Here’s a roundup of the news and reactions related to the Giants’ signing of Jeff Samardzija…
- The Giants ownership group “was ecstatic” with GM Bobby Evans’ preparation, writes Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News. After the club missed out on Zack Greinke, they were ready to quickly pull the trigger on Samardzija. While he’s a big step down from Greinke, Samardzija comes with plenty of upside. He’ll also allow the club to pursue either another starting pitcher or a serious outfield upgrade like Yoenis Cespedes or Justin Upton.
- Samardzija selected the Giants over the Cardinals and Dodgers, tweets Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com. As has often been reported, the Cardinals are looking for depth to replace Lance Lynn who will miss 2016 after Tommy John surgery. The Dodgers are exploring the market for virtually any quality pitcher.
- The Cubs backed off Samardzija due to the five-year term, tweets Bruce Levine of 670thescore.com. His former club met the $18MM annual value paid by the Giants, but were uncomfortable with such a lengthy deal. In my opinion, the John Lackey signing sufficiently meets the club’s current needs. If Chicago decides to upgrade for a playoff run, they can cash in one of their many prospects.
- Meanwhile, the Yankees were never involved in the bidding, tweets Joel Sherman of the NY Post. New York is focused on the trade market for pitchers with zero to three years of service time. This news indicates a continuation of the Yankees’ youth movement.
- Samardzija projects to be comparable to Jordan Zimmermann, writes Dave Cameron of FanGraphs. Given that Zimmermann signed for an average of $4MM more per season, the Giants received solid value relative to the market. Samardzija is a challenging pitcher to project, leading to a wide range of conceivable outcomes.
- In talking about the deal, Evans praised Samardzija’s durability, writes Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle. Evans believes mechanical adjustments could lead to a rebound 2016 season. He also suggests that working with Buster Posey this season will help Samardzija’s numbers. While he doesn’t specifically mention it, AT&T Park is the most pitcher friendly stadium in the majors. Undoubtedly, Samardzija will also benefit from his new home field.
- Ben Zobrist, who the club can now afford after not inking Greinke, is scheduled to visit Giants officials soon, reports John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle. Evans commented on the flexibility offered by saying, “smaller deals give you potential for larger moves, and larger moves could limit the number of choices you may have and cause a ripple effect with the need to stay with smaller deals.“
Article currently says six year term (Cubs section) but it appears to be 5.
Yes, the Cubs offered 5year/$85 million. So The Giants essentially got him for an extra year at $5 million.
I would rather have Zimmerman then the shark
agreed but the Shark is getting five million less and might be better in the last couple years of the deal than Zimm- plus moving to the NL and SF, with Zimm moving to the AL, the Shark might put up better numbers.
Plus Shark has never played with a catcher as good as Buster Posey at pitch framing.
Huh? He just had Tyler Flowers to catch him who grades out one of the best at pitch framing.
Posey was the best last season at pitch framing..
Tyler Flowers was so good the Sox didn’t tender him an offer and signed Dioner Navarro instead.
In a heart beat
So would anyone, I’d think. Shark has been just plain BAD in two out of the last three seasons.
I would take Zimmerman over Samardzija every single day. I would take Iwakuma or Fister or even Leake
Here we are, yet another off-season, and people are still getting sucked into the same Giants BS as before. Greinke was never an option. Greinke was the smoke and mirrors to get a deal with Shark. For every big ticket FA, you see the Giants name firmly attached. Stop buying into it. The target was Samardzija, from day one. I dont know what strategic advantage this has, maybe to keep the scent off these third tier “stars” that the Giants not-so-secretly covet every year? Whatever it is, it’s been working, so keep going with it, I guess?
Cespedes or Upton you say? So that means Ben Zobrist or Chris Denorfia. Message decoded.
They could have afforded Chris Denorfia either way.
It has nothing to do with what they can “afford”, it’s this game of cat and mouse they play whenever big FA names are up for grabs. Just like last year, when they wanted the world to believe that they were in on Lester, while James Shields was the intended target all along. The whole thing backfired, when Shields decided to sign with the paper champions of the 2014-15 off-season, the Padres. So the Giants nabbed Leake at the deadline. It’s paint by numbers, with the Giants. Greinke was never an option.
I think it’s pretty obvious Shields wasn’t the target the whole time
Shields? You mean Greinke? Shields was the target last season, while they were in the news, shouting Jon Lester’s name.
To put Ben Zobrist and Chris Denorfia in the same category is pretty mind boggling.
To “be in on” Greinke and sign Samardzija as “Plan B” is equally mind boggling.
What BS? The winning World Series BS?
Cool, thanks for reading and understanding. As I said, the BS is them pretending to be in on big names. They aren’t, they won’t be and they never will be. People were writing all over the internet about Greinke and the Giants being connected. If anyone follows baseball ever, they would know that this is the same trick the Giants have been employing during the entirety of the Sabean Era. It’s a shell game. Look at Greinke, while we’re signing Shark. I dont know why they do this, but they do. They’ve been doing it for almost 20 years now. Just to be clear, I’m not knocking them for doing it, because it works. I’m knocking the hundreds of thousands of sheep who Tweet,re-Tweet and blog about such insane things as the Giants signing a top Free Agent. Spoiler alert, they aren’t. So rumors linking Cespedes and the Giants, really means [generic player 2 tiers removed from Cespedes] and the Giants.
