Bruce Bochy spoke to reporters this afternoon, including John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle, Jim Bowden of MLB Network Radio, and Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News. Here's what the skipper had to say, along with the rest of the latest Giants notes:
- The Giants are happy with their roster as it stands right now, which is not to say that they're not talking about bringing in other players (Twitter link).
- San Francisco has talked to Carlos Beltran and other hitters, but the club has limited budgetary flexibility to attempt to sign them (Twitter link).
- Baggarly hears that Cody Ross doesn't have interest in returning to San Francisco on a one-year deal. If Ross can't find a multiyear offer, he'd like to move to a hitter-friendly location (Twitter link).
- The Giants are no longer pursuing Jerry Hairston Jr., tweets Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports.
These winter meetings are off to a bland start. No one’s done anything!
Not even the Marlins.
Gosh I would hate to be a Giants fan (outside of 2010 of course). Brian Sabean’s picture is in the dictionary right next to “low hanging fruit”
i just tend to hate
“the giants are happy with their roster as it stands” 2011 déjà vu
“Hey, we had an above .500 season last year! Let’s do that again!”
Somebody should tell Cody that OPS+ was 102 at AT&T park and 98 on the road
Well Sabean never tips his hand on signings. There was no word on Huff until it happened out of the blue.
Anyone know when the Nakajima bid will be announced?? Since Boch wouldn’t talk about, I think we bid.
that would probably be the best move the Giants could make, not including Beltran.
yet i think if we make a move for him, it would practically confirm beltran will be elsewhere next year
I heard Sabean was looking to bring back Omar Vizquel for 3 years $33 million
Happy with their roster as it is? What?
Belt LF
Cabrera CF
Schierholtz RF
Sandoval 3B
Crawford SS
Sanchez 2B
Huff 1B
Posey C
Really? That’s decent offensively and defensively, but it’s not enough.
We talk as though there is some magical player out there who is going to hit .330 and jack 30 bombs, but sign for only 5mill a season. The guys out there who can do it, we can’t afford. The guys that it would require in trade to get someone like that, we can’t loose (Cain and Timmy).
What do you think we should do?
I agree we’re not going to get any of the future HOFers for anything less than a trade of our best players.
But I just don’t quite understand the budgetary troubles. I feel like I should trust the Giants when they say they can only spend $130MM this year, but I don’t really. They won the World Series in 2010. They (supposedly) sold out every home game in 2011. One would think they would have a little more cash floating around.
I can understand being leery of overpaying Beltran, or having him around for too many years, but I can’t understand this “oh, well, we’re fine with the lineup we have”, and the “no big acquisitions” and the chasing random washed-up middle infielders.
I understand not going hard after Beltran because he is looking for something better than a 2 year deal, and my guess is that is what the Giants have in mind. But as far as other options, I wouldn’t be shocked to see us make a run at Andrew Jones or Juan Pierre on a one year deal.
But as far as money goes, we still have 20mill on the stadium, and our budget is in the top tier of the league. Only 4 teams or so have larger budgets than 140mill, and we are not in a HUGE market, just a large one. Also, don’t forget our TV contract is still league average due to media share time with the A’s. So in effect our market is 5/8ths of the Bay Area (East Bay goes to the A’s)
You make very good points.
I’d be interested in a one year deal for Juan Pierre, although he has been declining recently. He put up a better line than most of our outfielders in 2011!
I’m just a little more worried about our infield than our outfield, to be honest. I think Belt getting more ABs will help him develop as a hitter, and although Schierholtz isn’t *great*, he’s not that bad. Cabrera makes me worry.
The saddest fact of being a Giants fan is that their GM is the most woeful performer in the FA mkt & the tradewinds of all MLB GMs. He will never receive respect from the MLB GM Brotherhood as long as he buys high and sells low. This is why so many opoportunities escape the Orange & Black year in and year out. The other feather in Mr Sabean’s cap is that FAs agents don’t like their clients careers to wash out in the Bochy model ” We play anyone everywhere , and old guys get first bid ” a regular ” heckel & Jeckyl ” these 2. …The Ws championship of 2010 is now becoming a fading memory for most Giant faithful . The Sabean / Bochy paradigm is just taking them further away with their format of roster building and game execution.
Sabean’s only good deal was that one time he got that Bonds guy to come over to SF…
But I agree with practically everything you say – Sabean sold low on Sanchez this year already (although I certainly didn’t want Jonathan around another year), and we’re stuck with the Zito baggage, and Bochy was confronted with a young, talented player like Belt, and continued to play his slumping, broken, war-weary, take-a-swing-at-every-pitch veterans over him.
It’s kind of ridiculous that a team in a major market like SF who just recently added a ton of revenue from winning a World Series still has one of the most inept offenses in baseball. With that pitching staff, the could be a dynasty simply by adding 1-2 very good bats to their lineup.
And that pitching staff isn’t going to be there forever. I see it as a race against time, what with Cain being a free agent next year, and Timmy racking up mountains of cash in arbitration. They just need upgrade their line-up from ‘atrocious’ to ‘halfway decent’ and they could be a serious play-off contender for some years.
They need Beltran and I think fielder could fit in a giants lineup
and Pujols and Braun and Mays and Gehrig…
what money are we talking about? they’re struggling to bring back beltran now your asking for him as well as fielder?
dont forget mantle and aaron, might as well throw in bonds lmao smh
Ross has been a favorite of mine since he played with the Fish, but his chances of getting a multi year contract next season, especially paying him more than 2m or so a year are virtually non existent.
granted, he has been stuck, for loss of a better word atm in 2 of the worst offensive parks his entire career, but it is just about too late now for him. His ceiling now is that of a 4th OF and he never was an even average CF anyway..Remember that well as the starting CF with the Fish, his bat kept him in the lineup every day with Willingham and Hermida as poor gloves surrounding him.
This going out and burning goodwill with the SFG and declaring a 1 year deal to return might have hurt his best chances for the most $$$ next season.
I am among the few that actually have a bit (note BIT, not a lot) of sympathy for the Giants here. I believe they are the only team that actually paid for their own stadium, and have two albatross contracts they need to consider in Rowand and Zito, plus they need to spend a ton of cash to lock up Cain and Linc. If they can get even a mediocre leadoff hitter like Pierre and play the kids a bit they can contend for the division. Personally, I wouldn’t mind trading Wilson to free up some cash and trade or sign a decent power hitter.