Here are a few recent notes out of the National League to wrap up a quiet first day of the new year. While it’s crickets for now, there figures to be quite a lot of action over the next several weeks as the market sorts itself out in advance of the opening of Spring Training.
- The Diamondbacks’ catching unit is designed to “take care of the pitchers first and foremost,” GM Mike Hazen tells Steve Gilbert of MLB.com (in a post that covers that and four other key issues facing the club). Hazen says the team is comfortable with the current triumvirate, which consists of Jeff Mathis, Chris Herrmann, and John Ryan Murphy, even if it doesn’t figure to over much in the way of offensive firepower. Moving forward with a trio of options is a possibility again for the Snakes, says Hazen. There are several other outstanding roster questions, of course, which Gilbert breaks down.
- We missed this one at the time it was originally reported, but it’s worthy of note. The Giants have engaged free agent righty Scott Feldman in talks, per a report from Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle, via Twitter. It seems San Francisco’s interest is in a minor-league pact. Feldman, who’ll soon turn 35, opened the 2017 season in good form but stumbled before ultimately requiring season-ending knee surgery. While he ended the year with a 4.77 ERA over 111 1/3 innings, Feldman had allowed less than four earned per nine in each of the prior four campaigns. He figures to represent a potentially steady rotation or long relief piece who ought to be available for a limited commitment.
- The Cardinals’ recent trade of outfielder Stephen Piscotty was designed, in part, to make way for the team’s addition of Marcell Ozuna. At the same time, as Derrick Goold writes for Baseball America, the deal brought in some much-needed middle-infield depth. Youngsters Yairo Munoz and Max Schrock now sit atop the org’s prospect chart at shortstop and second base, respectively. The complexities involved in these two deals (and a few other related negotiations that did and did not come to fruition) serve to illustrate how many moving pieces can be involved in trade talks.
There are so many good relief options still at reasonable cost. Why go after Feldman Giants? C’mon!
I believe Feldman is a starter, not a reliever. At least he was for most of his career, and all of his games last season.
This is probably just a low-risk minor league signing with a spring training invite. Local guy returns home. If he does come to ST, the Giants have a lot of young pitchers that can benefit from an experienced presence. Not sure how much mentoring Bumgarner, Cueto and Samardzija provide – I’ve never heard any mention of them in the press as mentors/leaders, but Feldman has been in that role already for the Astros and the Reds and said he enjoys it.
I agree that it “is probably just a low-risk minor league signing with a spring training invite”. But he does have plenty of experience coming out of the ‘pen. Of his 342 game appearances 138 of them were in relief.
As to the mentoring/leadership roles of Bumgarner, Cueto, and Samardzija, your thoughts appear to be a lot of surmising. I haven’t seen any indication that they don’t mentor and lead. Bum was the youngest pitcher on the staff for many years. Cueto and Samardzija are only entering their 3rd year in SF and for the 1st 2 Cain was the leader of the staff. Samardzija even adopted some of Cueto’s wind up moves so there does appear to be sharing and communication among the staff.
Oh, I’m totally surmising, and said as much. It’s completely based on not hearing anything in the press or broadcasts about it — and mentoring/leadership is something those in sports media like to highlight. I have heard plenty in that regard about other pitchers in the recent past (López, Cain, Peavy, Hudson, Johnson), and teammates talking about learning from them.
There may be Giants pitchers quietly mentoring and leading already. I just think Feldman would be another person to fill that role if he is signed, and that would likely be good for the Giants’ young pitchers.
Can you read 49er? C’mon!
“It seems San Francisco’s interest is in a minor-league pact.”
C’mon?? Can you read?
“It seems San Francisco’s interest is in a minor-league pact.”
How could you omit Colome???
Dude, we get it. No need to comment on every article.
you didnt read the reliever article, did you?
“You can scroll through all of the relievers still available in free agency, but we’ll run through some of the most notable names below”
Key words being “FREE AGENCY”. Colome is not a free agent!
There are 532,211,108 reasons why the Giants have a very long road ahead
That’s right- they have $532,211,108 guaranteed through 2022 not including buyouts, options or deferred money, and six players (Shark, Melancon, Pence, Belt, Posey and Crawford) with NTC’s.
All I can say to the residents of San Fran- at least Oakland ain’t too far away!
That averages out to about $106 million for a team with a $190 million payroll. We’ll be ok.
