Well, well, well! I can't say I saw this one coming either, although I was starting to wonder why the the Giants signed so many lefty relievers, even if they are all on minor league deals. They traded Taylor Rogers to the Reds along with half of his $12 M remaining salary for a minor league reliever names Braxton Roxby RHP. Hmm...like the name anyway. Although Rogers posted a 2.40 ERA last season, several of his indicators pointed in the wrong direction including declining FB velocity and K rate. His BB/9 remained above 3 for the 3'rd consecutive season after hovering around 2 early in his career. He appeared in 64 games, finished 16 but had 0 Save Opportunities. He took the Loss in 4 games while recording 1 Win.
The move leaves only one lefty reliever on the 40-man roster, Erik Miller, but the Giants signed multiple lefty reliever types to minor league contracts. The most prominent of those is Joey Lucchesi LHP who also has a $1.5 M MLB contract contingent on his making the opening day active roster. Enny Romero LHP is an under-the-radar signing who I think is a real darkhorse to watch in spring training. Other lefty reliever minor league signings include Raymond Burgos, Antonio Jimenez, Ethan Small and C. J. Widger. Chris Wright LHP is coming off injury and is listed on the AAA Sacramento roster.
I’m rooting for our hometown favorite, Lucchesi … although he has a tendency to look great, then fade quickly. If he can overcome his past control problems, Joey could be a real contributor.
ReplyDeleteEnny Romero is my guy, but Lucchesi seems to have the inside track to replace Rogers.
DeleteUh oh … newly promoted pitching coach JP Martinez thinks the Giants are heading into spring training with 15-16 “legitimate” starters, according to Baggarly.
ReplyDeleteLike i mentioned in the other post, it boggles my mind that the Giants traded/sold a pretty darn good lefty reliever in Taylor Rogers for some 25 year old never will be minor league schlub and 6 million. By all accounts a salary dump...Are the Giants ownership that hard up for money??? From a baseball standpoint, unless forced to do it, this move seems idiotic by either Buster or GMZM... as they are willing to leave the team with only ONE LHRP in Erik MIller, and even that is not a sure shot, with nothing but the recent minor league trash dumpster dive signings....I have seen many times where, especially early in the season, an incompetent and leaky bullpen quickly destroys a season before it even gets started...But, that will be on Buster.
ReplyDeleteSteveVA
Taylor Rogers has not exactly been a guy you could count on in high leverage situations and his numbers are trending down. We'll see if Buster really believes in the current roster or if he's just keeping his cards face down. After Burnes signed with the D'Backs, Buster said he was going to pivot to looking for a hitter but then signed Verlander.
DeleteI’m pretty sure Grichuk will be the next move they make. I wasnt a big fan but guess I could warm up to him. If I squint really hard I can almost see what Buster is thinking…. This guy could be the next Burrell or Pence!
ReplyDeleteBuster says they are set at around $167 mil with the roster they have. Thats about $40 mil less than last year. I think this team is good enough to finish around .500 again which I thought was a trend Buster was going to break one way or the other. Maybe they are worse than .500 and hopefully much worse so this season actually means something.
ReplyDelete- Concerned fan
Real payroll and CBT payroll are two completely different numbers and it's not completely clear to me which payroll number is being quoted. Per Cot's contracts, which seems to be the most accurate tracker of payrolls, The Giants CBT payroll prior to the trade was approximately $220 M and the threshold is approximately $241 M. I may be wrong but I think they can take $11 M off the CBT payroll with the trade which would get them down to about $209 M or $32 M below the threshold. So it's conceivable that Buster is angling for a run at one of Alonso/Bregman/Flaherty. Or, he could make a lesser add and keep a war chest for a big midseason trade or two. Or, he could be just going cheap to please his fellow owners.
DeleteCan't subtract all of Rogers' salary, Giants will pay ~half
DeleteRosterResource (via fangraphs) shows $217,467,143, or ~$23.5M to the $241M threshold
Deletehttps://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/payroll/giants
I just looked up MLB.com and it says there the CBT threshold for 2025 is $237 M. I am also not sure about the rules for money that is included in trades. The Giants are sending $6 M to the Reds in the deal but technically the Reds will be paying him $12 M this season. The only thing I could find in the CBT "rules" is that the calculation is based on the AAV of the contracts of players on the 40-man roster. One other point. Payroll for CBT is calculated at the end of the season not at the beginning so it is extremely difficult for teams and outside analysts to know exactly where a team's payroll is in relation to the threshold. It's all very confusing. It's like the verse in the Bible that says "some cried one thing, some another" in describing a situation of mass confusion.
