New San Diego Padres GM, AJ Preller, likes to watch the fire grow after throwing another log on. Yesterday, something snapped and he just kept throwing log after log in until the old Hot Stove couldn't contain it anymore and the thing just blew up! That's all figuratively speaking, of course, but oh my! A day after the Matt Kemp trade was finalized, Preller quadrupled down on RH power hitters by acquiring Justin Upton from the Braves for a package of prospects. He also sent recently acquired veteran C Ryan Hanigan to the Red Sox for 3B Will Middlebrooks and sent of a couple of very promising young pitchers to the A's for C Derek Norris.
The common denominator in all these Padres deals is the acquisition of RH power to the point of selling out everything else for it. The Padres now have a projected starting OF of Kemp, Upton and Myers. Who is going to play CF out of that bunch? Kemp is going to want to, but can he? Myers played some CF in the minors, but nobody thinks of him as a MLB CF. Upton has never played there, so he's out. There is some speculation that Myers might move to 1B or that Preller might flip him to Texas for Jurickson Profar who would become the Padres SS if he can stay healthy.
The Padres already had decent options at 3B in Cory Spangenburg and Yangervis Solarte. Middlebrooks joins that mix as an all or nothing power hitter who is not much of a fielder. Derek Norris is also a guy who can jerk the ball out to LF and his BA has improved over the last 3 seasons. Norris' defense came under criticism after the Royals ran wild in the Wild Card game.
Beyond that, trying to sort out who will be starting where for the Padres and who will be a reserve and who will be shopped out gives me a gigantic headache. As for the Braves, they seem to be burning the ship down to the water line. Fried may be a legitimate pitching prospect, but is coming off TJ. The other prospects look more suspect to me. Billy Bean made a nice haul for Norris as both Hahn and Alvarez are legitimate pitching prospects who both broke in last year. Hahn went 7-4 with a 3.07 ERA in 12 starts for the Padres last year and Alvarez is a hard throwing RHP with a good shot at eventually being a MLB closer.
In other news, the Marlins acquired Martin Prado from the Yankees for RHP Nathan Eovaldi. Prado will play 3B for Florida after Casey McGehee got sent to the Giants. Prado is nice player, but Miami might have been better off to just keep McGehee and Eovaldi.
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I like most of these moves by Preller the Seller. He got some hitters who should make the Padres competitive, he didn't give up his pitching staff and somehow hung onto Hunter Renfroe, who I think will be very good. He used the previous regimes high draft picks to get relevant stat! and that should be fun for Padre fans, being relevant. Austin Hedges gets a lot of hype, not quite as sold on him, but he held there and has Wisler as well.
ReplyDeleteAnd a lot of fast athletic OFs who have no place to play now! So there will be more trades. I think giving up Alvarez to trader Billy might be the worst move.
Interesting to me that a "new age" GM decided to hell with OF defense and to hell with pitch framing. Maybe he thinks its overrated. I do!
defense is overrated?
Deletedid you sleep through the post season?
bacci
Sounds like "Preller the Seller" did...
DeleteI like the McGehee deal. Wonder how the new Padre RHed lineup will fare vs our rotation.
NWGiantsFan
DtF!!!
I think defense is for real. Pitch framing has a ways to go to be a reliable metric, IMO.
DeletePostseason defense is extremely important. The Padres had a excellent defensive OF - that couldn't hit. You have to have guys who can hit. Its a balance. The Giants without Pence, who can do it all pretty well, would be dead in the water. You have to have enough offense to grind through the season. And yes, I slept a tad in the post season. What happened?
DeleteI think defense is real because that stat analysis bears out a greater correlation to winning with ERA than any offensive category. And ERA is the product of pitching and defense.
DeleteThis is all, btw, based on pre-Steriod era research.
The sad part is the pesky Padres got a little more peskier. I am not saying they are a playoff team yet but when we have to play them 19 times they might win a few more than last year. Kemp IMO is injury prone and probably will miss some time. There has to be some reason the Rays dumped Myers. Buster Olney thought it had to do with his K rate and lack of power in the major leagues. Thought this would be the highest his stock would be and if he had another down year his value wouldn't be much.
ReplyDeleteThey might win a few more against the Bums too which would be nice to see.
