Happy 133rd birthday to Archie "Moonlight" Graham. Arguably baseball's most famous one-game player (Eddie Gaedel also has a great case for this distinction), Moonlight Graham's only taste of the majors was one half-inning as a defensive replacement for the 1905 New York Giants. That half-inning grew into immortality thanks to his characterization in W.P. Kinsella's novel Shoeless Joe and its film adaptation Field Of Dreams. Graham, who passed away in 1965, went on to become a doctor in Chisholm, Minnesota following his brief playing career.
Onto some news items…
- Dayton Moore tells Bob Dutton of the Kansas City Star that the David DeJesus trade won't deepen the Royals' interest in the free agent market. “It’s not cost effective at this time for us to be real aggressive with major-league free agents,” Moore said.
- Even if Aubrey Huff re-signs with the Giants, CSNBayArea.com's Mychael Urban thinks the team should look into signing Carlos Pena.
- Fanhouse's Tom Krasovic looks at the pros and cons of Sandy Alderson's tenure as CEO of the Padres and what Mets fans might expect from their new general manager.
- Add the Brewers, Pirates and Rangers to the list of teams believed to be interested in Jorge de la Rosa, tweets Troy Renck of the Denver Post. We know that list already includes the Nationals, Rockies and Yankees.
- If San Francisco really has soured on Pablo Sandoval due to the Panda's conditioning issues, Fangraphs' Matt Klassen thinks other teams should be contacting the Giants about a buy-low trade.
- During the season, an American League executive told Danny Knobler of CBSSports.com that Adam Dunn will stay in the NL since he genuinely wants to keep playing in the field. However, this executive predicted "Dunn will consider AL teams at least long enough to try to use them as leverage."
- The Mets will interview Jose Oquendo about the manager's job on Monday, tweets ESPNNewYork.com's Adam Rubin.
- Chad Durbin is receiving interest from teams as both a bullpen and rotation option, tweets ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick. Durbin has made 75 starts in his career, but none since 2007.
- Most of the free agent catching crop will wait until "the lead domino" (Victor Martinez) signs before they look at joining new teams, says Newsday's Ken Davidoff. (Twitter link)
- Chris Coghlan will move to third base next year, reports MLB.com's Joe Frisaro. You can tentatively cross the Marlins off the list of teams exploring the free agent market for help at the hot corner, though it's possible Coghlan could be needed to play second if Florida trades Dan Uggla.
Kudos on the Moonlight Graham birthday wishes
Ah, Eddie Gaedel… highest OBP in MLB history.
Never struck out, grounded out, flied out, swing and missed, swung, fouled a ball, foul tipped, or did anything in the box actually.
But he had a 1.000 OBP… and for that matter 1.000 OPS. C’mon that’s worth at least $15M a year now!
At this point, he deserves more than Derek Jeter on the open market.
If only Billy Crystal had taken that breaking ball for a walk.
That was spring training.
I know, it was a joke. Wow.
What do you mean “Wow”? I was just mentioning it. No need to get snippy.
I just find the constant one-upmanship amusing on this site.
Fine… another one for me ;-)
You got that right.
You got that right.
I love baseball-reference but that 162 game average is hilarious. I can’t fault them for having anything else to base it off, though.
The Giants won’t trade Sandoval. Not yet, anyway. Unless he spands all winter eating Ho Ho’s.
Not while his value is at an all-time low
I wouldn’t say Panda’s value is at an all-time low he did hit .330 in 2009 with 25 HRs while playing in a pitcher’s park. If Sabean really wanted to trade him which I don’t think he will he can do a 1 for 1 deal. Similar type of players that won’t be arbitration eligible for a couple years. That being said I’m going to say Panda works out whatever problems he had and comes back strong for 2011. If the Giants want to go deep into October again he’s the X factor.
I agree it would be tough for the GIants to do a 1-for-1 deal with Sandoval being involved. There are only 2 guys that I think would be interesting as 1-for-1 trades for Sandoval. One is Colby Rasmus and the other is Gordon Beckham. I think the Giants would be taking less of a risk with Rasmus than the Cardinals would be getting, but in the other deal, I think the Giants would be taking a bigger risk with Beckham than the WS would be doing.
