The Giants made what will likely be their final major move of the offseason when they agreed to terms with OF Denard Span for 3 years/$31 M plus a total of $5 M of incentives. The deal also contains a 4'th year mutual option for $12 M with a $4 M buyout. Span is a very good player when he is he is healthy. A year ago, it would have been reasonable to think he might get a deal to rival the 4 year/$72 M deal that Alex Gordon just got. Unfortunately for Span, he underwent 3 significant surgeries over the next year and played just 61 games in 2015. The most recent was a repair of his hip labrum, which sounds scary to me. If he stays healthy, the Giants just got a nice discount on a 3-4 fWAR player. If he doesn't, the Giants may end up regretting this deal. You have to believe the Giants did some homework on this and concluded the risk was worth it. Span posted a video of himself jumping over a string of barriers, a feat that would seem to not be possible if he was having any significant problems with his hip. In addition, the Giants will have the opportunity to put him through a physical exam.
As they did with Nori Aoki last year, the Giants signed a very similar player to Gregor Blanco. Here is Denard Span's Steamer Projection for 2016: .278/.337/392. And here is Gregor Blanco's: .261/.339/.368. Over the course of his career, Span has averaged 3.3 fWAR/600 PA's while Blanco has averaged 3.2 over the 4 seasons he has been a Giant. I guess there is nothing wrong with having 2 Gregor Blancos. I mean, Gregor Blanco is a really good player and having 2 Gregor Blancos is better than having just 1. On the other hand, if you are going to send Gregor Blanco to the bench, it might be nice to replace him with a player who is clearly better and one who is more of a power threat.
The next question is what all this means for Angel Pagan, the incumbent CF. A healthy Denard Span is a better defensive CF than Angel Pagan and both players have spent the vast majority of their careers playing that position. That is going to be an interesting one for Bochy to short out. Another angle on this is that Pagan and Blanco are both free agents at the end of 2016. Pagan will almost certainly not be back and you couldn't blame Blanco for wanting to see what he could get on the open market after being one of the most underpaid players in all of baseball for the past 4 seasons with 2016 probably making it 5. Span, if he can stay healthy(notice how that phrase keeps popping up), gives the Giants a bird in the hand who can play CF in 2017 and 2018, and that may be the biggest benefit to the signing.
Gotta say, I was really hoping for Cespedes, though, and short of that, letting the kids try to take the job from Blanco.
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ReplyDeleteAfter signing Cueto, I never expected the Giants to seriously get involved with Cespedes or Upton. Too much money to commit to in one offseason. With Span, our team is incredibly deep and versatile, ideal for a manager like Bochy. Also, the outfield market is very weak next offseason. Carlos Gomez being the only player id consider capable of holding down a starting CF job.
Span has his injury issues but when healthy he is a difference maker that plays to our teams offensive style. His contract is also pretty reasonable too. Even if he succumbs to injury, at least his contract won't a big burden on our growing salary cap.
Cespedes or Upton would have been awesome but offense is not our problem. Cueto takes our team to another level if he is the guy we saw dominate us the last few season in Cin.
A good question however is if signing Cespedes or Upton would've been better than the samarzidja/span combo. In that scenario I could see the Giants having taken a flyer on a guy like Fister and roll with the starters we got.
Overall I'm glad we made the moves we did. High high high upside. Cespedes and Upton run a little too hot and cold for my taste at their asking prices. Something about those two reminds of Sandoval except instead of being fat they've got some kind of personality/head case problem.
I agree with your last sentence. Let the Angel & the Great White Shark man the OF with the Rev and bring up the kids. Oh well, looks as though the professionals have other ideas. They are certainly more suited to make the call than me.
ReplyDeleteFrom all that I have read & heard, Span is a good clubhouse guy. When he was ith the Twins, he had a good rapport with his teammates and the MSP community. They still love him up there. Might be good for Bobby Evans et al to keep that in the back of their minds should Denard not pan out as hoped and/or the Mac/Jarrett/currently unidentified MiLBer rise to the bigs.
Let's Go Giants!
NWGiantsFan
DtF!!!
I'm really happy with this development (yeah, I'd been plugging for Span here in the past). The big "if" is health, but it looks like he's ready to go. Healthy, Span is a real "spark plug" player who helps the whole lineup. And, as I've said before, I don't have a lot of trust in Pagan's health.
ReplyDeleteAs a bonus, Span is one of those "really good guys" who will quickly endear himself to the community. I saw how he was in Minneapolis, and San Francisco will benefit from him off the field as well.
Either getting Cespedes/Upton or letting the kids battle it out would have left 2017 CF unsolved, as Span does not--again, if he's healthy (but, as we saw with Pagan, Blanco, Aoki, Pence, Belt, Susac, and Panik during 2015, that's a shared caveat). None of the kids plays CF, and all of them will have a chance, reduced during 2016 but back in force during 2017, to battle it out for the position that they do play, LF.
