The Giants have signed infielder Edgar Gonzalez to a minor league contract, reports Mychael Urban of CSNBayArea.com (on Twitter). He did not receive an invitation to Major League Spring Training.
Gonzalez, 32, appeared in 193 games with the Padres between 2008 and 2009, hitting .255/.312/.381 in 522 plate appearances while playing all four infield positions and the corner outfield spots. He spent the 2010 season with the Yomiuri Giants, and is the older brother of former Padres teammate Adrian Gonzalez.
Nice to see Edgar catch on with a team. He is a good guy, if not a great bat or glove.
can’t wait to see Edgar play in the MLB again. He is a good team player and very down to earth guy.
J. Sanchez: “You scared the **** outta me, man.”
edgar gonzalez is serious bussiness
meh. After the big dawgs eat, the Giants picking up what’s left of the scraps.
Maybe they’ll take the scraps and put them together to build some sort of mega-player.
I believe the WORLD CHAMPIONS are one of the big dawgs! Why fix what isn’t broken?
As a long time Giants fan, since at least 1989, I see the Padres and Rockies load up this off season while the Giants sat relatively idol. The Padres’ acquisitions, you don’t think they can improve one game in the standings? …we can not bank on them having another bad run. I just don’t see it happening again for the Giants. I wish I am wrong.
I agree the “why fix what isn’t broken” mentality is what could keep the Giants out of the playoffs this year. This was an opportunity to put together a team that would keep their new huge fanbase, but rather they picket up Miguel Tejada and resigned players who performed well in the playoffs. The Giants caught lightning in a bottle last season and it was impressive, but to expect that to happen again is foolish. Their pitching is unquestionable, but not picking up a bat this offseason could be their undoing.
Name a better alternative to signing Tejada. A player who will probably provide roughly equal value to Uribe who has been extremely durable over the course of his career and will save the team $18 million to sign arbitration eligibles and save up for appraoaching contract negotiations for Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Sandoval, Posey, and Bumgarner in the coming three years is a fine move.
The best move the Giants have made this offseason is not doing something stupid like overpaying any of the crop of mediocre free-agnts available once you get past Crawford, Werth, and Lee. I’m tired of people acting like baseball alchemists who can somehow magically produce good players from AAAA and league-average fluff.
Not overpaying is a good thing, but Edgar Gonzalez and Elmer Dessens and Jeff Suppan hardly amount to anything more than a snowball’s chance in hell that they are going to improve the club.
Every single team makes minor league deals and signs non-roster invitees for Spring Training. It comes at little to no cost to the club, and there’s always the chance that one of them will break camp with the team. Torres was a non-roster invitee in ’09, and I’m sure nobody expected him to have a 5.7 WAR season as a starting CF. That’s why every single team makes these kinds of deals.
The Giants need middle-infield depth, and there’s a small chance that Gonzalez might provide it. No big deal.
The Rockies haven’t meaningfully improved themselves, other than to throw massive amounts of money at Tulo and Cargo, which are both high-risk contracts. The best player the Padres picked up is probably Cameron Maybin, and there’s no guarantee he will hit, especially in Petco. They traded away a lot (but certainly not all) of their bullpen depth and lost their best player. The Dodgers have been busy, but not necessarily productive. I’ll take my chances in the West this year, given that the Giants were conservative in an awful FA market and didn’t do anything stupid like give Juan Uribe 3-24, and should be helped by full seasons of Posey, Sanchez, Ross, Burrell, and hopefully rebounds by DeRosa and Sandoval, plus a probably mid-season promotion for Brandon Belt.
Given the lack of depth in the minor since graduating both pf our blue chip prospects last season, we did about as well as we could do this offseson, including a very generous boost to payroll. It will be another competitive season in the NL West.
Hey, why so glum? The Giants did “load up” … they will have full seasons (barring injury) from Buster, Bumgarner, Ross, Lopez and to a certain extent, Burrell. That should be worth at least one game in the standings – hopefully more. As far as counting on another Padre “bad run” – I assume you are referring to the 10 game loss streak – remember the Giants had a 9 out of 10 loss streak I believe at the end of May/early June. All teams go through hot and cold streaks, just at different times of the season. The Pads’ streak was just more visible because of the timing.