Farhan Zaidi has been President of Baseball Oper.....oh hell! Can we just call him the GM and be done with it? Anyway, Farhan Zaidi has been on the job for, what, less than two months? He's already in danger of becoming a parody of himself! It's no secret the Giants need outfielders. They need young, athletic outfielders who can go get balls in the enormous gaps in AT&T Park. They need outfielders with some power at the plate. When the Hot Stove fired up this offseason, the Brewers had 2 young, athletic outfielders with some power who were available in trade. Both seemed like potential fits for the Giants. Both have now been traded for....well.....pretty much nothing, and not to the Giants! Today, Broxton went to the Mets for RHP Bobby Wahl and prospects RHP Adam Hill and SS Felix Valerio. If you've never heard of any of those 3 players, don't feel bad, nobody else has either. OK, yes, Broxton had a rough season last year both in the majors and in AAA and he strikes out at an alarming rate, but he also posted 11, that's right 11, Defensive Runs Saved in just 134 CF innings last year! He also had an IsoP of .231, and he cost the Mets pretty much nothing.
Meanwhile, who did Farhan Zaidi make a trade for? Breyvic Valera, who I'm guessing you also had not heard of before today. He had been put on waivers by the Orioles, yes the Orioles! Zaidi traded for Valera last season then flipped him to the O's in the Manny Machado trade, so there's that. Maybe he's the key to a trade Zaidi has up his sleeve down the road? I guess we'll see. For now, he takes up the 39'th of 40 MLB roster spots, which doesn't leave a whole lot of room for other acquisitions, unless of course the GM has another trade up his sleeve.
*********************************************************************************
In other Hot Stove news, the Yankees re-signed LHP Zach Britton to a 3 year/$39 M contract. Britton was once one of the most dominant closers in MLB but has spent much of the last 2 seasons on the DL. OK, I'm a little frustrated with Farhan Zaidi right now, but I gotta admit, I'm not wishing he would make more deals like this one!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I wish that Zaidi would have made a couple big moves by now, but maybe this is why the Red Sox GM suggested that its time baseball needs an off season deadline on major league signings so the off season dealings don't drag on till spring training. There are still 200 free agents yet to sign, including 2 of the games young stars Machado and Harper. Baseball off season used to be more fun to follow when deals used,to happen alot quicker. Schulman says bigger deals by Giants should come once Harper signs. He could see teams like Braves or Rays adding a Will Smith now that Britton and Robertson have signed. If no big deals by Giants happen by the end of January, then I'll be disappointed.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Zaidi flipped Valera in a multi-player trade for a star once. Maybe that's what he has in mind again?
DeleteSounds like he's interested in signing 2 outfielders, not big names, just guessing maybe Dietrich since he plays multiple positions and A Garcia since he's still young. I'm guessing he'll trade either W Smith or Watson. Although I thought Evans made some questionable /risky moves as GM, firing him and going in a new direction was a bold move by Larry Baer since the team under the previous Sabean regime had so much success. Time will tell if that was the right move or not. I'm willing to be patient to see if he can turn the team around his way.
DeleteValera was put on waivers by the Orioles. Bergen came from the Blue Jays and Gerber came from the Tigers. Three players that 3 horrible teams didn't want! Either Farhan is just way smarter than EVERYONE in baseball or he has no intentions of competing in 2019.
ReplyDeleteOn the FARhan Front, how about this explanation: maybe the Giants aren't really as bad as they were last year, maybe they could compete.
ReplyDeleteDivide the Giants into 3 groups:
Group 1: the 5 STARS (Posey, Longoria, Belt, Crawford, and Cueto) with long (3 or more years), guaranteed, costly contracts that don't have much, if any, excess value (for trading), four of whom (except for Cueto) who could have a "better-than-average-for-them" 2019 which, depending on how many of the 4, could be good --very good -- for the Giants plus:
Group 2: 8 potentially good (to very good) players (Bumgarner, Smith, Watson, Dyson, Panik, Melancon, Samardzija, Sandoval) with control for 1 or 2 years who could have good years and provide the Giants with value during the season -- if enough of them plus the STARS above have "good" seasons, the Giants would be in contention. That's a long shot but it could happen. If enough of the 8 (or the Big Four above) don't "excel" then those who do -- somebody has to, no? -- become excellent value trades in July.
Group 3: everybody else -- the Future.
The Giants are "stuck" with the 5 STARS.