Out of curiosity, are you a front office employee for the Giants? Can you confirm that they for certain were not “in on” any of these guys?
It was reported that he visited the Giants brass. Greinke is a smart dude, so I’m sure he didn’t want to know who Bobby Evans was starting for his fantasy football team
I’ve seen a nut on the Giants message board make this same claim before. Might even be the same person. They have nothing to back up the claim. I suggest he puts an extra layer of foil on his head. lol
Do you have any proof at all the Giants only “pretend” to be in on big names? Or is this just your won cooked up conspiracy theory?
The fact a team is often linked to free agents and don’t end up signing them is not proof of anything other than that there are 29 other teams that can get involved and players have a say where they go as a free agent…
Yes, the fact that they’ve pulled the same routine since 1996 and have yet to snag a top free agent. Teams with a vested interest in making things happen know that they can’t offer market value for a player like Greinke (or David Price for that matter). I’m a huge fan of the Giants, which is why I know this routine exists. When a big name is available, you can set your watch to the fact that the Giants will be one of the last teams standing in offering a contract. However, they have yet to land a top free agent. But just to be clear…they have a system and their system works. I’m not knocking the system. All I’m saying is that Tweeters, blog sites and forum commenters should take the Giants connection to a big FA, with a grain of salt. They’re always there and they never offer enough to get the deal done.
No team in the history of time gets every player they are rumored to be in on. IT’s not realistic in the slightest. This delusion of yours that the Giants for some reason would ‘fake’ interest in players they have no intention of signing is in the UFO and Bigfoot territory. It doesn’t benefit them in the slightest to do that.
“Tweeters, blog sites and forum commenters should take the Giants connection to a big FA, with a grain of salt.”
– What? They should do that with EVERY TEAM. 99% of rumors, speculation or predictions each off-season don’t end up being true. Greinke being the most recent example. No one had the DBack in on him. Everyone thought Dodgers or Giants. How’d that go?
“they can’t offer market value for a player like Greinke”
– BS. You think the Giants have less ability to pay a player that kind of contract compared to Arizona? What a joke. You act as if the Giants are cheap, or can’t pay top players… Think again.
Matt Cain: 6 years, $127.5M
Hunter Pence: 5 years, $90M
Buster Posey: 9 Years, $167M
Brandon Crawford: 6 years, $75M
Jeff Samardzija: 5 years, $90M
They have the ability to pay players market value. They are not stupid enough to throw away the future in a bidding war. You think Greinke is worth more than the $34 Million a year he was just paid? I don’t, and I’m not paying him…
Just because a team doesn’t end up getting a player they are linked to, doesn’t mean they didn’t have the intention or ability to…
why would you bid the price up on a player you don’t want in order to sign a player of lesser value and end up paying more for lesser player?
Geez, if my team one three World Series in the past six years, I wouldn’t be complaining.
So you’re basing this rant on two players: Lester and Greinke? Cool sample size.
I like the way the Yankees are approaching things this year. As a Yanks fan I’ve been spoiled to expect them to be in the playoffs every ear. The truth is, we may be good enough to compete for a playoff spot but we are NOT “real” contenders for a ring as we are constituted. We are a flawed team.
However, I don’t think we are that far off. We have a lot of young pitchers, who if healthy, form a decent rotation, albeit one in need of another 1 or 2 type ace.
Tanaka, Eovaldi, Pineda, Nova and Severino are all 28 or under for the 2016 season.
In the next 2 seasons we can move Arod, Sabathia, Tex and Beltran off the books and I see possible replacements for them in Bryd, Judge, Hicks, Sanchez and other borderline prospects such as Heathcott, Mason Williams and Refsnyder.
Where does Fan Graphs base its projections from, to come up that Jeff Sams projects to be comparable to Zimmermann? What a joke! He just lead the AL in hits, HR’s and runs. The only comparison is the innings pitched. Way to justify the dollars. I’m guessing they are funded by the players agents, so they can ease the buyers remorse.
I’ll take what the guys over FanGraphs, some of whom were former MLB Scouts, worked at Baseball Prospectus, and a former writer is now the Asst. Director of Baseball Operations for the Braves.
But let’s write off what they say because we don’t want to agree. Yay!
Its not that I don’t want to agree. I just see no basis for it. If you do, please explain. Don’t just blindly agree, because you like the source. It’s not like FanGraphs has never made a bad projection.
I’m not speaking to an agreement on the assessment (although I tend to agree on this particular one). Nor is it a statement suggesting that FanGraph’s is flawless.
Rather, it was a reaction to your tongue-in-cheek statement about FanGraphs and to your suggestion that because you don’t understand or agree with their point of view, it’s a joke (with an exclamation!) and that FanGraphs is written from a biased point of view.