ReplyDeleteCespedes might have been nice to have, but for the extra 0.5 fWAR over Span as forecast by the Fangraphs Free Agent Tracker, the cost of getting him in dollars but also in years was very high, in all likelihood.
I can't argue with that, but I was hoping for more dingerz out of LF than it looks like they are going to get. Span will definitely keep the line moving, though.
DeleteI for one am pretty happy about this one. It just feels really right. I don't know why, but to me Blanco just doesn't scream starter. I get the numbers thing and I love him, but I've never viewed him that way. Perhaps it is merely because despite the various times, Blanco was never named the starter. I realize we had Pagan, but if you look at the way they handled Panik and Duffy, once those guys proved themselves, they had the positions. If the FO felt Blanco was the guy, they could have made him a starter. In fact, they could have done an extension to lock him up, and still move Pagan. So, I think there is something there. Also, while the numbers Dr.B. put up were very similar, I guess I don't know that the speed factor is the same? Seems like reports from Span showed a lot of doubles, triples and stolen bases. Do Blanco's numbers equate on that front too?
ReplyDeleteForgetting the Blanco v. Span debate, this move also seems much like Cueto in that it isn't a band aid but rather a bridge to the next generation. 3/4 years gets us Fox (or whomever). I think that is very smart. Even if Span doesn't pan out, we could still sign Blanco next year, and just have Span be the back up. Either way, we have options. That is above and beyond fooling around with guys like Slater and Cole too.
From a salary standpoint, this also seems smart. While we spent a ton of money, I think the per annual numbers are not too bad compared to the $50mm coming off the books this year (even with Crawford's extension). Plus, we have another $45mm next year and many of the guys coming off the books then can hopefully be replaced with in house guys (between Broadway, Okert, Black and the Johnsons, you'd hope we could replace at least two of Romo, Casilla and Lopez if not all of them; assuming Cueto and Shark play out well, then you're only replacing Peavy and maybe Cain, and you've got Blackburn, Beede, etc. there). That is tremendous payroll flexibility long term.
Finally, I'm not sure I take this as a bad thing relative to the kids coming up for LF. Admittedly, I'm a farm homer. But the way I see this, I think the FO is expecting (if not planning) that Pagan will not make the entire season. That means that we'll be faced with an opportunity to bring Mac or Parker in, but in a less stressful situation than starting out of the gate (kind of like Panik and Duffy). I could absolutely see next year if Span works out, we have Mac, Span and Pence as starters, and then have Parker off the bench (can't he play all three positions?). As for dingers, I think an interesting issue will be 12 v. 13 in the pen; given Cueto, Shark, Peavy and MadBum all can be innings eaters, I am thinking we go back to a 12 man rotation with Heston as the long man if Cain trips up. Then we go with EA, Kelby, Susac, Parker and Mac on the bench. While that cuts our pitching flexibility a bit, we don't have quite the same arm issues we did with Timmy, Peavy, Cain and Vogelsong all being sketchy (I'm not counting Peavy or Cueto as sketchy yet, so I think Cain is the only real question mark in terms of long term health, although we'll know at spring training if that is the case).
At some level, there are a lot of "ifs" in all of this and certainly it can play out the way. But the decisions seem smart, or at least well thought through and consistent with the FO approach generally.
In the last 4 seasons, Span has accumulated 122 doubles, 23 triples, 18 HR's and 79 SB's in 2173 PA's. In the same span, Blanco has 68 doubles, 20 triples, 18 HR's and 69 SB in 1780 PA's
DeleteNormalized to 600 PA's, Blanco actually comes out slightly ahead in triples, HR's and SB's while Span would have 10 more doubles.
As for defense, Span's UZR/150 in CF over the past 4 seasons are 8.7, 9.9, -4.5, -10.3 while Blanco's are 13.5, 21.0, 1.9, -13.1. In LF, Blanco has been 3.9, 14.3, 4.6, 13.1 while Span has not played any corner OF since 2009.
They really are pretty much the same player, but like I said, it's probably better to have 2 Gregor Blancos than 1. He is a really good player.
As for the starter thing, IMO, the idea that there is something intangible about Blanco that makes him a non-starter is a bunch of bunk. Blanco's numbers have been extremely stable at just above 3 fWAR per 600 PA over a sample size of 1780 PA's which is the equivalent of 3 years as a full time starter.
DeleteIf you can find 3 other OF's likely to put up 3.5 fWA or better, then by all means, send him to the bench, but there are not that many of those out there.
The question is really Pagan. Even allowing that he played hurt last year (and he played better late in the season) he put up weak, weak numbers. Seemed like his head was not in the game either.
DeleteFlirting with cute girls while in the on deck circle in Chicago while the Giants were being ushered out of the playoff hunt was also really troubling.
