Giants Notes: Bay, Free Agents, Arbitration Cases

No to Randy Winn unless he comes on the very cheap and is a 4th or 5th outfielder. We need a more consistent bat in RF.
Garko wasn't really given a fair look, but would he benefit from half a year of consistent starts?
Offer Molina arbitration. If he accepts, we get him for the year we desire before we bring up Posey. If he declines, he's a type A free agent so at least we get a draft pick out of it.

"$10m easy for Lincecum."

I think the Giants can win arbitration if they only offer $8M, basically just don't do what the Phils did with Howard.

A later developing market? Yeah, that's why you signed Sanchez during the World Series. Clearly waiting this one out and playing it close to the vest, aren't we Sabean?

And God help us if Molina comes back. Posey won't get a shred of playing time if Bruce can help it.

Yeah, make it very clear to Molina that Posey is the starting catcher, and then offer arb.

"Some level of conversation" with Molina?

"Expected to make a run" at Jason Bay?

Sounds like Sabean moves to me.

All the folks who don't want Molina back next year, and want to see Posey have legitimate gripes with the way Molina clogs up the base paths. But unfortunately, Sabean has to look at it quite simply: will Buster Posey put up 18-20 HRs and 80-85 RBIs next year? The answer is no. He may in 2-3 years from now, but he won't next year. And Sabean has to consider what eliminating Molina's offense and handling of the pitching staff does to the team before anything else.

If the team had power and RBIs coming from other spots in the lineup already, then he could afford to lose production from the catcher spot. But he doesn't. That's why the Giants will offer Molina arbitration and see what happens.

He won't be back as the #4 or #5 hitter, but I'm willing to bet Molina will be back for 2010 as the #6 or #7 hitter on this team.

Offering arb to Molina would be a huge mistake (he might accept!) and it isn't clear that the team will make this colossal blunder.

also, when guys liek Schulman say the Giants are expected to make a run at Bay, he really should say who has these expectations. W/o major victories in arbitration (or via backloaded contracts w/ those guys) the team won't be able to afford Bay w/o raising payroll significantly and there's no reason to believe they'll raise it over their usual $90m.

Steve Soto,

Molina is one of the worst offensive players in all of baseball and offers nothing special defensively; any player in baseball will accumulate "80-85 RBIs" when they are constantly plugged in to the cleanup spot of a lineup. Posey has nothing left to prove against minor league pitching and will be making close to a league minimum salary in 2010, leaving at least another $5 million that would have gone to Molina to spend on positions of greater need.

Time to look beyond HR's and RBI's, bud.

Molina has power but is one of the absolute worst players in baseball at getting on base. He swings at everything, but doesn't have the type of eye-hand coordination to make it work like Vlad or Sandoval. Posey has the potential to plug right in and be better offensively than Molina. Also, Molina has grown very lazy behind the plate. He still has a great arm, but can't block to save his life.

There are going to be an awful lot of catchers available this off season, not like last year. Probably Shoppach, Navarro, Snyder, Olivo. It could be really dangerous to offer this guy arbitration, even though he is probably better than most all, with the exception of maybe Shoppach.

For those that think Posey will drop right into the lineup and be a consistent producer from day 1, well please pass around whatever it is you're smoking. There is very little doubt in my mind that he has the potential to be a Maeur type player but he still needs time to grow as a hitter and needs a lot mroe experience behind the plate.

With that said, if Sabean can go out and sign a couple of bats for the #4 and #5 slots in the lineup, i think that will take enough pressure off Posey (The Annointed One) to let him grow at the ML level, instead of down in AAA. That would be the one situation you hand him over the job, otherwise you either deal with Whiteside who plays good D, has a strong arm but wont add much to your offense or you sign a decent FA guy who might not be as good as Molina but can be had at a low cost, 1 year contract.

Also consider this... Our starters have always had a lot of praise for Molina's game calling. There is definitely a certain mojo there and you never know if switching Molina out for a kid that still needs some growth in the game calling department will screw up the the connection the starters have with their catcher. If Molina was at any other position or if Posey was more developed i think this would be a no brainer, but the catcher position is easily the hardest and most demanding position on the diamond and until they develop a stat that measures how well of a game caller someone is, there will always be a huge question mark about young catchers that dont have a lot of experience in the minors behind the dish.