. In the end, all the evaluations of Fukudome as a player don't matter because we know these two things: he's a better player with a better contract. And Rowand would finally be gone. Please make it happen, Sabez.

Giants Sign Miguel Tejada

Although it isn't official until his physical, we can safely say that former MVP Miguel Tejada will be the Giants starting shortstop for 2011. Tejada's deal is for 1 year, $6 million. In essence, he'll be replacing Juan Uribe, and when you look at the 2 players and the contracts they each got, the Giants situation appears quite favorable. Before Uribe joined the Giants in 2009, he had just had 4 seasons with an average OPS+ of 77. He may not be that bad ever again, but giving him a 3 year contract is pretty foolish. Meanwhile, Tejada will only be with the Giants for 1 year, and isn't costing a lot. Looking at it purely from that perspective, the move isn't bad at all. Also, there are a lot of positive things to say about Miguel Tejada.

He was one of the better shortstops in baseball most of this decade, thanks to his ability to make hard contact and hit for power from the weakest (or 2nd weakest) offensive position on the diamond. His career defensive numbers aren't pretty, but they aren't atrocious either. He is considered a great clubhouse leader and continually competitive, motivated player, who even at 36 is in better shape than many major leaguers. All those qualities are impressive and admirable. So, having established that Tejada for 1 year is "okay" (because it's more favorable than keeping the current SS, Uribe), and going over what his reputation is as a player and teammate, you might wonder why I dislike this signing as much as I do.

It isn't nearly as popular to criticize Brian Sabean these days as it was a mere, oh, 5 months ago. A World Series trophy, somewhat rightly, buys a lot of credibility. But I think the Tejada signing represents just another uncreative move by Sabean to fill a position with an aging veteran. And just because we all hated the Aubrey Huff signing last year, and he succeeded beyond anyone's expectations, doesn't mean the Giants should AIM to spend the offseason picking up the players no one else really wants. You can only get lucky like that so many times. And there's really no reason to refrain from fair criticism of Sabean simply because the team just won the World Series. This offseason is now about winning it in 2011. 2010, as magical a year as it was, has nothing to do with that.

So why do I think the Tejada signing is uncreative and disappointing? Simply because it appears that better shortstop options are in fact out there to be had. JJ Hardy (#JJHardyorGTFO) could be available, either in a trade or simply as a free agent if the Twins non-tender him (this might be less likely than I hope; the Twins seem to have ideas of other options at SS, but all analysis points to Hardy being their best option). Marco Scutaro and Jason Bartlett are both trade options, and the Red Sox and Rays want middle relief in return, something the Giants have. If you were to go just by last year's performance, Tejada is very close to all 3 of these guys, or better. I think you could reasonably expect that all of them might end up giving the same production in 2011 (1.5-2.5 WAR). But the other 3 possible SS all have something that I believe Tejada lacks: the potential to have a big year. Hardy had 4.3 and 4.9 WAR seasons in 2007 and 2008 (and positive UZR numbers in every season of his career; how the hell could the Twins not want to keep this guy? I think maybe they will keep him). Bartlett had a huge offensive season in 2009, then a total dropoff in 2010. The same for Scutaro, on a smaller scale. Now, of course, Tejada has had a much more productive career than any of these guys. But Miguel Tejada is going to be 37 next season. His skills have been diminishing every season. His power is mostly gone. His defense is not good. And he'll be playing one of the most demanding defensive positions, everyday. He doesn't strike out a lot; he never has. Going hand in hand with that, he doesn't walk much either (never has). Although Tejada doesn't make as much contact as he used to, he will still hit his share of singles and doubles, and most of his offense comes from that. But his age and free swinging tendencies also means lots of double plays. Tejada has led the league in double plays 5 times. Yeah. I've come to the conclusion that Tejada isn't actually a disaster. But it remains to be seen if the Giants could have done a lot better.

Speaking of double plays, I want to end the post with a word on Pablo Sandoval. When we first heard about the Tejada signing, there was talk that perhaps he was being signed to play 3rd base, or to at least pressure Pablo into performing well, because Tejada would be waiting to take over. This I hate. It's truly amazing how our expectations shape our perceptions and observations. We can all agree that Sandoval had a bad 2010 season. But it was still better and more productive than Tejada's in nearly every way (I tweeted the numbers that support this, you can find them by simply comparing their 2010 slashlines, wOBA, and WAR on fangraphs). I fully expect Sandoval to rebound in 2011, but even if he barely did so, he would be better than Tejada. Perhaps we'll need to write a full post on Sandoval this offseason. I am truly mystified how so many fans have given up on a young player so quickly, especially when you consider what he did so recently in 2009 at the age of 22.