If Zaidi fails to find someone who will return EXCESS value for any of the "8" then holding them is relatively cheap, and doesn't cost dearly in the long run, plus that's 12 players who could have good seasons which adding to the developing core (Rodriguez, Duggar, Moronta, Suarez, Williamson, Black, Hanson, Law, Shaw, Avelino, Slater, Blach, Stratton, Okert, Osich, Jones, the 5 that Zaidi has picked up especially Ferguson, and a few others) AND anything Zaidi does ongoing even if it's more core or even splashes, could make 2019 interesting, at least until it is unquestionably a flop!
With a "lot" of money available, there are still some 200 unsigned free agents, some of whom could help. It's too un-Zaidi to go BIG, but there are many fill candidates. Too late for some, but there are many left. Even the injury-prone, if not long contracts, could add interest to the Giants.
And the new scoreboard!
DeleteI'm beginning to think Farhan just doesn't intend to compete this year and is building his kind of team for down the road, which I'm not necessarily opposed to. Give the man a chance to build his kind of team I say, and not be pressured to take whatever he's inherited and try to turn them into a sudden winner. I'm prepared to be patient.
ReplyDeleteI'm OK with that approach too, but if that's what it is, we should be seeing every moveable player traded by no later than midseason 2019, starting with Madison Bumgarner.
DeleteI think Zaidi and the Giants are in a bind since they have several unmovable contracts like Melancon and Longoria, as well as others like Belts, Samardjas with no trade clauses. They may have no choice but to be in the middle instead of complete rebuild mode in 2019. Who knows if they might put an interesting team on the field anyway. I understand the business side of trading Madbum, but I would hate to see it as a fan, sorry Doc..
Deletemy take also - no fire sale yet, but realization that too many more talented teams makes 2019 a re-build year
DeleteWhy on Earth would you give up on 2019 and not trade Bumgarner? Sure, Melancon and Longoria may be immoveable(I don't happen to agree), but if you are already throwing in the towel on the season, you can still trade Bumgarner, Watson and Smith. You could maybe sell high on DRod who likely just had the best season of his career. Panik and Belt are probably tradable in spite of Belt's no trade clause.
DeleteIf they aren't going to try to compete in 2019, they need to burn it down and rebuild(just to be clear, I would not do that, but I would try to add pieces and compete. Maybe they will before the Hot Stove is extinguished?)
True, we would like "activity" but no one wants "bad" activity. Picking up small pieces with some value at no real cost is neither "no" activity nor "bad" activity.
DeleteObviously we don't know what the Giants "might" have been offered for their moveable pieces. Zaidi is not going to come in and move someone like Bumgarner without a "for-sure" win -- there's no "that's all we could get" at this point when he's the anchor for any 2019 resurgence by the rest of the underperforming talent the Giants do have.
Zaidi, like the good doctor, is, first, doing no harm. The season is not lost and so far he doesn't have to defend a trade with an "I am not an idiot" speech.
Anything that's not broke should not be given away and the broke pieces -- Melancon, Samardzija, even Cueto -- won't fetch a farthing, but could rebound in 2019 or 2020.
On paper, the 2019 Giants "could" be good -- it would take more than a few resurgences, but it's still all possible.
Tedious as it is, doing nothing at no cost is better than doing something just to be doing something at a potential high cost.
I generally agree with the posts here, it seems Zaidi and the Giants are a little bit stuck in the middle of the road, not being in a complete rebuild mode with several big contracts (and still viable players like Posey, Crawford, etc.), but they're also not really close to being on par with the elite teams around the league. So it's a real difficult spot for Zaidi to be in upon inheriting the team. And I completely agree with you Dr. B that if indeed they are planning a semi rebuild that Bumgarner's got to be traded by midseason.
DeleteBeing afraid of doing harm is a good way let a lot of patients die and a good way to run a baseball team into the ground.
DeleteJohn Morisi reported today that a Madbum trade has been discussed and the Brewers are having internal discussions about it. I agree if they are rebuilding they should trade Madbum at the right price making the team better. I don't want to see it as a fan since he's one of my favorite players on the team but that's the business of baseball. It would be interesting if Zaidi could pull off a trade like the 4 for 1 trade he made with the Braves getting Matt Kemp a couple years ago. I remember thinking how did they pull that off! I'm with you I wish they would try and add a couple of pieces to compete, but it sounds like Zaidi is not giving out those win now contracts for now.
ReplyDelete