Josh Hamilton is going to hit free agency following a mostly healthy season of elite production. He has 42 home runs and he's hitting .287/.358/.588, so interest should be abundant a couple of months from now when the bidding begins. In the meantime, here’s the latest on Hamilton:
- Hamilton told Yahoo’s Tim Brown that he doesn’t consider his upcoming contract discussions complicated. "I don't get it. I provide a service. I get paid for it," he said. It’s a little more complicated for the MLB executives who must determine whether Hamilton can maintain his current level of play for five-plus more years. A veteran scout told Brown Hamilton remains "in the top two or three most talented ballplayers” the scout has ever seen.
- The Rangers and Hamilton’s agent have discussed some very general ideas for what might be next in terms of contracts, but Hamilton hasn’t been present for those talks, Brown reports.
- One National League official strongly suggested the Giants could end up signing Hamilton this coming offseason, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney reports (on Twitter). If the Giants sign Hamilton it’d have to be a very short-term contract for a high average annual value, Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle adds (on Twitter).
Lets be honest, Hamilton’s bat is great but his head isn’t. You have to pay $200m then tell the entire team there can be no booze in the clubhouse. I’d be surprised if he went anywhere else.
They shouldn’t have booze in the clubhouse to begin with. Are you allowed to drink at your place of employment?
Yes i run a restaurant. Sorry just a joke. But no your right. Shoukdnt be able to drink while your working. Agree completely. No way josh gets 200. 4-5 at about 20-25 per
If the booze is there after the game, I have no problem. If players are drinking before or during a game then there is a problem.
I hear you, but all around they should be banned. If they’re there after the game, chances are they are there all day. How do you stop someone from drinking its all around? I know for a fact I can’t drink at work, and I believe the same goes for on work property.
I can drink after work…it’s a super chill way to kick back with your co-workers after a long day/week.
Ummm, by saying “You’re an adult. You should know when you should work and not drink.” You aren’t dealing with 18 year olds.
Irrelevant. The comment brought up an interesting aspect: having to sell Josh Hamilton to his new team and disrupt what they are already accustomed to–drinking (predominantly after games while no longer working) in the clubhouse. The comment simply suggests that, perhaps not every team will be as willing to alter playoff celebrations (among other things) as the Rangers have.
Or the team can buy magnums of O’Doul’s beer or non-alcoholic apple cider for celebrations! 😀
But seriously I’m sure every team talking with Hamilton will lay out “ground” rules and I’m sure Hamilton/agent will do the same.
He better NOT sign with SF.
Since Hamilton provides a service then gets paid for it, maybe he should just sign for a low avg salary with huge incentive bonuses. That way if he doesn’t provide the service, he doesn’t get paid. See? Easy!
i doubt sf is going to sign hamilton. especially considering that hamilton is probably going to go for a long term contract and sf has a lot of other payroll commitments. this will only happen if sf increases it’s payroll, hamilton accepts a shorter contract, and hamilton willing to play at at&t. but in the event hamilton does sign with sf, that means sf has no faith in pablo.
Why does hamiltons signing show no faith in the panda. Dont see the connection
I didn’t understand that as well…
huh? Pablo is a 3B, hamilton is a LF. Giants LF got caught cheating and wont be coming back, they have a hole in LF. Hamilton is a LF, Pablo is a 3B. Wheres the connection? It means they dont have faith in a platoon of gregor blanco and xavier nady in LF.
what i meant to say was that the giants would not really go after a prized FA if they knew pablo was performing. they would probably be going after a mid-tier FA if pablo was performing well.
if hamilition is willing to sign a 3 year contract for a high AAV with a club option for the 4th year then I would love the red sox to sign him. But I doubt that he will sign such a contract.
I’d prefer they don’t, ya know, with the whole not signing big contracts anymore. This ideology is what got the team into the mess it’s in since post-2008. I’d much rather see Ross back and moved to LF with some younger guys (e.g. Kalish) getting some time in RF.
pretty sure they signed some big contracts before that…
Indeed, but the reckless spending began to peak during this time.
I don’t think that signing Hamilton would necessarily be a “bad thing” if it was the right deal, i.e. something like a 3-4 yr deal for reasonable money. But I expect that some other team will offer him more than that and his price will never get down to the point at which it’d make some sense for the Sox to go after him.