That $106 million does not include arb raise, insurance, and benefits. After you factor those in plus the massive extension Bumgarner is going to command they will be approaching $160 million.. That is going to hurt unless they can unload someone like Samardzija.. That is why I have been advocating trading him.. He still pitches well enough to where a team like the Yankees might be interested.. Shark for Ellsbury (with the Yankees kicking in $35 million) would be a win for both teams.. The Giants would fill an obvious hole in CF and will get great value in that contract, if they can keep him healthy.. Samardzija is a perfect #4 pitcher that the Yankees are looking for.. Plus, it helps that Cashman has had his eye on Samardzija in the past.. The Yankees will be so happy to unload Ellsbury (because he is a glaring obstacle to Frazier/Cave/Mckinney getting at-bats) that they might kick in someone like Shreeve or a lower level prospect with potential to get the deal done.. Ellsbury gets a bad rap by fans and some in the media..He just needs to stay healthy..
Couldn’t agree more (though $35 million is too steep) … Ellsbury is blocked behind Judge, Stanton & Gardner (with Frazier/Cave/McKinney in the wings). This trade will provide the Yanks with the desired 6th starter Cashman has been looking for while allowing us to keep all of our top prospects. Plus Shark’s numbers aren’t far off from Cole’s last season. That way they can be used later at the trade deadline if an injury/poor play opens another area of need.
Meanwhile, SF gets some salary relief, a CF with upside (if he stays healthy, he’s way better than Span was last year in Center) and a lower level flier prospect.
However, when it makes this much sense on paper… I doubt it will actually transpire.
If i remember right each team has 14 million baked into their payroll for Insurance benefits for players and such. You can see this on Cots baseball contracts. nifty tool
Samardzija is signed on a 5 year so he has what, 2 left- I agree he could be a good trade chip but it isn’t like he has some 6 or 7 years left on his contact. The bigger issue is probably belt who I like when he isn’t hurt but is sort of logjamming options, either he should eventually go to the outfield to relieve what you would spend there, or be traded for salary relief and either an upgrade or go young at 1st
Yankee fans love to ditch Ellsbury on the Giants, don’t they? It’s all I read on this site! The Giants are not going to do that. That guy is as done as disco unless they toss in a blue-chip prospect and half the salary. Cashman signed that contract and now the team has to suffer the consequences like the Giants did with all their terrible free agent signings over the years.
Actually, Shark had a very solid season in 17, especially considering the OF defense he had behind him. The idea the Giants need to trade him in a salary-cost move for a done player like Ellsbury is crazy. Not to mention the Giants need a solid #3 behind Bum and Cueto. Right now they are under the luxury cap and have enough cash to sign Dyson or someone with more upside than Ellsbury to cover CF. Trading their #3 pitcher and trying to compete at the same time is about as bad a business decision as there is.
Don’t know how Shark would fare in the AL East, but I think the Yankees kicking in $35 million is a bit much!
You’re talking about your 5th outfielder who makes $21 million a year through 2021, when he’ll be 37.
It doesn’t matter since he was given a full no-trade clause and doesn’t want to leave….
The Giants need a CFer, and the Yanks want to get rid of one. Perfect! But only in the world of super over-simplification. No way a Samardzija for Ellsbury trade happens. SF would not do that. Ellsbury isn’t worth Shark even if the Yanks paid all of his salary. The Giants want better defense in CF, and they just got rid of a guy who was a poor defender for that reason. They aren’t going to replace Span with basically the same kind of player that comes with a 3 year commitment. The Giants have way too many better options for CF than Ellsbury.
“That $106 million does not include arb raise, insurance, and benefits.”
The issue with salary is the CBT. Only the arb raises, and not the insurance and benefits, counts towards the tax threshold. The Giants have tons of money and have willingly exceeded the CBT threshold for several years now. Just like the Yankees and Dodger they want to take the short term measure of resetting the tax, but otherwise the Giants have more than enough operating revenue. As was stated earlier, the Giants will be okay.
Trading Shark for Ellsbury makes sense for the Yankees, as they would be getting someone to compete for the back of the rotation. The Giants, however, would still need a CF. Ellsbury is done. A better option would be Maybin.
Are there any contracts that are long term (5+ years) where someone isn’t trying to do a salary dump at the end of the contract?
Sure, but most of those guys were young when they signed extensions (guys like Chris Archer, Freddie Freeman, and Salvador Perez come to mind immediately). Signing players to long term contracts AFTER age 32 though seldom works out too well for the team though.
Jose quintana, Chris Sale, soon to be Chris archer. Either you overpay, get a couple good season and try to jettison the contract later or you get a few good seasons for cheap and look to cash in a haul of top prospects.
