With the Winter Meetings just around the corner, here's the latest on what we can expect to take place..
- An executive told Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus (via Twitter) last night that this weekend was much busier than most pre-meeting weekends with lots of teams bargain hunting.
- The Giants aren't expected to be big spenders, writes Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News. The club won't seek the offseason's elite free agents or make an aggressive push to re-sign Carlos Beltran, but they will look to fill-in some gaps at reasonable prices. Baggarly writes that they are after a right-handed hitting middle infielder such as Alex Gonzalez or Jerry Hairston Jr. and an outfielder such as Josh Willingham or Coco Crisp.
- In a piece for ESPN.com (Insider req'd), Jim Bowden runs down the situations facing the "new" GMs at the Winter Meetings. In total, there are six GMs who have just signed on with their respective clubs as GM and one interim GM in the Astros' David Gottfried.
- An agent with prominent clientele told ESPN.com's Buster Olney (Insider req'd) on Thursday that he's gotten less phone calls in recent days as clubs are simply waiting to get things done face-to-face at the Winter Meetings. Last year, the meetings provided tons of surprises including the Zack Greinke trade and Jayson Werth's seven-year, $126MM contract deal with the Nationals.
What the giants need more than anything is hitting and they’re going for Alex Gonzales? This makes senses how?
Looking forward to not having Zito’s contract on the books: $19M in 2012 and $20M in 2013.
your forgetting about that 7M buyout in 2014.
Knowing the Giants, they will let Zito pitch enough innings to lock it in.
Alex Gonzalez can’t hit regardless of the side of the plate he is batting from. In fact, maybe he should try hitting left-handed. He couldn’t be any worse.
You haven’t seen Jeff Mathis “hit” have you.
Does anyone remember Carlos Beltran’s previous three years to 2011? He is not young anymore has an awful injury history yet many people are acting as if he is a top free agent guaranteed to make an impact wherever he signs.
How is he any different than Magglio Ordonez last year?
The Giants need alot of hitting- I dont know why the Yankees did not offer Swisher for Sanchez as he would have helped them much more than Cabrera.
I believe a big problem for the Giants is how every move Sabean made in 2010 was a stroke of genius. I believe they now think they can sign guys like Burrell, Huff, ect for little money and patch together a lineup that scores runs when this does not happen in most cases.
Why not a chance on Jimmy Rollins? he guy has played on winning teams and when healthy performs at an extremely high level. His market price will not be that high- he is looking to reestablish himself and is far from “old” and is the type of player who if healthy would really add to and change the lineup.
I’m not saying Beltran isn’t a risk but the Giants need offense from other than Sandoval and Posey. I feel what they have now is just not enough. With that pitching staff, the Giants sure could use a Prince Fielder or Albert Pujols in their lineup. I guess I could see Rollins helping out on offense, do you feel Jose Reyes is out of the Giants price range/too risky?
Reyes and Rollins are both way out of their price range.
40 to 50M coming off the books next year and only 27M committed to 2013. They could back load any contract they want.
Are the Giants that tight with payroll that they wouldn’t at least think about pursuing Beltran? The Giants need at least one more bat in their lineup. Maybe it’s the years for Beltran that is scaring them off. CoCo Crisp would be nice in their ballpark but the problem is, his offense would suffer. Sandoval and Posey could use more protection in that lineup. Alex Gonzalez is not it.
If I am the dbacks and see that the Giants are not in on Beltran and Beltran has few suitors, I try to swoop in and get him as an upgrade in LF.
If I am the dbacks and see that the Giants are not in on Beltran and Beltran has few suitors, I try to swoop in and get him as an upgrade in LF.
But what would YOU do if you were the dbacks??
I’d make three offers
If I am the dbacks and see that the Giants are not in on Beltran and Beltran has few suitors, I try to swoop in and get him as an upgrade in LF.
Beltran’s a risk on all accounts…plus he will most likely want a big pay day that he just does not deserve
Couldn’t agree more. I think Beltran is a mistake. I would rather trade for someone YOUNG with upside than deal with this headcase.
Beltran’s not a headcase. How did you come up with that? Plus, there weren’t really any good young players instead of Pence, but to get him we wouldn’t have any good prospects left in the minors.
I would have liked them to go after Bourn. I was never in favor of the two month rental for Wheeler. Then they traded for a centerfielder anyway.
They were going after Bourn, but the Astros took the Braves offer. He would’ve helped immensely also.
The agent isn’t getting “less” phone calls, he’s getting “fewer” phone calls.
What are you? The Grammar Nazi?
Nope. I just expect people who make a living by writing to write well.
What are you? The Grammar Nazi?
In my opinion, CoCo Crisp would be the best choice out of the options stated it this article (not including Beltran). He’s got great speed and a good enough bat to at least improve this offense a bit. The Giants especially need the speed considering Darren Ford is gone. I do hope that they make more than one move though, because Crisp is not enough to turn this whole team around.
The Giants signing Alex Gonzalez would be like last years deal with them signing Miguel Tejada ,but with a little more defense
No Beltran and they’ll sign “fill-in gaps at reasonable price”. Hmm…sounds like any other offseason to me by not improving our lineup and just getting by. This is ridiculous.
I like Willingham if we can get him on a 1-2 year contract.
I like Willingham too. But where’s belt play? Belt projects to have a similar ops and better defense for league minimum.
they can both play left or right field
In my perfect world, Belt plays first and Huff rides the pine! lol
if hairston jr and willingham were signed, that wouldnt be horrible?
we need to sign willingham then trade affeldt to SD for bartlett. get it done sabes
i look at sabean and bochy and i see snow white and dopey. what do you expect? beltran is an outstanding bat…so they’ll go after another .240 hitter instead.
I expect to see some very surprising moves over the next week or so, via both the free agency and trading market.