As expected, the Giants have exercised club options over left-handed starters Madison Bumgarner and Matt Moore, as Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News reports. San Francisco will also retain veteran third baseman Pablo Sandoval — a move that resulted from fairly unique circumstances.
There isn’t much cause to belabor the decisions on Bumgarner and Moore. Both had trying seasons, but were easy calls to retain at their respective salaries of $12MM and $9MM. That’s all the more true since each can be retained for similar rates ($12MM and $10MM) for 2019.
The 28-year-old Bumgarner missed about half the season after suffering a rotator cuff tear, but still posted a typically excellent 3.32 ERA with 8.2 K/9 against 1.6 BB/9. He will look to return to his place among the game’s very best pitchers in 2018. Moore scuffled to a 5.52 ERA, but the 28-year-old has had quite a bit more success in the past and at worst ought to provide innings at a palatable rate of pay.
In the case of Sandoval, the key factor remains the ongoing obligations borne by the Red Sox, who’ll pay the lion’s share of the $18MM owed Sandoval over each of the next two seasons (along with a $5MM buyout on a 2020 option). San Francisco will only be on the hook for the league-minimum salary, which is the least they’d have to commit to anyone occupying a roster spot regardless.
Sandoval returned to San Francisco after two and a half years of dreadful production in Boston. But the move back west did not spur a rebound; to the contrary, Sandoval batted just .225/.263/.375 in his 171 plate appearances. That said, the move hardly signals that the Giants are committed to putting Sandoval back in his former role as the regular third baseman. Instead, the team is likely to pursue upgrades there while considering Sandoval for a bench role.
The fact they are keeping Pablo shows how bad they have become. Pablo should not be near any club that claims to be a contender.
he costs nothing and wasn’t terrible after coming back to SF last year – if nothing else he is a super cheap bench option
Wasn’t terrible? .225/.263/.375 is the definition of terrible.
Homers will spin things no matter what…
weird. the above article says he costs ML minimum salary.
wouldn’t you want to pay someone with a little potential instead? giants are going to be so bad next season.
Cheap bench bat that can be cut without any problem if they find some one better.
They had the worst record in baseball last year. That pretty much says they aren’t.
But they didn’t have the worst record in baseball last year. Sandoval’s game winner on the last day either tied or pushed them ahead of the Tigers and cost the Giants the #1 puck in the draft. The gift that keeps on taking.
Tied (which it was) for worst record is still worst record.
At the league minimum, he can fill a roster spot and can be DFA fodder if something better comes along. Sort of that ugly sister in high school.
He’s costing the Giants league minimum. Not exactly a problem for the Giants.
Why? He’s a bench player making the league minimum. They can dump him for almost nothing if they need to, all on Boston’s dime.
Why wouldn’t you take that risk?
What risk? He is terrible and a waste of a roster spot. Any young guy would be better served on the roster
They can DFA Sandoval and have almost no penalty if a younger player forces their hand.
This isn’t a blood contract to play Pablo until Jesus returns. It’s a league minimum contract, which allows them to do what they need down the road.
it is a minimum salary low risk move that the Giants really cannot lose……they did win 3 World titles with Panda as their starting 3b and it is not like 2012 is really that long ago…..
I dont really like “Panda” myself at this point either, but at this minimum salary price almost any team would be giving him a chance to reestablish himself……and then there’s those 3 world titles I previously mentioned…..
@Walkers…..The SF Giants farm system is a disaster zone that yields little to no talent and keeping “Panda” is a no brainer since Boston is paying 95% of his salary….
Taking a chance on the Bosox’s dime.
I feel as though the Giants have a soul contract with Sandoval until the day he dies.
If he had no history in SF they wouldn’t have touched him. That franchise dwells on the past too much.
Sandoval and the Giants are like a guy with a woman who’s way outta his league. She won’t leave him because she doesn’t think she can do any better. News bulletin for Giants’ front office: it would be difficult to NOT find a player better than Sandoval. Yeah, he’s really cheap, but you’re getting exactly what you’re paying for, maybe less.