The Angels haven’t tried to dump Pujols yet. But to your point the $100M+ contracts almost always end up being regrettable.
The only reason that they hadn’t tried to dump Pujols is because they know it would be a waste of time. No one’s considering taking him on for even a fraction of that deal
when it comes to free agents not very often but Max Scherzer comes to mind
Would you dump a guy who has led the team in RBI the Last 3 Years averaging over 100 RBI? The last I heard in baseball, is to win games you have to score and those who get on base do not score unless someone drives them in.
1. RBI are a team stat. Of course scoring runs is the point of the game, no one ever argues otherwise. The best way to score runs, though, is to not make outs, which is why OBP is significantly more important than RBI, which rewards players for having high-OBP teammates or vice versa.
2. On Pujols specifically, he’s extremely limited at this point of his career. He’s the slowest player in the league, he can’t play defense anymore, and his OBP is abysmal, because he hits like .250 and doesn’t walk. Decent power alone isn’t particularly special, and his counting stats are a reflection of his being lucky enough to hit behind the best hitter in baseball
RBI IS A TEAM STAT? How many times a team lost a game because they left a lot of runners on Base? How many times did the manager said, “we had runners on base but we could not get the clutch hit? “ how many teams are looking for an RBI GUY or Run Producer? You need to understand that having runners on base is a Threat. Driving them in is a PRODUCTION WHICH WINS GAMES. AS TO Joey Votto, previously to 2017, he got on base but was not productive where it counts, driving in runs, making the same money as Pujols. Keeps believing that OBP is better than anything. Pujols due to injuries is not the overall player he once was but he is still more of a clutch hitter(2nd in the ml) that Votto. Check it out.
There is not a single MLB team that would rather have A.P than Votto at the same price. Not one.
I like WAR better than OBP or RBI… then take into account upside/downside, salary and age.
Pujols WAR in 2017 was -1.18, and he made $25 million. He’s 38 years old.
Votto’s WAR in 2017 was 7.5 and he made $25 million. He is 34 years old.
Who would you rather have?
Not today. But when all is said and done AP is a Hall of Famer. Votto?
1. Obviously, leaving men on base sucks, but you have to get people on base in the first place for that to matter. A player won’t be able to drive in runs if there’s never anyone on in front of him, which is why it’s more of a team stat than a sign of a great player.
2. More teams are seeking on-base guys than “RBI guys” at this point, basically every front office in baseball talks about improving their OBP every off-season.
3. I don’t believe OBP is “more than anything,” just more valuable than RBI.
4. I’ll give you this one, sort of. Pujols wasn’t actually quite as bad as his surface stats would indicate last year because he did manage to make his hits count. I wouldn’t expect him to continue to be as clutch though. After all, if he could really choose to be a better hitter whenever he wanted to, why only be good in clutch situations? Why not just be decent all the time?
I do think Votto gets into the HOF, but Pujols had the better career. We’re in agreement there. I, and I imagine Jek as well, am looking at 2018 and beyond
By adding things like fielding, OBP & others you can come up with the numbers. Pujols did not slow down because of age but because of injuries.
By the way, what was Gehrig’s WAR When he replaced Pipp and what was Pipp’s? WAR is a deceptive stat. When I asked a Sabermetric guy A LONG TIME AGO what WAR was , he said Wins Above Replacement. Then I asked him, Replaced by Whom? He could not answer. Then he said, replaced by a minor leaguer. Astute, don’t you think?
I’m enjoying the debate, but WAR is a deceptive stat? And RBIs aren’t? RBIs means you had a lot of people on base to drive in. That to me seems deceptive. WAR adds all variety of the player and compiles it into one number.
WAR = (Batting Runs + Base Running Runs +Fielding Runs + Positional Adjustment + League Adjustment +Replacement Runs) / (Runs Per Win)
I love RBIs, but having the best player on earth always on base (Trout) ahead of will get you a lot more opportunities. Who did Votto have? Billy Hamilton and his -.300 OBP?
I don’t think there is one MLB team that would take on Pujols contract. If there was one they would probably look at Miguel Cabrera first.
“Votto, previously to 2017, he got on base but was not productive where it counts, driving in runs,”
Joey Votto’s career w/ RISP: – .336/.489/.591
Pujols 2017 w/ RISP – .264/.323/.448
Votto’s career AVERAGES blow what Pujols did last year out of the water.
