Giants Planning Fire Sale?
Thursday, March 6, 2008
According to Ken Rosenthal, the Giants have informed several teams that they are shopping over a dozen of their major league and minor league players. Ken Rosenthal said some of the players include Ray Durham, Rich Aurilia, Randy Winn, and Steve Kline. I put in a call to the Giants and found out that Travis Ishikawa and Noah Lowry are both on that list as well. The Giants are really in a tight spot, though. They have these veterans, but they have already peaked and our on the decline. It will be hard to trade those players for a pair of prospects, so the rebuilding might have to begin when these contracts finally expire. One possible replacement next season in the infield could be Mark Ellis, but only if he is not resigned by the Athletics. Ellis is a solid defensive player who can hit 14-16 homeruns with a high average. However, he won't come cheap. I am sure he will be looking for a deal between Kaz Matsui's and Luis Castillo's. The Giants are long way from being a playoff contender, and I think the first step might be cleaning out the Front Office, and moving from there.
8 comments:
i find it hilarious that Sabean is doing the fire sale now. Frankly, it's been a year too late. Like you said, all those vets are on the decline. no team would want any of them. And their hitting prospects are a sad bunch. to have ishikawa, and etc. as one of our top hitting prospects just show s the Giants system is the laughing stock of the MLB.
The front office MUST be cleaned out. Fire Sabean now.
Why the hell would they sign Rowand if they are planning to clean house and start over? By the time they are ready to win consistently, Rowand will be over the hill and on the decline.
Like Tim saud, this should have started sooner...and to be honest it should have started 2 years ago. Now the Giants need to try and salvage acquiring what ever they can for what they have. It is going to be tough to get decent returns unless at the deadline the veterans are playing pretty well.
Kline, Roberts, Winn, Aurilia, and possibly any of Lowry, Sanchez, Correia, Misch, and Taschner will need to be dealt to help the Giants in the future
Don't get rid of Sanchez you sound like CAIN=FUTURE or Poncho707
And right about now, Rowand is having one of those "DOH!" moments..... THIS is what he signed up for???
Sorry Aaron - I guess you would have been better off for a lower amount of years on that contract and stayed with the Phillies....
None of you guys are really into the Giants and are way off. The Giants have a number of players who they would have to release if they held onto everyone.
As everyone here noted, a lot of the vets are on the decline. But the fact is that this is not fantasy baseball, if you have a need and you want to compete, most teams go get a vet - because it would cost an arm and a leg to get a younger player and most can't pay that price.
This makes total sense because a number of the vets are doing well this spring, showing to some teams that last year was a glitch - you may not believe it, but another team might.
The Giants aren't asking for another team's best prospects - that what these blog comments are for, to let fans speculate about trading their team's dross (Crede) for another team's future (Sanchez) and somehow make it believable. They have traded vets for prospects who were not on the radar, like Kelvin Pichardo for Michael Tucker, and Travis Denker for Mark Sweeney, so they are not hard bargainers.
All the players listed make a lot of sense because they are holding back younger players.
Durham out = Frandsen starting at 2B. Durham's horrid 2007 notwithstanding, he has had a very solid career, and a good spring could convince a team that he is back enough to obtain.
Aurilia out = Velez as uber-utility guy. Aurilia had a horrible 2007, probably caused by a fender bender in spring training, but he's a relatively cheap vet who can play the whole infield and hit OK enough for a team to take him for a nothing prospect.
Randy Winn was one of the few to have a good 2007, so he's a natural to want to trade = Nate Schierholtz and/or Fred Lewis getting a chance to start in RF. They can't platoon since both are lefties, but they could be competing for playing time there. Or they could give Lewis the starting role for half a season, and if he can't hold it, bring up Schierholtz.
Steve Kline out = probably Jose Capellan being kept. Giants have a number of young good RP who are out of options or could be lost: Valdez, Threets, Capellan. The first two have been doing well, and the third, Capellan, comes highly recommended, Felipe Alou would lose face if they return him to the Red Sox as they got him in Rule 5 draft.
Noah Lowry out = Jonathan Sanchez or Pat Misch in. Both need to start in the majors to see how they do, but Correia looks good to go in winning the only open spot, and Lowry is the most expendable of the top four of Cain, Lincecum, Zito, and Lowry (obviously Zito's contract precludes any trade, and the Giants aren't trading the other two, no matter how many fans want them to).
Unfortunately, Lowry's going under the knife tomorrow for surgery, so he's not going to be traded right now. I assume the Giants are kicking the tires, as Sabean would say, in order to set the table for trading him by mid-season.
Travis Ishikawa is a failing prospect. He is not our best position prospect, not by far. First, we have Angel Villalona, who most rate as being in the Top 30 (or better) OVERALL among ALL prospects. Then there is Nate Schierholtz, Eugenio Velez, John Bowker, Emmanuel Burris, who are all above Ishikawa. Still, he is a great defender and has considerable power plus walks a lot, but he really needs to start in AAA or he'll be lost next season as he only has one option left, but they appear to like McClain and he plays 1B at AAA plus they are trying out John Bowker at 1B as well (he could also come up mid-season and start in RF too). I think they should keep him because he has been severely bothered by the poor parks at San Jose and Norwich (see MiLB.com's series by Jonathan Mayo for insight on how bad these parks are for hitters), they need to see how he does in AAA, in more regular parks.
And here they are trying to clear out vets and then it is suggested to bring in Mark Ellis?!? They have Frandsen who is going to start for the Giants in 2008, and if he fails, they have Travis Denker coming up soon, plus Emmanuel Burriss maybe by 2009, and Nick Noonan maybe by 2010.
The thing people fail to see is that the pitching will be so good that you don't need much of any offense to win games. Even with the anemic offense they have today, it should stil generate enough offense to get the Giants to around .500, based on Pythagorean. If they can do that, they can build on that in 2009 by acquiring another good hitter to go with Rowand, and they could be back to competing for the division in the 2009-10 timeframe, depending on how well the pitching develops, how well the hitters develop, and what type of free agent hitter is available in the off-season.
In addition, they have the 5th pick overall for 2008 and should get a great college hitter like Smoak or Alonso, who could be up to the majors, much like Will Clark, by 2009-10.
The front office does not need to be cleaned out right now. They are on the cusp of finding out how good all the prospects are, leading off with the great pitching, and seeing if there are any useful major league hitters among the position prospects. That is all they need from their prospects as long as they can pick up a Rowand type hitter each off-season via free agency.
Why now? To ensure season ticket sales. Bait and switch
any move will be to sell seats, the
product on the field is secondary
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