The DH sucks. Got to hand it to Dunn for trying to be a baseball player.
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They won’t trade Sandoval because of all the marketing they put into him last season. They’ll only trade him if he has another terrible year at the plate…no pun intended.
No sense in trading Sandoval…he makes the minimum.
For the first time I don’t agree with Mychael Urban’s idea of signing Pena when you have Brandon Belt coming up next season. Brandon Belt is everything Pena is but younger and hits for average.
That’s the X-factor in this decision for me, as well. But if you are strictly looking at MLB-proven players, then his reasoning is not horrible. Use Huff’s versatility and gain defense, power and OBP at the expense of batting average. There’s definitely worse options than Pena if that’s the idea, but blocking Belt is not something I would be doing right now. In fact, I’m all for the Giants not signing any big name free agents and making 1st more open for Belt to potentially take over
I say keep Huff out of the equation if he is asking too much. Put DeRosa out in LF and have Belt up here from Day 1. We saw how much impact Posey had at the plate and the difference it made to add a smart, patient hitter to this line up. If we would have waited 1 more week, we likely would have missed the playoffs. Why wait with Belt? He has shown he is ready at the plate with an incredibly Minor League season and a very strong AFL showing. He is also a very good defensive 1B man. Sabean wants to get Left-Handed and should be thinking of how he can resign Cain AND Timmy. Saving that money from Huff should help out a little bit.
I see your point, does make some sense to do that. But I really think Huff provided a great clubhouse presence, and if he can keep in good shape should not see much of a production drop off. Uribe is the guy I would let go to save some funds. Go cheaper at short in a bartlett trade or hardy if he gets non-tendered. Rowands deal is done after 2012, just in time for Timmy and Cain to be hitting free agency. I just do not want to bank on Belt being up from day 1. If he has a slow spring for whatever reason, why not give him some time to get his mojo back in fresno instead of SF? Huff played a decent amount of LF, RF and 1B so him blocking belt is not a problem. If Belt starts raking, that moves Derosa to 3B or utility man
i would love:
CF Torres
2B Sanchez
1B Belt
C Posey
LF Huff
RF Ross
3B Derosa/Sandoval
SS Bartlet
maybe switch belt and huff. i just like huff lower in the lineup regardless. it makes the lineup so much deeper with him not in the 3 hole. also i would bring back burrel if he wanted 1 year 4 mil.
agreed 100%. That is exactly what I would love to see. Gives you the flexibility if Belt is not around on Day 1 without blocking anyone. Plus, whether Pablo bounces back or not, if Derosa is healthy you can just move him there.
the giants would be far better offensively than they were this year. and if pablo can regain 09 form, or somewhere in between his first two years, which i think he will, then you can put him third.
you’d be making a trade off of raw power (uribe, burrell) for more defense and all-around play (bartlett, pablo if he gets in shape, full seasons by buster and ross), plus getting younger and more athletic. sign me up for that, plus it saves a little dough to take on later if a potential stud is made available at the deadline.
Bartlett would be a solid guy to bring in depending on how much it would take to get him from TB. I think that a deal with Chicago might be in order swapping Sandoval for Beckham and yes i know that they wouldnt do that straight up but those would be the 2 main guys dealt.
You could play Beckham at third til Sanchez leaves.
If you cant get Bartlett then try to bring back Uribe to play SS.
Belt will be a guy to watch in the spring but if they resign Huff they wont bring him up just to be a bench guy. They will leave him at AAA to get regular ABs and to hold off on his arb clock just like they did with Posey this year. 2012 is the year to watch for him full time.
Try to find a taker for Zito, granted you’ll have to throw in a wad of cash but it would be worth it to get out from under the contract and maybe see if Runzler can handle the 5th spot. It would have been a nice spot for Tim Alderson but he was sent to PIT in the Sanchez deal. But there are no shortage of guys who can fill the 5th spot for cheap.
Thoughts?