Sandoval started to hit the last few weeks of the season. They also played him at 1st base. It makes him a valuable corner infielder for pretty cheap. Bring back Nunez and the infield is set.
Valuable? Lol
$180,000 for a guy power is pretty cheap.
Him “starting” to hit cost them the 1st pick
Sandoval is the reason next year looks bleak for them. Instead of bringing up a young player like Arroyo and give him the thirdbase job they pray for Pablo to comeback. His defnse looked mediocre and his swing is slow. Now they are wasting a 40 man spot on him.
And why can’t they bring up Arroyo? A platoon situation until he can handle big league pitching would probably be good for him.
Right now he is wasting a 40 man spot which should go to protecting a young player from the section 5 draft. Giants need to go young not hang on to the past and waste roster space.
They have very few plyrs to protect, poor drafts, Int. Program declining
Arroyo didn’t hit much at the MLB level and suffered a season-ending injury.
Ryder Jones is a more realistic young player to plug in at third, but he didn’t hit in the majors, either, despite putting up great numbers at AAA. Jones had to play a lot at 1B at the end of the season due to Belt’s concussion.
All this talk about Sandoval is interesting but unimportant. What is important is we picked up our club option on Logan Forsythe.
Logan, who cares?
He doesn’t cost anything, a bench bat or cut after spring. Sabean said he would like to add a centerfielder and a 3rd baseman with pop and fix the bullpen.. They could get a 3rd baseman and put Arroyo at 2nd, the truth is they better get two significant adds to the offense and get a stud for that bullpen.. There are options but I wouldn’t worry to much about Pablo as you can do worse as a guy on the bench. Look at the scrubs they had sitting there at the beginning of last year.
Pablo’s biggest problem has been a lack of discipline. If he can get his ba up around .260, he is a perfectly serviceable bench player.
Big problem is how do they acquire what they obviously need as trading prospects will doom the future even more, they need to build the farm and draft well with that 2 pick in each round. So unless you get really creative with a trade that doesn’t require the top players in the farm or they need to open up that wallet and go over the luxury tax.
Pablo the panda, welcome to the bench bud. Pablo hope your happy with the Bosox paying your contract just like Hamilton and the angels.
You sound like a Trump voter. The BoSox were stupid.
At the time when Boston signed him, there were little to no red flags. The only one I can think of is his health wasn’t the greatest, playing just 117 games in 2011, and 108 games in 2012, but showed good health in 2013-14. He was a 28 year old, in his prime, who provided solid power, a good average, and ok defense. It wasn’t a dumb move for The Red Sox, who needed a 3B, because Middlebrooks wasn’t showing well at 3rd, nor performing well with the bat. Overall, it looked dumb, at the time, it looked like a good move. Plus, what does politics have to do with this?
I agree it wasn’t dumb for the Bosox to sign Sandoval, but they were dumb in another respect. SF had Sandoval on a weight regime to keep him in playing shape, since they knew he could not be left to his own devices. The Sox bypassed employing any sort of clause that could have protected their investment. That was dumb.
Who wouldn’t take up a contract like Sandoval’s for the clubs history and only paying 500k a year
Anyone who has watched him play for the last three years. The guy is beyond washed up.
Pablo is garbage hard for anyone who knows baseball to disagree. Yea he’s basically a free player for the Giants but is he worth a 25 man roster spot not a damn chance. Dude is a bum plain and simple
Only a 25 man roster spot if he makes the team out of spring training, which is hardly guaranteed.
For anyone that knows baseball this means virtually nothing. This is not any sort of commitment. It’s not a commitment for a 25-man roster spot, no young players will be exposed to the rule 5 draft, or anything of any importance. It is not beyond reality that Sandoval, now that the Giants will be monitoring his weight, still has something left. The Giants will find out, and if not, he’s gone. Being outraged that SF has picked up Sandoval’s option is an indication that that person doesn’t really know baseball..