It’s fine if you don’t agree. It’s fine if you don’t understand. But give them the benefit of the doubt. They likely have far more experience in advanced statistics than you and I likely ever will.
On this one, fangraphs is comparing one of the most consistent pitchers in baseball with Sam’s. You say that on this one you tend to agree yet you don’t say why, other than they are far more experienced in advanced statistics. Sometimes, it doesn’t take advanced statistics to see the obvious. You may agree with them, blindly. I will disagree with them, strongly!
Fangraphs bases their comparisons on statistical models and scouting reports. What do you base your strong disagreement on exactly? Opinion? Your vast knowledge of everything baseball?
My point has never been to show why I agree or disagree. That’s well beyond my intentions of replying to you.
The point of my response has been that you called this a “joke” and you made a silly statement that it must be biased, all because you disagreed with it.
Also, for all the begging you’ve done to get me to share why I agree, not once have you given reasons you disagree, beyond you thinking it’s blatantly obvious (which must make the guys at FanGraphs, multiple scouts from a handful of Major League teams total buffoons for not seeing the obvious).
It’s a difference in opinion. Calling it a “joke” is juvenile and shows an unwillingness to consider that you might actually be wrong.
What about 2014? I’m sure they use that as well? 2015 isn’t the only year he pitched.
Don’t you know, players never rebound after a bad season. Never ever.
Didn’t you know? Players only get worse year to year. They can never get better.
Actually, last year was a bad year for Zimmermann. Doesn’t he have the ability to rebound as well? Sam’s bad year was SOOO much worse.
His whole career, Zimmermann has been consistently solid and even one bad year, a healthy year, by Sam’s just supports my point. I expect Zim to continue to be who he is, and I expect Sam’s to continue to be who he is. The two will not put up similar value.
Are you honestly trying to say that Fangraphs is paid off by player agents to write fake statistical comparisons so the team that signed the player doesn’t feel as bad?
LOL!!!! Wow. That’s creative, I’ll give you that. The fact you think a Major League team would go to fangraphs to read about a player they got to try and lessen “buyers remorse” is the most idiotic thing I’ve heard in a while.
agents never float ideas to the writers. Writers only write about things that everyone finds obvious because they don’t want to cause controversy. Every thing ever written or tweeted is checked for accuracy first.
I don’t think the team’s go to them looking for it, but it gets seen. I wish they would do something similar for Mike Pelfrey, who had a better year than Sam’s, but was a bad signing.
I agree with Brad Johnson’s comment about Lackey being sufficient for what the Cubs need. Price was the best deal the Cubs didn’t make.
I said it once, I’ll say it again, this is Barry Zito all over again. Come back and talk to me in 4 years when he’s pitching in triple A for “the love of the game”
Zito had 500 more innings thrown in his career before he joined the Giants (and was almost 2-3 years younger, yikes).
The wear and tear was pretty apparent in Zito if I remember right.
This is nothing like the Zito deal. I’m betting you won’t show your face at all if he has a great season next year will you?
I don’t know why everyone thinks this guy is the next ace. He’s not even a top tier pitcher. Giants got themselves an above average #3 pitcher at best.
A #2 pitcher is exactly what they needed. As you saw it would have taken an extra $116 million to get one of the top two pitchers on the market.
He is more likely to have a terrible outing than a good one
So you can see the future can you? Interesting.
Samardzija gave up 5 runs or more in over a 3rd of his starts
I would not want shark on a 5 year contract.
Regarding SF
Posting error glitch.
My reaction is that I was wrong in saying Samardzija would regret not signing that 5yr 85mil extension from the Cubs two years ago. I mistakenly thought guys with 4.96 ERAs don’t get $90 million dollar contracts. It’s a good time to be a free agent starting pitcher.
I love how people only judge players by the last season they played. As if that’s all they will ever be capable of repeating.
Samardzija has the stuff to get much better. He’s only been a starting pitcher for 4 years. He’s moving from the AL to the NL and he’s pitching in one of the most pitcher friendly parks in the majors…
He will be a lot better than last year.
The opposing pitcher will be pitching in one of the most pitcher friendly parks also. Don’t the new stats take park factors into account? The actual numbers may be better, but he will be the same pitcher.
Opposing pitchers don’t practice there, or play half their games there. Posey knows how to call games in such a way that it takes full advantage of his home park. The Defense plays positions that also line up for that advantage… There is a reason people use the term “Home-field Advantage”.
Otherwise teams would always be as goon on the road as they are at home. Their win/loss should be identical.
2015 Giants:
Home Win %: .580
Road Win %: .457
Why is that exactly? Why were they not .580 on the road too? Think hard…
Hey I’m admitting I was mistaken. But I’m still surprised he got the contract he did. I don’t think I’m alone in that. I hope Samardzija pitches great. I was a fan when he was with the Cubs. Best of luck to him and he was right to “bet on himself” and turn down the Cubs offer.
My reaction is he was overpaid by at least 35 mil. And thank goodness the cubs didn’t sign him.