Yeah i dont want them giving out a 7 year deal. but 3 to 4 years when their payroll will be lower than it has been in years would not be a bad thing
All this is moat. As Pence won’t be going anywhere next year. The Giants have him for at least one more season. Now Pagan and Scutaro are a different story
Sorry, I hate to be an online editor… but this is one of the glaring ones.
I think you mean “this is moot,” a moat is something much different.
It would be one of the biggest surprises of the offseason if Hamilton signed with San Francisco considering the no DH rule. It definitely would give them an above average offense on paper.
Giants have a lot of money coming off the books the next couple of seasons so conceivably it’s possible. It’s also inevitable that they’ll sign Posey to a Braun/Bumgarner type of deal before his arbitration years get out of hand which will free up additional money.
I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t want Hamilton on the Giants even though he swings at almost everything like Pablo does. But if he does sign I just hope it isn’t more than 6 years with that 6th year being the option year.
if they do sign him, that means they have no faith in pablo and/or they are concerned about LAD’s offensive potential.
No, it means that they fill a vacant spot in the outfield. I think the Giants are fine knowing their pitching can shut down the Dodger offense.
As for Sandoval. They have his arbitration years bought out to further evaluate him. I’ll give Sandoval a pass this year considering his hamate bone injury & hamstring injury really messed up his timing and power. I’d like to believe the real Sandoval is ’09 & ’11 one and not the ’10 and the current one.
they probably won’t sign hamilton to that vacant spot. after all, they have to spend a lot of money to extend pence if that happens, possibly lincecum, posey for sure, pagan, and so on. they will have to break their $135m cap to get hamilton.
The assumption many make…is that payroll across MLB is going up next season…in particular the NLWest. I wont be surprise to see that number closer to 150 million next year. Panda is not a factor when it comes to Hamilton…Pence & Pagan are expendable at the cost of Hamilton…We got Brown sitting in the wings waiting for his call-up…I would assume Pagan would be gone if Ham shows up…
Gary Brown is not far away, so they don’t have to sign Pagan to a 2-3 year deal. I think It’s obvious if they sign Hamilton they have no interest in keeping Pence long term.
The whole Josh = head case/drinking problem thing is going to get really old this FA period. Probably going to have to hear the same noise with Grienke too.
I’m sure that it’ll be brought up a lot, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a concern for some teams. It may not be a red flag, but perhaps a big yellow one.
I actually think that his age may be more of a yellow flag. IIRC, he’ll be 32 when next season starts, which means that a 4 yr deal will make him 36 yo for the final season of such a deal… which is starting to get old. It’ll be quite risky for teams to want to go beyond 4 yrs at his age, though some AL team(s) might consider it. Doubt any NL team would, since it wouldn’t have the DH slot to move him into.
The Rangers will entertain signing him on their terms if he wants to stay but I bet he will sign elsewhere. The Rangers seem like too smart of an organization to overpay a player (A-Rod jokes go here) and they don’t seem to give into fan/media pressure (trying to trade Micheal Young, lowballing CJ Wilson). Fans care about winning, if this team wins 95 games again next year without Josh Hamilton, fans will quickly forget
The only way Giants can sign him is if “the board” opens up their wallets a little…which doesn’t seem likely. Would be a great OF though!
Hamilton, Pagan, Pence OF! Then in 2014 Pence walks and Gary Brown takes over in CF.
Longshot but the Jays could use him in LF but AA would never sign him simply because he’s not a cast-off or washed up and most of all not a cheap $1-2 million signing.
I think the Yanks will be in the mix for Hamilton, if they can back load his contract. If they get Hamilton they can move Gardner to CF and let Granderson and Swisher go and look to sign Tori Hunter short term or Ludwick.
I’d rather see Ichiro in a Giants uniform for 2-years and $18 million dollars. He’s started more games in left for the Yankees than he has in right, he is a definite upgrade over what we’re sending out there in left right now, and he would be a huge hit with the large Asian population in the Bay Area.
Ichiro can hit lead-off and Pagan can drop to 6th or 7th. Between Ichiro hitting 1st and Scutaro hitting second, you can pretty much guarantee that your first two hitters are going to put the ball in play.
Not to mention, that might be the best defensive outfield in all of baseball… and it will force opposing third base coaches to have to really consider sending guys home from second on singles to the corner outfield positions.