DeleteLG
does turning over an entire lineup work? sometimes....but usually only in the short term
ReplyDeleteim happy with the way the giants are proceeding
wonder if the friars will take a flier on wilson
bacci
I agree. And if we come up short in October...well, we'll be right on schedule for 2016.
DeleteNWGiantsFan
DtF!!!
What we all have to understand is that Pence and Sandoval struggled like no other at the beginning of the season. Pence didn't start hitting until 1 1/2 months into the season and 2 months for Sandoval. Cain and Belt barely played. Pagan had his usually season ending injury. Romo lost the closing bid. And to top it off we had the worst June I have ever seen. I think we lost like 21 games that month. All of this and we were the wildcard. Barring major slumps and season ending injuries we will be just fine.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to believe that we will have an Opening Day team that is identical with the WS Champion team of 2014, minus Morse, Sandoval, and Vogelsong, but plus McGehee and Cain. More tuning must be in the works, don't you think?
DeleteYeah, a reigning WS champion has no chance unless it upgrades, huh?
DeleteMorse had one big hit, but was otherwise non-factor from well before midseason on. If Cain is truly healthy, replacing him with Vogelsong is hardly standing pat. McGehee is not quite Sandoval, but will probably be better than a replacement level player.
Giants may add an OF before Spring Training, or they may wait until midseason to evaluate their needs, but yeah, it's basically a returning championship team. I can think of worse positions to be in.
Me too. But I would like to win more than 88 games, and squeak into the WS. I bet Sabean would also and that he will upgrade. Alex Pavlovic has a tweet today that Sabean doesn't like the crop of free agents for LF and would explore the trade market. I'm actually not sure he said he would explore it or simply that to get a good LF partner for Blanco someone would have to explore it.
DeleteThe name of the game now is to be good enough to get into the playoffs including the Wild Cards. Anything more and you are overspending to be just another team in the crapshoot. Just ask the Dodgers.
DeleteAnd while you are at it, you can ask Billy Beane too.
DeleteBesides Lester and Scherzer would you prefer to overpay for subpar talent and be in trouble for future years? I will pass on that.
ReplyDeleteDepending on what Shields is being offered, he is still worth more than the good draft pick, at least for a couple years. If G's could get a deal, even a long deal, that was vested after 3 years on innings pitched the last year or two years, that protects the Giants. Give him a player option to bail. Say $110M, $22M a year for 5 years, with a signing bonus of $10M, first year $10M, then the $22.5M per year for 4 (after Hudson and Lincecum are off payroll), with vesting and player can bag it. He probably wouldn't take it but makes G's very formidable if he takes it and wil be with WS Champs
DeletePersonally, I would rather have the draft pick and not have the risk on the backside of a Shields contract, but that's just me.
DeleteThis offseason has not turned out like everyone thought. I think we all expected to make a huge splash with either Pablo, Tomas or Lester. Maybe even make big trades to bolster the lineup. However, none of that happened. I was pretty disappointed but now that everything is "mostly" finished except a few tweaks here and there I am happy. First reason is because we didn't trade our wealth of pitching Blackburn, Crick, Blach, Santos, Mella, etc. That alone is a good sign. That says that they have faith that a few of these guys could be MLB players and it wasn't worth trading the future. We will need 2 SP in 2016 and maybe we have them in house or at least one so we only need to sign one. Second reason is we didn't punt our first round draft pick. I believe this will be 18 overall after Scherzer is signed. I am guessing the Yanks will end up getting him after the upgrades the Sox and Jays did and the way the Orioles have been playing. The Giants FO believes a star can be found at this part in the draft. I think you will see some big and aggressive moves for 2016 with Timmy, Huddy and McGehee leaving. You might even see them double dip into the Cuban market this winter or during the season. Relax and have confidence we have a competitive team. It took me weeks to get here and the water is fine.
ReplyDeleteI would have been fine with a big signing, but I also have to say I was skeptical that any of that would happen. I too am very happy they appear to have hung onto the draft pick. Yeah, the odds at #18 are iffy, but you never know when you might get a Cain or a Panik that late or when a Beede falls into your lap. Really wanted to keep that pick for the long term health of the organization. I also felt that another big longterm commitment could box them into a corner in the future. You want to maintain some semblance of payroll flexibility.
DeleteSo yeah, it hasn't gone exactly the way I envisioned it either, but it'll do. Now, a trade for the OF from Philly would be a perfect coda.( sorry, just blanked on his name).
