The Giants avoided arbitration with Javier Lopez, agreeing to terms on a deal for 2011, according to the team (on Twitter). The left-hander had filed for $2.88MM and the team offered $2MM, as MLBTR's Arb Tracker shows. The sides agreed to a $2.375MM deal, according to the AP (via ESPN). That puts Lopez's 2011 salary slightly below the midpoint of the two submissions.
Lopez posted a 1.42 ERA with 7.6 K/9 and 0.9 BB/9 in 27 relief appearances after the Giants acquired him from the Pirates midway through the 2010 season. He pitched tremendously for the eventual world champions, improving on the solid numbers he had posted in Pittsburgh. Overall, Lopez had a 61.8% ground ball rate last year, up from his career mark of 56.1%. The 33-year-old has struggled with walks in his career (4.0 BB/9) and right-handed hitters have a .296/.377/.432 line against him.
Andres Torres is now the Giants' lone unsigned arbitration eligible player.
Somewhere Ryan Howard just peed a little!
A little?
Getting the band back together again for another run.
wow…thats a pricey left-specialist. I would say an over pay, but he also proved highly effective last year. But my math with all of the other recent moves, it places the Giants at over 116 million committed for this season, before Torres and the pre-arb players sign. (16 players under contract, thou not sure what happened to Fontenot)
Fontenot was re-signed, one year, one million plus.
The definition of a overpriced resigning. He comes to the plate and I swear its paper boy at bat.
im very very curious as to what will happen with us after this year, like 90 percent of our players contracts are all up after the 2011 season. i thought this offseason sabean would try and resign ross for at least 3-4 year deal but he gives him a 1 year deal along with everyone else who signed besides huff just got 1 year deals. so im very very curious as to what is up sabeans sleeve because its not making any sense at all to me right now.
I think Thomas Neal is next in line to be called up. That may be why only a 1 yr for Ross.
Saving money for Timmay and Cain in 2013. No one gets major deals until they are locked up long term. They wont let a Juan Uribe dodger deal keep them get in the way of it.
I read somewhere that they actually matched the Dodgers offer, but he was already too far down the road with LA to accept. But I think you are correct in that they are making sure they have room to keep Tim, Matt, and Buster long term. Also, aside from the extentions for Tim and Matt last year, all of their deals since Neukum took over have been two years or less. I think this is an indication of a larger emphasis on quality baseball than on branding deals like the Zito and Rowand contracts.
How is this not making sense? Most of these players are in their arbitration years and under team control next year. They are building around their pitching staff, while keeping players on short term contracts. The Giants have obviously made the choice to keep this staff in tact, so they will be fielding a lineup built around cheap, young, prospects. This frees resources for Lincecum, Cain, Wilson, Sanchez, right around the time Rowand and Zito come off the books.
the only role of the dice with this strategy is you need to develop the young prospects to play in the field. posey is here, belt could be very quickly, but the real success/failure of this won’t be seen until guys like crawford, neal, noonan, gillaspie and culberson either take over spots or end up AAAA players
If the payroll remains around 120, which is about 40mil higher than the 08 payroll, then you are only partially correct. The dice roll is actually if the pitching stays healthy. But even if they have Tim, Matt, and Sanchez locked up long term with ace contracts there is still plenty of room in that budget for position players. I don’t see Sanchez pulling ace money though, unless he gets some control. The Rowand and Zito contracts are still albatrosses for a few more years thoguh.
part of what i think will happen is the payroll won’t stay up there. it is going to be around 113-115 this year (opening day at least), but after this year with multiple free agents my guess is we see the payroll drop back to the 95-105 range. if that happens we will need our farm system big time. if it stays up in the 2011 range you will be right the farm system will only have to play a medium sized role
That may be true, but accounting for the bad contracts is only a part of the explanation for the payroll jump, they are receiving MLB.com money now that they were not receiving then, and they can expect much more ticket and concession revenue. So, while I think you are correct in thinking that the payroll may come back down, it wont go back that low. 95 is the number they had when Bonds was active, before teh Zito deal.
saving up for pujols…