Hot Stove Update: Giants Sign 3, Non-Tender 4

It was Contract Tender Day across baseball today.  Is it just me or were there a lot more non-tenders this year than any I can recall?  Wow!  Almost every team in MLB had failed to tender a contract to at least one player and often to several.  The Giants were no exception.  Much as I predicted, the Giants either agreed to terms of a contract to avoid arbitration with the player or the player was not tendered a contract making them an instant free agent.  The Giants agreed to terms with OF Alex Dickerson, LHP Wandy Peralta and IF Donovan Solano.  Dick settled for a reported $925 K which is about $300 K below his MLBTR projected arbitrations award of $1.2 M.  Peralta's contract came in right at his projected arbitration value of $805 K.  I have not seen a number on what Solano's contract is for. His projected value was $1.2 M.  As we all know, Alex Dickerson will give you some left-handed pop when and if he is healthy.  Peralta is a hard throwing lefty reliever who has had trouble performing up to his stuff.  Solano is coming off a near-career year while filling a reserve IF role in 2019.

Perhaps more interesting than who agreed to contracts are those who did not.  This list included CF Kevin Pillar, LHP Tyler Anderson and OF Joey Rickard. The Giants also did not offer a contract to RHP Rico Garcia who is not arbitration eligible.  While not exactly shocking, at least two of these non-tenders certainly raises some eyebrows as well as some questions.  Nothing Kevin Pillar did in 2019 was significantly different than he has ever done as a player: nice power, nice speed, horrible OBP, flashy D which UZR is not impressed by, hustle, engaging with fans and teammates.  Pillar has always been all of those things except he also led the team in several offensive categories and impressed his teammates enough to win the Willie Mac Award after joining the team after the season started.  His projected arbitration value was well within his anticipated WAR value, even with the low OBP and stat-unfriendly D.  So, the question here is if his OBP and D were such big negatives, why was he the best Farhan could find for CF last season and who is out there who is better this season?  Farhan did talk of perhaps moving some younger, faster corner OF's like YtY and Jaylin Davis to CF, while acquiring a bat with more pop for one of the corner OF positions.  OK, I'm on board with that notion and I'm going to hold Farhan to it.  We'll be checking back on that one at the end of the Hot Stove season.

The other eyebrow raiser, at least for me, was non-tendering Tyler Anderson on the heels of claiming him off waivers from the Rockies.  Anderson is a guy, much like Drew Pomeranz last year, who appears to have a decent chance of mounting a bounceback season which would create all kind of interesting option as the trade deadline approached.  I'll guess the Giants tried to get him to accept a deal at well below his projected $2.1 M and he refused.  I'm going to take a wild guess here and say hell will freeze over before the Giants tender an arbitration contract to a player in the Farhan era.  Brian Sabean was well known for trying to avoid arbitration.  I'm thinking Farhan takes it a step further and is so allergic to arbitration he carries an EpiPen at all times, just in case.  So the waiver claim on Tyler Anderson was for the chance to offer him a lowball contract to see if he would bite and nothing more. Churn on!

Joey Rickard is an interesting OF platoon bat, but definitely not someone you would take even the slightest risk with by offering arbitration.  I never quite figured out what Rico Garcia was doing on the 40 man roster in the first place, so no big surprise there.  I'm sure there is Rule 5 eligible player Farhan has his eye on for that roster spot.

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Remember Jonathan Villar?  I have to confess I am not sure exactly how these things work, but apparently the Marlins placed a claim on him and then worked a trade with the Orioles.  I think the Marlins were first in line to place a claim due to their poor record which means the Giants were out of the loop.  The Marlins give up a LHP I've never heard of.  They are still on the hook for arbitration which MLBTR estimates at $10 M but could go higher with Villar coming off a 4-WAR season unless they work out a deal pre-hearing.

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The Reds came to terms with FA 3B Mike Moustakas for 4 years/$64 M.  The lefty hitting Moustakas has been a steady source of power averaging 24 HR's/600 PA over the course of his career.  He is entering his age 31 season.

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The Padres stayed active in Hot Stove transactions by trading for Jurickson Profar who was in line to be non-tendered by the A's.  The Padres give up C Austin Allen and a PTBNL.  The Padres then avoided arbitration by agreeing to a 1 year/$5.7 M contract with Profar.  Profar is a versatile infielder who looked like he was finally on the verge of a breakout before a disappointing 2019, both offensively and defensively.  The Padres are willing to gamble the $5.7 M and a bit of catching depth to see if he can bounce back.