DeleteDon'cha think they wanted the $6M to get them to $23½M for something g-o-o-d?
ReplyDeleteWon't be Randal Grichuk: he goes to AZ for ~$6M after incentives and buyout for one year. Buster obviously didn't want him.
The best remaining free agents include 3B Alex Bregman, 1B Pete Alonso, SP Jack Flaherty, RP Tanner Scott, INF Ha-Seong Kim, RP Carlos Estévez, SP Nick Pivetta, OF Alex Verdugo and SP Max Scherzer.
Scratch Kim
DeleteScratch Tanner Scott, signed by you-know-who down south for $72M plus a vesting optio non the 5th year
DeleteGrichuk remains unsigned, no?
DeleteUnsigned, yes, misread of a Boston sports writer Devon Platana: "Surprise Free Agent Outfielder Makes Red Sox Roster"
DeletePrediction, not a confirmation
The highest grade i could give this trade is a C. Roger's had become an effective lefthanded 6th inning middle reliever for the Giants. But overpaid at $12 mil per year. I can understand why they would want to dump his salary, but this leaves the team with only 1 experienced Major league reliever which is risky. Its too bad for former 1st round pick LHP Reggie Crawford that he's out for 2025 due to shoulder surgery. He would have been the perfect replacement for Roger's. But if this trade leads to a bigger move, maybe the grade will go higher.
ReplyDeleteI see it as more than a salary dump. I think it was also a player dump. There were just too many games in which Rogers just didn't get the job done. The Giants brought in a bunch of lefthanded relievers on minor league deals. They want to give those pitchers a real shot at making the team and Rogers and his contract were blocking a roster spot.
DeleteThere were a number of complaints posted on the various blogs and comments sections about the Giants being cheap or being bad from a public relations standpoint. To me, this was a player dump and the Giants might have had buyer's remorse about Taylor Rogers as soon as a few months after he signed the contract. He was being paid $12 million, which was closer's money and only being used in low leverage situations. Zaidi and his regime waived him last year and got no takers for his $12 million + salary. Buster's group had to sweeten the pot with $6 million to facilitate a trade with the Reds. Two sets of front offices did not want him. Unfortunately, Taylor is going to a hitter friendly home field in Cincinnati so his walk year might not go well.
DeleteThe PR aspect was discussed on KNBR today and the question was how they could present the team to the fans going forward. They referenced the 1986 and 2009 teams which had a lot of youth and this seems similar but 2025 could end up being stronger. The more I think about it, the more excited I get. I like the defense, the young pitching, and good balance of experience and youth.
My Dodger fan nephew was trying to bait me into whining about the Giants last week but I told him that I wasn't impressed. Signing a lot of free agents in December and January is no guarantee of success, especially when most of those are injury prone or older players.
Unfortunately, there is probably only one way to sort out which of the large number of young players on the 40-man roster will form the future of the team or not and that is to find playing time for them. Hopefully some will emerge as stars to build around but some almost surely will perform poorly. If by the end of the season we have a clearer picture it will be a success in my mind. I hope Matt Chapman and Willy Adames are patient with that process if that is the plan.
DeleteI think Adames considers himself the leader of the band and he is the centerpiece.
Delete"Reggie Crawford...would have been the perfect replacement for Rogers"
ReplyDeleteWHAT????
Reggie Crawford would have been the perfect replacement for Roger's coming from their farm system. He threw a high 90s fastball. Before he got hurt. There was talk that he would have been called up before he got hurt.
DeleteCrawford had the tools to be a dominant reliever but he's pitched a total of 37.1 innings in his pro career.
DeleteAs the last poster said, if the money saved is poured into another significant acquisition, some of the rest is irrelevant....but....if not???
ReplyDeleteWell, I am a huge Buster fan, the player and person, but the more i read about this move, the more i think Buster and GMZM are being idiots and risking making the season inconsequential from the get go..The rotation is worse and has more questions than last season, the bullpen is worse and has more questions and less depth that last year....And Taylor is dealt why, because this great high and exalted aging out of touch manger Bob Melvin didn't trust him? OK..