It should be exciting going toe to toe with Padres and hopefully keeping up with the Dodgers. Giants can always upgrade at the deadline since they didn't deal anybody away over the winter and should have some payroll allowance.
DeleteYou might be thinking of Marlon Byrd.
ReplyDeleteLG
Yep, that's him. Not too expensive. Relatively short term commitment. Good chance of bringing needed power to the lineup. To me, he's almost the perfect target for LF. Bring him in and I would label the offseason an unqualified success!
DeleteHe's (Byrd) a perfect fit for Sabean and the Giants at this point. They could perhaps clear some 40 man room as well. Gary Brown thrown into the package or along with ???
DeleteByrd's strikeout percentage has been going up sharply over the last four years, from about 16% to 20 to 24 to 29, so as to make one wonder how valuable he will continue to be. Also, MLBTR recently reported that when the Orioles asked about Byrd, the Phillies countered with a package of Byrd and Ryan Howard. Ugh.
DeleteYeah, don't want Ryan Howard or his contract.
DeleteI would much rather take Allen Craig over Byrd. Craig is much younger (30 v 37) and if he can put the bad year of 2014 behind him and play like the previous 3 then that gives the Giants cost certainty for LF for 4 more years and a very team friendly (5.5M, 9M, 11M and 13M) contract. I think last year he must have had nagging injuries because he is a much better player than the stats show.
DeleteSo far, Byrd has been a better fielder than Craig and I would rather have the 1 year commitment than the risk on the last 2 years of Craig's contract, but I would take either one.
DeleteNot in MLBTR that Sabes said the Giants have "limited" financial flexibility going forward and would have to choose between going after Shields or a LF.
ReplyDeleteOK, if Shields is still a possibility, then we have to conclude that there is something funky with the luxury tax threshold or the Giants are willing to go past it.
…er Note…..
DeleteYou are right. Something is wrong with the calculations because I highly doubt they will even get close to cap. If they are possibly thinking about adding Shields on top of Romo, McGehee and Peavy then maybe the signing bonuses are calculated much differently. Who knows? We will just wait and see.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I have read Allen Craig is finished. Foot injury, bat speed-put a fork in him.
ReplyDeleteWell, I am sure Sabes and Co will do their due diligence on Craig, Byrd and others.
DeleteThe tax is calculated on AAV of each contract with the signing bonus added in as part of the calculation. So if the player has a 10 mil signing bonus, 8 mil year one, 12 mil year two, 20 mil year three for a total of 50 mil, it counts as 16.67 mil a year against the threshold. Info comes from fangraphs.
ReplyDeleteWell, like I said, if the Giants are still serious about James Shields or an OF that costs anything, then either the Fangraphs info is wrong or the Giants are OK with going over the threshold or the threshold has moved up or some of the published info on the Giants current payroll is wrong because signing Shields at this point would almost certainly blow past the threshold based on what we think we know.
DeleteThis kind of gets into known knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns, etc.
One thing I learned from the research on this is players are taxed on their signing bonus by the state they live in NOT by the state they play in. With California tax rates being so high a player that lives elsewhere should seek a higher signing bonus to alleviate tax burden in their overall contract. This idea may help when attracting free agents who weigh offers from teams in states other than Cal against what the Giants are offering. It was noted on a few different sites that Lester would have made millions less in SF if he signed the same contract that he did with the Cubs. Everyone points to our park as the reason FA don't want to come to the Giants but the California teams have to overcome crazy tax rates and you can bet the players have been told that they will make millions less on the same deal if they sign with teams in higher tax states. Sorry for rambling but if I am a player, I am moving to Nevada where there is no state income tax and I am asking for the biggest part of my salary in a signing bonus.
DeleteI don't know about others, but I didn't see Scutaro, Melky, Peavy, etc before management acquired them.
ReplyDeleteBeing a fan is a lot easier and so, I will leave the heavy lifting to Sabean, Evans, Bochy and Co.
Instead, I try to concentrate on staying eternally hopefully and such macro stuff like 'are injuries too much to overcome this year to trade away a top prospect?'
It's true, we as fans should have learned to trust Sabes more after the Melky and Scutaro, but then look at Hicks and Uggla, and Frenchy. Maybe Mcghee for example, will show up with Melky flair, and lead the league in hits, but he's no replacement for a power guy that contended for a Gold Glove.
