The Giants agreed to a minor league contract with RHP Tyson Ross. The deal comes with a $1.75 M guarantee if he makes the MLB team with an additional $1.75 M available in incentives. You all know who Tyson Ross is. Local HS kid. Star pitcher for Cal in college. Drafted by the A's. Absolutely killed the Giants when he pitched for the Padres. Ross has been plagued by a string of injuries since 2015 when he threw 196 innings for the Padres. He had a decent season in 2018 with a 4.15 ERA in 149.2 IP but his ERA ballooned to 6.11 before his 2019 season ended after 7 starts with the Tigers. He's always been extremely tough on the Giants. His career ERA is 4.04, but in 14 starts against the Giants it's 2.81.
The slider has always been his best pitch, even when his FB topped 95 MPH as it did in 2013. Last season the FB velocity dipped to just over 90 MPH. He's started throwing more cutters and over 50% of his pitches are either sliders or cutters. David Laurilia wrote up an interview for Fangraphs dated 6/20/2019 which I recommend you check out.
Whether Ross contributes to the Giants in 2020 probably depends mostly on his health. It's a nice upside play with essentially no risk since it's a minor league deal.
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The Nationals signed 2B/SS Starlin Castro to a 2 year/$12 M contract. He'll likely replace Brian Dozier and Asdrubal Cabrera at 2B for the defending champs. Castro had a nice offensive season last year for the Marlins. He seemed to me to be someone the Giants should consider trying to sign, with Mauricio Dubon displacing Brandon Crawford at 2B, but Castro hits RH and Zaidi says he is looking for a LH hitting infielder. Even if the Giants were interested, Oracle Park would likely have been a negative for Castro.
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You know how much I dig left-handed hitting catchers and how bummed I was to see Steven Vogt go somewhere else. Another LH hitting C I had an eye on, Jason Castro, signed with the Angels, so he's off the market. Maybe Farhan will roll with Aramis Garcia as the backup C?
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The Nationals also stole RHP Will Harris from their WS rivals. The price was steep at 3 years/$24 M. This signing takes pressure off re-signing RHP Daniel Hudson for the Nationals.
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Thanks for the technical suggestions, everybody. I will definitely work on it.
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This is the kind of move I would expect out of a low budget rebuilding team like Miami, Kansas City, Detroit, or Baltimore. All the moves that have been made in the last 2 offseasons are moves you would expect to see from a team that has very little money to spend and a low revenue generating fan base. That doesn't fit the profile of this team yet here we are.
ReplyDeleteIf Farhan is just going to do the same thing that all the small market teams do to rebuild then what makes him so special? I was excited when he was hired because I thought he would bring some new method of rebuilding faster that incorporated actually spending some money while building up the farm but maybe he was just brought in to be the cut backs guy.
Seems like anyone can be cheap and I guess I was hoping that Farhan wouldn't be. I also had some hope that there would be more of a sense of urgency. It's clear that ownership has decided that the days of being in the top 5 in the league in payroll are over. I doubt prices will change at the ballpark so they are really running the risk of alienating much of their fanbase.
I understand your frustration, rebuilding sucks. The Tyson Ross signing is strictly for depth, nothing major. Big market teams rebuild too. The Chicago Cubs hired Theo Epstein to lead their rebuild in 2012. He took advantage their good farm system, made some good draft picks and trades to build up their young core, then signed some good free agents, and the Cubs won the World Series 3 years later. Rebuilding is not an easy path, but if Zaidi can rebuild the Giants into a sustainable winner, then he should be held in high regard. Read in an earlier post that fans should be patient, Zaidi is not a fool, I tend to agree with that...so far
ReplyDeleteIf the Cubs are your comp to the Giants now, does it concern you that they only won one WS and they now look like they may have to go through another rebuild after this year? I thought the goal was to build a sustainable winner yet each example I see over the last 10 years of teams that have gone through these rebuilds has serious flaws.
DeleteThe cubs rose up to greatness quicker than they thought and when their window came they did everything they could to win the WS and barely won. It ended up costing them their future as players like Gleyber Torres were sacrificed in order to make their run.
The Dodgers are another example of building a sustainable winner yet they still haven't won a WS and seem unwilling to make those sacrifices that the Cubs made in order to win a WS. The Yankees seem like they are just as stubborn and only this offseason finally decided to spend some money on pitching which has kept them from winning a WS the last 2 years.
KC is another example of a team that sucked for years in order to build up enough of a farm to give them a chance to win the WS and it worked. Unfortunately they weren't sustainable either and are now in another rebuild.
My point is that there hasn't been a single team that has been able to go through these rebuilds, win multiple WS titles, and continue to be competitive every year. Most have had a rise to greatness followed by a downfall within a couple years of their title leading into yet another rebuild. I am not sold at all on this being the way to build a "sustainable winner".
The biggest key factor that has contributed to the success of each of the teams mentioned above is they all had superstars on their rosters. None of these teams won with mediocre prospects and that is what it seems like Farhan is collecting.
Zaidi had his chance last year to tank for a top 5 draft pick while using the only real trade equity he had on his roster (Madbum and Smith) and he failed at both. All his acquisitions so far have been low risk depth moves yet not one impact move for a future star has been made. When was the last time a team filled with mediocre prospects won anything?
Maybe Cubs fans are happy for 1 world series win but disappointed they haven't won another one? I'd say at least they won 1 WS after a century of futility before they rebuild again. I'm happy the Giants won 3 WS before they rebuild. I'd prefer that over the Dodgers 7 straight years of playoff appearances and no WS wins. It's up to the Dodgers to make the necessary moves to get them over the top. I always appreciated Sabes during his time willing to make the necessary moves at the deadline to get the Giants over the top. I'm ok with rebuilding after the team winning 3 WS! I'm sure other fans feel differently.
DeleteAs for the current rebuild a big key will be development of their top prospects such as Joey Bart, Helliot Ramos, Marco Luciano, and Hunter Bishop. If they are sucessful building a nice young core, maybe they will attract more free agents? I thought Madbum and W Smith would be dealt at the deadline. The story came out later that Sabean said Zaidi kept his promise to Bochy to provide him a competitive roster in his last season, so maybe this played into Zaidis decision not to trade both?
I think we'll see further evidence as to the direction Zaidi goes in this season if they sign or trade for an expensive power hitting corner OF like Nick Castellanous, Yasuel Puig, or acquire a cheaper option via trade. I'm sure they will continue to look at a lot of young players in 2020.
I'd rather see Puig than Castellanos since Puig plays much better defense, but whether any good hitter in his right mind would choose to come and hit at Oracle Park is unlikely, eh? FZ is going to collect all the controllable hitters he can and try to home grow them into 'superstars' - all the buy low FAs are just given opportunities to look good (pitchers especially) and then get flipped for more young bats. That seems like the plan, and it's not a bad one, is it? Suppose someone is willing to send SF their Gleyber Torres prospect this summer for a resurgent, dominant Tyson Ross, or Kevin Gausman, or Cueto or Shark or Watson?
DeleteYaz will get a full job until he loses it.
ReplyDeleteThe other two OF spots, or 3:
Shouldn't we see Duggar, Davis, Dickerson, Dubon, Slater, Shaw, etc with another 8 in MLB's Top Giant 30.
Harper was an aberration -- his youth suggested he'd lead this decades resurgence but it's probably just as well he wasn't over-over paid: he'll probably peak this year or next.