At least the Giants improved at SS, but that is the extent of their improvement from a pretty mediocre moribund team. and I hope Adames doesn't see the team and think who cares if I continue to decline in the field, we ain't going anywhere..
SteveVA
Bob Melvin is not the only person who didn't trust Taylor Rogers. As a fan, every time he came in the game I said to myself, "oh no!".
DeleteDr. B, Honestly, that's the way I felt and feel about Erik MIller..Don't trust the guy one iota.. Both had some wildness last year..Still, Other then his start as a Giant and one brief spell last year, I though Rogers was very effective for the Giants and never felt bad when he came him. Oh well, differing opinons is what this place is for..
DeleteSteveVA
Gotta admit I don't have a ton of confidence in any of the potential replacements for Taylor Rogers role. From everything I have read, I think Enny Romero is a guy to keep your eye on in spring training. I think he has a much higher ceiling than Joey Lucchesi. I know almost nothing about any of the other LHP's on minor league deals.
DeleteThis is the bluesky comment from Andrew Baggarly: "Just talked to Posey. He said he hated breaking up the Rogers twins, but they wanted to create chances for younger arms in the bullpen. Doesn't sound like there are plans to reinvest the $6M SF saved. "We'll keep looking. I will say, we feel pretty set with the roster the way it is right now.""
ReplyDeleteBuster must have a reason, otherwise, does it make sense?
ReplyDeleteSince the Giants will pay $6M of Rogers' $12M salary, they are just getting $6M salary relief for his 1.1 bWAR. (Fangraphs shows a lower WAR because, for the most part, they don't value relief pitchers, stating "it does not make sense to give a reliever full value for the credit of his leverage index": see https://blogs.fangraphs.com/war-and-relievers.)
Again, it's not clear to me how this affects the CBT threshold. It's not completely clear to me what that threshold is or how it is calculated and it's not clear to me if the Giants internal payroll target is the threshold or some other number.
DeleteThe CBT gets complicated with trades, churn, and bonuses. I think Snell has a bonus that hits the CBT somewhere down the line and players on 60 day IL are on it. I’m not clear how much the Rogers trade affects the CBT if it’s $6 million saved or $11 million.
DeleteWhen Buster says "we're fine with our team as it is" its better than Steve Cohen saying "we need a pitcher" and then the price goes up.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who watched every game last year, I just don't understand how anyone could be surprised and/or peeved about trading Taylor Rogers. Shipping out his brother, on the other hand, would've been a different matter. The writing was on the wall when the Giants put him on waivers at the end of the season, but there were no takers. And one of the busiest areas for Buster this offseason has been adding relief arms through minor league deals, which seems like a pretty savvy way to add a lefty set up arm in the bullpen.
ReplyDeleteThe Athletic said Taylor made 172 pitches in September and had 6 swing and misses. Really low!
DeleteAndrew Baggarly says:
ReplyDelete1. Logan Webb
2. Justin Verlander
3. Robbie Ray
4. Jordan Hicks
5. Kyle Harrison (presumptive)
6. Ryan Walker
7. Camilo Doval
8. Tyler Rogers
9. Sean Hjelle
10. Erik Miller
11-13 Pick 3:
Hayden Birdsong
Landen Roupp
Keaton Winn
Tristan Beck
Spencer Bivens
Mason Black
Carson Seymour
Carson Ragsdale
Trevor McDonald
Randy Rodriguez
Plus Joey Lucchesi, Raymond Burgos, Ethan Small, and a wrath of FA signings
Baggarly concludes with, "It does not sound as if the Giants have immediate plans to reinvest the $6 million they saved in the trade."
I think the $6 million savings will probably help with leeway with the CBT, particularly in roster spots 21-26.
DeleteI looked at the alternatives also and, wow, the bullpen has the potential of being a top notch arson squad with only fringe MLB and mostly minor league arms from the LHS. I also think DOVAL being relegated to set up or worse, while maybe merited, could be a disaster that he huge ripple effects. Persoanlly, I think it is negligent for Buster and GMZM to go into the season as is.
ReplyDeleteI don't have the warm and fuzzie about the rotation especially the huge ???? marks surrounding Verlander, Ray and even the durability of Hicks.....but., unlike the bullpen, there is at least a high ceiling if everything breaks right.. And if the older vets struggle/decay, at least the young SP options could be exciting for the future.....