DeleteEach off season, I find our rivals looking better on paper, so I'm used to that.... this is the first time I actually think we look worse than the year before.
Oh? We have lost 4 fWAR through the departure of Sandoval and Morse. Do you not think we will gain those through McGehee, a full year of Panik, and a healthy Pagan and Belt? Peavy as a starter probably improves on Vogelsong. Susac as backup catcher improves on H. Sanchez. How then are we weaker? If we add a LF worth 1.5 or 2 WAR, we should be stronger than last year's World Champion team, shouldn't we?
DeleteWe have done a minimum so far, but maybe a minimum is all we need to do, recalling that our improved rivals will have to play each other as well as us. If the Padres take a couple more games from us, they will also take a couple from the Dodgers, don't you think?
Well, there is a difference between trust and blind faith. IMO, Sabes has proven beyond reasonable doubt that he is a very good GM, possibly even a HOF GM! On the other hand, no GM is perfect and no team is going to win the World Series or even necessarily make the playoffs every year.
DeleteI trust that over a long period of time, Sabes is going to make more good decisions than bad and is going to produce a better team than most GM's in the came circumstance. In the shorter term, there will be times when he might have done things that would have turned out better and will field some teams that aren't quite good enough to make the postseason let alone win it.
So far, I would say his moves this offseason have been prudent. Like last year and 2012 and 2010, this team is looking like one that has to have some things go right for it. As we know from 2011 and 2013, things don't always break right.
OK, thanks for the support everybody. A few sub comments may have automatically been deleted with the original comment. I don't have control of that.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, the basic commenting policy is Have a Take, Don't $&%#! Comments that are too far off topic, argumentative without data or reasoning to back them up, as well as those that violate the usual rules will get deleted. I am trying to maintain a community where people can have a rational discussion about baseball. You do not have to agree. I leave comments in almost every post that do not agree with my take, but they are presented either as a simple statement of opinion or have some data or reasoning to back them up. What I do not want is for discussions to degenerate into a "yes it is, no it isn't", "tastes great, less filling" type of argument or for someone to get on a hobby horse and ride it into the ground. If you are beating a dead horse, go beat it somewhere else!
Yes, most screen names are made up, including mine, but if you use the same screen name consistently it is a way of building up a recognizable track record of contributory commenting that will buy you some extra consideration in editing comments.
I don't know how else to do it and still maintain the environment I am looking for. I don't want to initiate a policy of moderating comments before they appear, because that is much more stifling in my opinion.
If I have hit the button a bit too fast on some comments, I apologize, but I am also determined to not let the comments degenerate into shouting matches and off topic conversations that we see on some sites.
DrB, is there a way to just not allow anonymous posts? Think that might eliminate most of the deleting you have to do.
DeleteI could make everybody who posts sign up for a membership or something, but I have had problems figuring out how to do that myself on other sites, so would prefer not.
DeleteWell to lighten things up a little Doc, the Dodgers just got hit for a bill of 26.6 million in luxury tax penalties. The Bums had a 257 mil payroll taxed at 30% and have now paid 38 million over the last 2 years. As Mike Tyson would say, "That is ludacrissss."
ReplyDelete$26.6 M is a whole lot of money for anybody, even multibillionaire owners!
DeleteGo big or go home eh? So you like either but not the middle? This is a barely in the middle team, so I can't see why you are so content. This team barely made the playoffs last year and has done nothing to get better and all signs point to LF being a considerable down grade from last year. Some people say that fact that minor league pitching wasn’t traded means the Giants understand how valuable they are. On the other hand, (and just as likely) is that other teams know those guys aren’t that good so why trade for them? Some people say Pablo wasn’t that good last year so he is easy to replace, on the other hand him being average is one of the reasons they nearly missed the playoffs.
ReplyDeleteI question your belief that they will spend money at the trade deadline if they are close. If they won't go over the CBT now, why would they then? And how much help could they get if they want to stay under the CBT, not enough to stay competitive. Isn't it better to have a good team from the outset than to count on a mediocre team to perform better than expected? Oh wait, that would just be better for the fans, the owners don't care, the season tickets have been sold and they are raking in the $ from October. This is Sabean doing his job well, keeping the purse holders and the hardworking, middleclass, $ spending non-hardcore fans mollified. We are looking at another serious non- defense of the title. Little wonder nobody takes the franchise seriously.