Want to know why Pujols had a good RBI year? He had 195 PA’s w/ RISP last year – third most in the MLB. Votto had 154 – 59th in the MLB. Immediately, Pujols had an extra 41 PA’s with a runner in scoring position to drive home.
Get your head checked. Or at least check some facts before you go off on some 1970’s-era anecdotal rant.
“RBI IS A TEAM STAT?”
Are you saying it isn’t? The only way an individual player can create an RBI is by hitting a HR, and you do know they have a separate stat for that right?
“…what was Gehrig’s WAR When he replaced Pipp and what was Pipp’s?”
Pipp, after posting a 3.1 WAR in 1924, was struggling in 1925 and finished the year with 0.0 WAR. Gehrig finished the ’25 season with a 3.1 WAR. Pipp was sold to the Reds the following off-season, and posted a 2.4 WAR over the next 3 seasons. Gehrig had a 9.2 WAR over the next 3 seasons. Pipp had a 31.4 WAR for his career while Gehrig finished with a total of 112.4.
As to the replacement, you need a base point from which to compare. And that is the average minor leaguer, or the last guy on the bench at MLB. That base point was chosen because even an average MLB player has value. It is a very good way to determine the impact of the loss of a player due to injury, and the difference with his replacement, typically a minor league call up.
“By adding things like fielding, OBP & others, you can come up with the numbers.” This is actually what WAR does. I’ve never been live-or-die with one stat, so I’m not one to cite single-season WAR totals as some sort of catchall, but it does try to synthesize production.
Whether it was age or injuries that slowed Pujols is irrelevant to me when looking forward, because both problems will presumably affect him for the rest of his career. I’m not trying to bash what he’s done, he’s had an all-time great career. It’s just that he’s no longer that player unfortunately
FYI He has averaged over 100 RBI in the last 4 years!!!
That’s funny, I was informed that the Piscotty trade was 100% out of the good of the Classy Cardinals’ hearts, not for things like “being expendable” and “getting depth pieces.”
No you weren’t.
No one ever said it was “100 percent out of the goodness of their hearts” to trade piscotty. The main incentive to move him instead of grichuk or Martinez was to get him close to hometown In California where he could be closer to his ailing Mom. They then maximized their return for him by filling a hole in middle infield minor leagues. Discussions with Oakland regarding piscotty started last July at trade deadline, soon after the news on piscotty Mom was found out
It’s not like they got the best they could’ve gotten for Piscotty! They could’ve traded him anywhere
You were informed incorrectly.
“You are never making a player trade simply for geographic or sentimental reasons,” John Mozeliak, president of baseball operations for the Cardinals, told St. Louis media. “It had to be something that made sense for us. There were certainly some opportunities to move him elsewhere. When you are looking at how to break a tie, clearly that did play into it.”’
101sports.com/2017/12/14/piscotty-dealt-to-as-afte…
In the last 6 years, Joey Votto has averaged 71.5 RBI and of those 6 years he only reached 100 RBI in 2017.
You trying to argue he’s not good?
Votto is one of the top 10-15 hitters in the game today. RBI does not equate to talent.
Votto is one of the top 3-5 hitters in the game today IMO
10-15? You could argue he’s THE best hitter easier than you could argue their are 10 better hitters than Votto
Ah, the Reds suck and can’t get anyone on base in front of him. Ergo, Votto sucks…
And Pujols has Mike Trout batting first or second in every game. It’s not an apples/apples comparison.
Are the Cardinals actually done trading for, or going after a free agent consistent hitter??? Donaldson just doesn’t seem a good fit. Machado won’t resign with the Cardinals and J. D. Martinez is too high and as I hear, a subpar defensive player. Abreau would cost the farm system. That sure does thin out the crops!!! In my opinion, from what I’ve read, there are still some attitude players on the Cards that need to be thinned out. Wong said to trade him last season, then retracted it. Carpenter won’t hit anywhere but lead off and is subpar defensively. And, as reported, Fowler is the last in the clubhouse and the first to leave. The question is; is there anyone that would take a chance on these players, and others, that a change in scenery would pay off in their careers???
They should pay up for Addison Reed and trade for Donaldson before the deadline after Toronto has been disabused of this notion that they will compete in 2018.
Cards simply put, do not get better in 2018 by trading carpenter, Wong and Fowler. Unless they upgrade at those respective spots which isn’t likely. Only way they’d try to deal any of those is if they were starting a huge tear down or tanking, which is not happening.
Started watching game of thrones. Pretty good so far tbh