I hope he's healthy and proves me wrong, but I don't see Pagan starting for very long. Not quite a McGeehee situation, but he'll find the bench.
Span gets the Giants prepared for that possible scenario, and fills the need in center.
Also, I don't think the signing blocks the kids. If Mac wants to kick down the door, he'll have a place to play in SF.
IFS. There are many "ifs" this season, but they are low floor, high ceiling "ifs", with a lot of redundancy. *If* Cueto and/or Shark pitch like Aces, wow! *If* Span plays good D, .750 OPS, and 140+ games, excellent. *If* Cain refinds Cain, bonus. But floors there, are middle of rotation and innings eating support for Bum, Blanco and Pagan and Kids in the OF, Heston in the swing man 5th starter role along with some top support from the farm. *If* everything clicks I think we are looking at 95+ win season. The floor, is scraping for a Wild Card.
DeleteI used to say that too. But DB made some basic arguments and after honestly looking at the arguments, and possible rebuttals, I had to agree. The data supports Blanco as someone who is playing like a good starting OFer.
DeleteIn fact, from 2012-2015 (I prefer longer time-frames for smoothing out injuries, fluctuations, etc), Blanco is 34th in cumulative WAR in OFers over that time period (despite being a part-timer). FWIW, Pence is 16th. Pagan is 51st. Span is 22nd.
If I was manager, Blanco would be my LFer. Span would play CF. Pence RF. I'd have Pagan, plus the Spring Training Winner of Parker or Williamson on the bench. I think Pagan would be an excellent 4th OFer and useful in relieving Blanco and Span for rest than being an everyday fielder. Because when he's rested and recovered, he's still good enough. The problem is he wears out and looses speed, he nicks easy which hampers his performance, he recovers slowly, all things that happen to athletes as they get older and older... It's the nature of sports.
So, as a starter, he ends up being a pretty big liability. Whereas I think if was out there as a part-timer/4th OFer/pinch hitter, he could contribute at a higher over-all level on a 'per opportunity' basis, though his opportunities would be more limited.
According to Pavs, when they were signing Span, the Giants called Pagan to let him know they were signing Span. If I'm going to read between the lines, Pagan is moving to LF. And Pavs, more-or-less, insinuated this was probably what was going to happen. But he didn't take a hard stance so, for now, it's still speculation.
ReplyDeleteI like Pagan as a player when he is healthy, but if it comes down to Pagan vs Blanco in LF, I'd take Blanco.
DeleteSo would I at this point. Better OBP. Better ranger. Better defense. I think Pagan's best club-value is on the bench. Pinch hitter & spot starter.
DeleteSo would I. But if Pagan is healthy, no one will make a bench player of him when he's in his walk year, playing for a new contract in 2017. Not only he but lots of fans and friends will expect him to have a good chance to prove himself, as a pending mid-to-late-thirties free agent at the end of this year.
DeletePagan will be given his chances, but barring an injury to Span, it won't be in CF and I think he will have a short leash. He would not be the first Giant to be benched or even DFA'd in the final year of a contract.
DeleteThe Giants would have taken on the role of Yankees West, just with Cespedes presence in the lineup.
ReplyDeleteBut that's not very Giants-y.
Instead we get a lot of question marks and risks with a seriously revamped team. If one of the 3 big acquisitions over performs, then they're in amazing shape for a few years. There's not a lot of room for a prospect surprise, unless someone gets injured, but I think guys like Span and Cueto are always going to remain good trade chips, not that the Giants are known to flip free agents. They might also really be sold on Parker as a power bat capable of Cespedes numbers, and out of the 3 or 4 infield prospects at least one has to be tooled for a super utility role. That means next year they can focus on the bullpen, and figure out which prospect deserves the back end of the rotation.
Oh, and don't be shocked if Pagan has a stellar year with Bochy using Span and Blanco for a late inning replacement.
Pagan may have a stellar year, but the Giants made it quite clear at the presser that Span is going to be the CF and bat leadoff.
DeleteSpan's arrival would seem to end the "Let's make Kelby Tomlinson the next center fielder" idea. But if KT is intended to be a "super utility" stalwart, is INF proficiency at 2B and SS good enough for that role? No OF (a la Zobrist)?
ReplyDeleteI would think Kelby will still be the #1 utility IF. He would fill a huge hole on the bench if he geared up to play some 3B in the event Matt Duffy! needs a break or gets hurt. That's probably a better way for him to go than try to expand into the OF.
DeleteThe KT as CF idea was pretty much DOA with the results of his first try out there. It is not happening in 2016 except that they might throw him out to LF occasionally. But I would bet that they will try again harder for 2017, I think it's just a matter of time.
DeleteAnd as DrB noted, he'll get plenty of work in the infield as #1 utility IF in 2016.