Not much to disagree with there, except for zito. I think we’re stuck with him until at least 2012. Belt definitely has me excited, but I expect to not see him until late may at the earliest, to slow that arb clock down. SS is where it gets interesting. I do not know TB’s stance on Bartlett, but I think a couple decent prospects gets it done. maybe ryan rohlinger and jesus guzman? beckham for pablo is a sell-low for both sides. I’d take it, depending on what we’d have to kick in
I dont think it would take too much more than Pablo, perhaps a RP prospect. Pablo could go to the AL where he is better suited and SF would get a guy who can stop trying to be a HR hitter and go back to being a gap to gap doubles and triples guy who can play 3rd this year and then depending on what they do in FA next year he can move to 2nd after Sanchez leaves.
Bartlett makes a lot of sense if they want to get more athletic and he would be a defensive upgrade. However if the price is too high they could look at either bringing back Uribe or going after a mid-level FA like JJ Hardy or Cristian Guzman.
Uribe is tricky, he will turn 32 next year and made over 3M this year. Odds are he will want either a 2 or 3 yr deal and a raise. SF has to be careful not to overpay for a guy who is a career .256 hitter who may pull a Renteria and get very old by the end of the contract. Not saying he will but anything over 2/8-10M is a bigger risk than going and getting a FA on a 1 yr deal.
Other than that I dont see SF doing a whole lot this offseason, hopefully they can find someone who will take Zito but if not he can be a decent 5th starter who will eat up 200+ innings but there could be a market for him depending on how much cash SF is willing to kick in.
Other than that, maybe add a couple guys to the bench and an arm to the pen.
Belt is not going to hit third in the order over huff.
Huff in LF full-time? Shirley, you can’t be serious. That strategy’d only semi-work in games played at Fenway and Minute Maid. And you folks must still be in a post-World-Series celebratory stupor if you believe that Belt will be ready to contribute at the major league level in 2011. It’s far more likely that Huff gets 70% or more of the Giants’ plate appearances at 1B in 2011.
you must not have watched much of the giants early in the year. huff played a number of games in right field. he played it well. no he doesnt have a great arm or terrific range, but he makes all the plays he should. plus he said he like playing the outfield the best. i would say left field at AT&T is not that challenging. huff would be an average fielder. it would be fin with torres and ross covering the other two spots. also we played burrel and guilen in the outfield at the same time for a stretch of like 15 games, and managed to play pretty good baseball.
Same thing I was thinking. Urban obviously knows nothing about the Giants young prospects to think they have room for both Huff and Pena.
I’d like to see the Giants resign Huff and Uribe and then trade for Uggla. Put Huff in Left, move Uribe to SS, Pablo goes to 1st, Uggla can play second and have Sanchez man 3rd. It weakens the defense up the middle but the team would be solid offensively.
ya it would be nice if we finally traded for Uggla after 2 years worth of rumors.
It’s more likely this year than any of the other years. I don’t think it would require Sanchez or Bumgarner to get a deal done. We have the prospects to make a move and I think the Giants could resign him. As long as they don’t ask for Belt (I doubt they would) it could definitely happen. Runzler is likely to be moved in a deal.
The Marlins will ask for Bumgarner or J Sanchez in any deal for Uggla, and the Giants don’t have any starters at AAA that are any good. Wait till next year and hope Uggla becomes a free agent. F. Sanchez will be gone, and Uggla will fit right in at second base. Not only that, you get to see another year of Charlie Culberson in the minors. They might not even need Uggla the way this kid is improving.
I agree that they will wait. Bumgarner is untouchable and Sanchez is a guy they have to keep because dont have anyone who will be ready to move into the rotation full time this season. Uggla is a fit next year but they should also explore the trade market. Specifically a deal for Gordon Beckham. Put together a deal for him involving Sandoval and then you have some flexibility going into FA next year since Beckham can play both 3B and 2B you can see where the best fit is whether its with Uggla or someone else depending on how the FA market shakes out.
I’d like to see The Jays sign Durbin to pitch out of the bullpen.
Man ATL needs to get ahold of Dan Uggla.