Surprised Baggarly didn't mention WHISENHUNT in that group...is he injured???
steveVA
SteveVA: They mentioned the Whisenhunt omission today on KNBR and felt it was an oversight.
ReplyDeleteFrom The Athletic this morning:
ReplyDeleteYankees’ Hal Steinbrenner says Dodgers’ spending is ‘difficult’ for rest of MLB to match
He all but says that maybe the Evil Empire really has relocated to the West Coast.
“It’s difficult for most of us owners to be able to do the kind of things that they’re doing,” Steinbrenner told the YES Network’s Meredith Marakovits on “Yankees Hot Stove,” which aired Tuesday night.
Then he compares the Dodgers to the Kansas City Chiefs in the Mixed Metaphor of the Year!
Kind of weird to match Free Spending to a League that is governed by a Cap!
You really gotta feel sorry for these billionaires.
Due to the 3-batter rule, isn't it kind of true that LH relievers aren't quite what they use to be?
ReplyDeleteThe run-of-the-mill lefty coming in will see one scary LHB, but if he doesn't get him out, and it's never a sure thing, he's going to see a couple of RHB who are licking their chops.
Yes, but a smart manager with a good bench coach can still get better matchups if they have 2 or 3 lefty relievers to work with. On the other hand, as we all hate to remember, the Angels won the World Series in 2002 without any lefty relievers on their roster. It's probably better to carry a good RHP than to chase matchups with a bad LHP.
DeleteKrukow said this week that the three batter rule forces LH relievers to be less like LOOGYs (left handed one out guys) and that they have to learn how to pitch.
DeleteMike Krukow does not always give evidence-based opinions. Here are some actual numbers:
DeleteTaylor Rogers(2024): 107 LH batters faced BA= .284. 142 RH batters faced. BA= .202. Not the extreme reversed split.
Erik Miller(2024): 108 LH batters faced. BA= .163. 176 RH batters faced. BA= .230. More of a normal split and not terrible against RH batters.
Jeremy Affeldt(Career): 1401 LH batters faced. BA= .237. 2633 RH batters faced. BA= .266. Note that the ratio of LH/RH batters faced by Affeldt before the 3-batter rule was instituted was the same or lower than Rogers and Miller last season.
Javier Lopez was more of a lefty specialist and had a pretty bad split against RH batters but even he faced almost as many RH batters as LH batters in his career: 1031 vs 1242.
DeleteNot sure if this is the best thread to post this.....
ReplyDeleteAs the hot stove league cools down, I have a few thoughts/questions:
1) What are the odds Luis Matos steps up as part of the outfield? He and Yastremski could do a a l/r platoon.
I know he made some bad decisions in the outfield, but I think he could mature. He did well in the winter league in Venezuela.
2) As the inventory winds down of free agents left, should the Giants revisit Pete Alonso? He could DH and play first base. He has enough power to hit HRs at Oracle.
3) Is there anything left of Wilmer Flores? The prognosticators range give him an OPS of .680 to .750 with 11ish HRs. With a balky knee, isn't it time to pay off his $3.5 million dollar salary? Thanks Wilmer for some good years, but seems like he is in the way of improving the lineup.
1. The Giants have several intriguing young position players including Luis Matos who could step up. The problem most starting positions are set so how are they going to step up if they aren't playing? All of them with options are probably going to have to start the season in AAA and wait for an opportunity to open up. 2. I am sure Buster Posey would happily sign Pete Alonso if he can get him on a contract for 3 years or less at an AAV the keeps the Giants under the CBT threshold and does not have an opt out. What do you think the chances of Alonso accepting such a contract are?
Delete3. Since Wilmer Flores is under contract and will get paid whether is on the roster or not, there is nothing to lose to see if he is healthy in spring training. If he is, a platoon of LMWJ and Wilmer is probably the Giants most productive option for 1B. He could pair up with Jake Lamb for a L-R DH platoon too.
Giants have $24M +/- left to spend.
DeleteThey might be able to get someone to take LMWJ and that's $5M (Alonso has hit RHP about as well as LHP for his career).
Flores is a $5.5M hit because that's the average on his 3-year contract, does that go away if he can be traded?
But the worse thing is losing another 2 draft picks.
I have to think if Alonso was going to be a Giant he would have signed already.. Flores has zero trade value until he proves he's healthy.
Delete