I was wondering why the Giants extended a QO to Panda then when I read they’re only paying league minimum and the Red Sox are on the hook the 18 million, that made this Yankees fan smile.
Club option, not a QO
This Red Sox fan was also smiling since Yankees are still on the hook for 150 million contract they gave to Jacoby Ellsbury.
I would make a joke about the Giants being too sentimental to let go someone like Sandoval, but Dave Righetti isn’t the pitching coach anymore
Giants want to burn off that Panda merch.
For me, picking up sad sack Matt Moore’s option is a bigger surprise than “Panda”, who costs nothing and is a good “buy low” candidate that did win 3 world series titles as the Giants starting 3b and just turned 31 only a month or so ago….
Let him spend a full year before deciding. I want to see a full line season stats before this witch hunt. I made a list why Pablo’s hated and another list why there is logic in exercising club option (Feel free to add)
Why Pablo’s hated:
1) Red Sox fans have a reason to be infuriated at him for underperforming and swallowing all that dead money ($18MM each of the next 2 years plus $5MM buyout on his 2020 club option. Red Sox will be paying near 100% of his salary to watch him play for another team.
2) Giants have a reason to be concerned for his mediocre performance, even if it happened in 171PA and yielded .225/.263/.375 line.
3) He trashed Giants before signing with BOS. Now the shoes on the other foot (even if he did apologize)
4) Giants farm system’s infamously barren of replacements.
5) He cost the Giants the #1 overall pick, by winning final game of the season in walk-off fashion and losing the tiebreaker to the Tigers.
Good reasons for exercising his club option:
1) Players who played huge roles in winning your franchise 3 championships, deserve longer than 171 plate appearances (opinion)
2) He is only 31 years old.
3) Controlled for multiple years at the league minimum, with Boston paying $18MM in each of the next two seasons, plus $5MM buyout on 2020 option
4) Giants farm system is infamously barren.
I don’t think the Pablo Sandoval signing moves the needle either way. Yeah, he isn’t particularly good, but most people could have seen this coming years ago, and it just hammers home sometthing guys like Bill James have been talking about since the 1970s: walks are important! Wanna know if a hitter is going to age well? Look at his walk rate. Guys who don’t draw walks tend to turn into pumpkins around their 30th birthday. (Carl Crawford comes to mind here, although he was always playing hurt too). Sandoval was a guy who masked a low walk rate by a higher than average BABIP because of good contact skills (he also wasn’t a strikeout machine in his good years). The contact skills declined, as they inevitably do, the power was never huge and there wasn’t much left in his profile to make him an asset. Combined with his declining defense and baserunning, we could have seen this one coming a mile away. But, seriously, walks matter. Find an offensive player who aged well who never walked. Pretty hard to do.
Sandoval is getting paid league minimum by The Giants. It’s an extremely low risk situation. If they release him, it’s not gonna put a dent in their budget. If he does well, then it shows a good bench bat for a good price.
All the Giants need to do is extend Hunter Pence and they’re all set!
PS….Matt Moore is only 28?
The panda is back!!!
The Panda needs to be a DH on some American League team. And not play any position. Or just a pinch hitter and not a position player for a national league team. Be done with him his career is trash anyway.
It’s difficult to take folks seriously who call a WS MVP’s career “trash.”
I am not the biggest “Panda” fan at this point in his career, but it is a no brainer for the Giants to give a 31 yr old former World Series MVP another shot to stick in the Major Leagues…..
The condition of the SF Giants “Farm System” makes this move of retaining Panda MANDATORY……
All it’s costing the Giants is league minimum…..& their post-game buffet spread just tripled in cost. It’s a fair trade-off….plus he says he’s home, comfortable, already in game shape….down to 320….yea Panda!!!!
Pablo will hit 340 next year…. no idea what his batting average will be….