I just woke up and was sitting down to write a post about where the Giants go from here which was basically slow down and see what guys like David Villar, J. D. Davis and Lamonte Wade Jr can do before you go blocking them with another "name" they overpay for. Then I opened up MLBTR and the first story is Giants, Michael Conforto Agree To Two-Year Deal. WTF? Now, I can't say this is totally unexpected. Conforto and the Giants have been a fit from Opening Day of the Hot Stove League Season. Outfielder? Check! Lefty hitter to complement Mitch Haniger? Check! Looking for a short term deal? Check! Coming off an injur......wait, what? On top of that Conforto is a Scott Boras client...and ht last played for the who don't want him anymore! So much for the notion that Scott Boras and his clients won't deal with the Giants anymore. As Ahmed Fareed put it, "Boras to the #SFGiants to bid $350M for Correa in a market that settled at $315M. Something tells me he won't be stopping any of his future free agents from talking with SF." And well, he didn't.
The Giants have now gambled a total of $84 M over 2 years to two players who have spend more time injured than healthy. Granted that is 11 years/$266 M less than they were on the hook with Correa for but still.....but OK, let's break this down and see how it works, or doesn't for the Giants.
Michael Conforto OF. DOB: 3/1/1993. B-L, T-R. 6'1", 215 lbs. Drafted 2014 Round 1(#10 overall).
Doing a bit of rosterbating here, it seems to me Conforto fits best in LF with Haniger in RF and YtY in CF with Austin Slater as the 4'th OF. It seems like the odd man out is either Lamonte Wade Jr, Blake Sabol or both. I've always liked Conforto ever since he was a star for Oregon State. If he and Mitch Haniger stay healthy and even play to their career averages, the Giants will have a pretty good team in 2023, but there is a lot of risk here, albeit much shorter term than with Carlos Correa.
Here are some fun facts about Michael Conforto(per Wikipedia):
He is from Seattle, WA.
His nickname is Scooter
His mother is Tracie Ruiz Conforto who is a 3-time Olympic Champion in Synchronized Swimming.
His Father, Mike, played inside linebacker for Penn State.
His sister, Jacqueline, played soccer for Azusa Pacific U.
I have an optimistic hypothesis - the Giants are exploiting some inefficiencies in the sports medicine field (the health care equivalent of, say, on-base percentage), and that's why they see things uniquely, so that they let Correa go, but kept Rodon and are keeping Haniger and Conforto. Injuries to Wade and La Stella were, of course, unexpected individual occurrences, but should be expected within a much larger sample size of their model.
ReplyDeleteThat is, they are not just randomly betting. In this case, then, we can suppose that there is method to their apparent madness.
That's my guess, not being an insider.
As for Fareed's quote, I would suggest that Boras got the #SFGiants to conditionally bid $350 million for Correa in a market that settled (also conditionally, as of now, unless I missed the contingencies having been addressed one way or another) at $315 million. But the first conditionally is not the same as the second conditionally. So, a comparison is there, just not exact or very exact.
Of course, it could have been a case of having cold feet, and not having better access to medical expertise. In that case, I would have to come up with a new hypothesis.
As near as I can tell, the best offer Correa had before the Giants offered $350 M was $288 M. Maybe Cohen would have offered $315 M if the Giants had never made an offer, but it appears the Giants played a role in driving Correa's market above $300 M.
DeleteFZ has a long and successful history betting the short term on players coming off injury or down years. He also has a long history of aversion to long term deals. This is a big part of why I think the Correa signing was mainly owner driven and FZ was likely not heartbroken that a medical issue big enough to cause the owner to back off came up. BTW, Ben Kaspick of Locked On Giants Podcast is reporting that Correa has a metal plate in his leg and suffered a painful injury to it last last season, although it did not put him on the IL. There is a video of that play where he hurt it out on internet.
DeleteThat long and successful betting history - my conjecture is that was not random, that they have had an outstanding (relative to their competitors), as-yet-undisclosed health-risk assessment system.
DeleteThat may well be
DeleteAnother one of those silly opt outs after 1 year.
ReplyDeleteIf that's the way the player can be obtained for a "reasonable" amount, what's "silly" about it? It's very much akin to a QO – are they silly?
DeleteI feel more comfortable with those (basically) one year deals, with injured players coming back, when we expect in-house, younger replacements soon, and/or when they will not be counted on as the main contributors, but superfluous (unless you are willing to tank a season should they fail to work out as your key pieces...or unless you have talent-poor team and you have no other options trying to have enough key players on the team, making those deals look like Hail-Mary passes).
DeleteI would not, for example, want to bid for Logan Webb at present (and he is counted on as a key contributor, though nothing is guaranteed) every season, on the open market for his service. I am grateful he will be reasonably priced for a few more seasons with the team.
Ramos wasted a big chance last year. He is not even in the conversation for the outfield for next year.
ReplyDeletePlease correct me if I'm wrong, but Conforto hasn't even played since 2021 and hasn't been any good since 2020. Correct? I've got an idea that this one might go belly up, in the long run. And he's still gotta pass his physical.
DeleteThis is true.
DeleteFZ has a long history of betting on players with injury histories in the short term and has been very successful with it. He has always been unwilling to bet long term even on players with no injury history which is a major reason why I suspect he was not thrilled with the Correa deal from the beginning.
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