Hot Stove Update: Dousing the Embers

With pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training, it's time to start dousing the embers in the Hot Stoves. While there remain a startling number of unsigned free agents, including Johnny Damon, Felipe Lopez and, actually, enough to form a decent MLB roster! We'll start with the Giants:

Bruce Bochy is a man who likes options. I read someplace recently that he used 135 different lineups last year. Now, you would think that if he had enough flexibility in the roster to run 135 different lineups out there, that might be enough. Brian Sabean looked over the roster and apparently decided that 135 different lineups wasn't enough. Boch needed even more flexibility! The ultimately flexible roster would contain 25 players each capable of playing all 9 positions and hitting in any of the 9 spots in the lineup. How many different lineups could you field with such a roster? I was a math minor in college and took Probability and Statistics as an upper division course. It's been a long time, so I'm not sure I know the answer to this, but I'll give it a stab. Any math professors out there can correct me if I'm wrong. 1 player capable of playing all nine positions gives you 9 different lineups, one for each position. That same player can hit in any of 9 lineup spots, so you have 9X9= 81 possible position plus lineup combinations for that one player Adding a second player with the same attributes gives you 81X81 different lineup possibilities. Including all 25 players on the roster gives you 81 to the 25'th power different lineups. That is a very big number! Bochy would not be able to field every lineup iteration if he remained manager for 1000 years! The crazy part of all this is it's not too far off from what Sabean has put together this offseason. Here's the rundown:

Mark DeRosa: All 4 IF positions plus 2 corner OF spots= 6 positions.

Aubrey Huff: 1B, 3B, RF, LF? Maybe 4 positions?

Juan Uribe: All 4 IF positions.

Bengie Molina: Catcher only= 1 position.

Pablo Sandoval: 3B, 1B, C= 3 positions.

Edgar Renteria: SS, 3B, 2B?= 3 positions?

Freddy Sanchez: 2B, 3B= 2 positions.

Aaron Rowand: CF, LF= 2 positions.

Nate Schierholtz: RF, LF= 2 positions.

Buster Posey?: All 9 positions!

Eugenio Velez: 2B, 3B, SS, 3 OF = 6 positions.

Andres Torres: 3 OF= 3 positions.

We assume the pitchers only pitch and only bat 9'th

That leaves us with a probability equation of 6X4X4X1X3X2X2X9X6X3= 186,624 possible different lineups that Bochy can choose from, and that doesn't even count the different lineup spots or the pitchers! Virtually all of these players could conceivably bat in any position 1-8 in the lineup except Molina who can only bat #4-8(sorry people, I'd be willing to bet that Bengie will bat 4'th at least once this season), which raises the the previous total by a power of about 8 to the 12'th power. I don't know if Bochy's head can get any bigger, but he might need to expand his hat size even further after figuring out all those lineup permutations!

Seriously, I like the moves the Giants made this offseason, mainly because they not only provide lineup flexibility for Bruce Bochy, but flexibility for the future promotion of the excellent prospects in their farm system. Not one prospect is being blocked by a veteran long term! As for this year, this roster can potentially score more runs than last year's, and the pitching should be just as strong or stronger if Sanchez takes the next step in his development.

Final grade: C+. The grade gets knocked down a notch or two for failing to land a "big bat"(not a criticism, I don't think there were any "big bats" realistically available) and for overpaying for an injured Sanchez, which might have prevented signing a better 5'th starter option.

What is your grade?

01-18-2020
P.S. I'm going to upgrade the Giants to a B for the way they handled the Tim LIncecum arbitration negotiations. Keeping his cost under control while apparently also keeping him happy was no easy task and they absolutely nailed it.