Giants Trade for Evan Longoria’s Mid-30s
I’m not sure a team has ever telegraphed its intent to make a splash more than the Giants. The Giants were one of the finalists for Shohei Ohtani. They were, of course, disappointed to not get him. They were also one of the finalists for Giancarlo Stanton, before Stanton invoked his no-trade clause. The Giants and Marlins had otherwise worked out an agreement. Turned down by their top two options, the Giants kept on exploring the market, looking to make an impact move. Such a move is now official. The Giants have made a big trade with the Rays.
Giants get
Rays get
Longoria used to have, for several years, more trade value than almost anyone else. It was almost impossible to imagine the Rays letting him go. But now the best player in Rays history is on the move, because, ultimately, the Rays have to act like the Rays have to act, and Longoria isn’t what he was when he was younger. Rays fans will get to remember his 20s. Giants fans will get to look ahead to his 30s. The Giants have gotten better for today, but the future of the club now looks even more challenging.
To the Rays’ credit, it looks like they handled this right. It’s never easy to let go of the face of a franchise, and Longoria has meant more than anyone else to the team and the community, but the Rays were open about this process, and Longoria was open about the fact that he didn’t want to go through another rebuild. That looks to be where the Rays are headed, so they’re giving Longoria an opportunity to star for someone else, someone in the same state where Longoria grew up. The Marlins drew some criticism for not being so open with Stanton while they were in trade talks. With Longoria, the Rays didn’t do anything wrong. That doesn’t mean this isn’t painful, but at the end of the day, Longoria’s 32, and he’s due almost another $90 million. The relationship was going to come to an end.
Enter the Giants. The Giants needed help at third base. Truth be told, the Giants needed help in lots of places, but the Giants needed help at third base. Longoria is a great deal better than Pablo Sandoval, so, in that sense, this is a fit. The Giants will now be better in 2018. Yet Longoria’s under contract through age 36. And in case you haven’t paid close attention to his career, here is a very quick summary.
| Years | Ages | PA | BB% | K% | wRC+ | DRS/150 | UZR/150 | WAR/600 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 – 2013 | 22 – 27 | 3419 | 11% | 21% | 135 | 15 | 15 | 6.2 |
| 2014 – 2017 | 28 – 31 | 2732 | 7% | 19% | 108 | -1 | 3 | 3.2 |
Younger Longoria was one of the very best players in baseball. More recent Longoria has settled for being above-average. He’s lost some of his skill at third base, and he’s also lost some of his power. By no means am I trying to suggest that Longoria has declined all the way to bad, but he’s also coming off a 96 wRC+. He’s coming off career-low offensive output, in his age-31 season. Longoria’s results got worse, and his expected results also got worse.
Because every article has to mention Statcast, there’s something alarming about Longoria’s average exit velocities. In 2015, he averaged about 90 miles per hour. In 2016, he averaged about 91. In 2017, he averaged about 87. There are 293 players who knocked at least 100 batted balls in each of the past two seasons. Longoria showed the eighth-greatest exit-velocity drop. And in case you’re wondering what that could mean, the 25 biggest drops between 2015 and 2016 averaged about -2.4 miles per hour. Come 2017, there was absolutely zero recovery, again on average. The exit velocities remained lower.
Something could be awry here, then. Longoria is missing some pop. He is, at least, coming off a career-high contact rate, and there’s value in balls in play, but the Longoria of old might be gone forever. He might now be a contact-hitting adequate defensive third baseman with roughly average power. The fact that he’s been durable is a good thing, and I’m sure the Giants also love that Longoria is a character guy, a proven leader. But, if Longoria were a free agent, I doubt he’d get $86 million guaranteed. That means his contract would be a little underwater.
Now, the Rays are including some money. I’m not sure how much. If I had to guess, it’s money for just 2018. And money is also why Span is a part of this — the Giants wanted to shed his $13-million guarantee. Span is too expensive for a veteran fourth outfielder. But then there’s also Arroyo, not to mention Krook and Woods. The Giants should have the flexibility left to add an outfielder, but just what do they think they’re going to be?
Here is a pessimistic evaluation:
Post-Longoria trade, Giants now project at 75.0 wins and have the game’s 29th-best farm system. Also, depending on calculation, possibly MLB’s highest payroll.
— NEIFI Analytics (@NEIFIco) December 20, 2017
Our own projections see the Giants around .500. Neither good nor bad. No one disagrees about the state of the farm system. The Giants are pushing to get into wild-card position. I can’t imagine they’ll end up as good as the Dodgers. They’ll be pestered by the Diamondbacks, Rockies, Cardinals, and, perhaps, the Mets and Brewers, too. It’s not that the Giants don’t have hope, and you could still picture big things from a rotation led by Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto, and Jeff Samardzija. But things pretty much need to work out in 2018. After that, it gets ugly.
In 2019, Cueto, Samardzija, Longoria, Buster Posey, Mark Melancon, Brandon Belt, and Brandon Crawford will combine to make about $124 million. The youngest among them will be 31. The following year, they’ll make the same money, and the youngest among them, of course, will be 32. After that, Melancon and Samardzija come off the books, but you’re still talking about $94 million combined, with the youngest player being 33. Each of these players is talented, but the 30s tend to be unkind. The Giants will have much of their payroll tied up in older players, necessitating an infusion of cheap young talent, and that’s not an infusion the farm is poised to deliver. It could take a small miracle for the Giants to avoid the fate of the Tigers and Phillies.
They might just be embracing that. It’s possible the Giants know the future will be dark, so they’re trying to give it one last go. That still doesn’t mean adding Longoria was the obvious thing to do, given his long-term commitment, but maybe it’s not actually as simple as just signing Todd Frazier instead. Longoria, in isolation, isn’t a terrible investment. He just piles on to the longer-term issue. Ideally, perhaps the Giants would’ve elected to start their own tear-down. It’s just so hard to imagine them trading Posey or Bumgarner. It was once hard to see the Rays trading Longoria, but, from a business perspective, maybe the Giants don’t want to think about that until they know for sure they’re screwed. For now, 2018 still has a glimmer of hope.
All this and I’ve barely even mentioned the Rays’ side of things. Longoria will probably be a bigger loss off the field than on it, since he’s more popular than he is valuable these days. The Rays just can’t afford to have a contract like his on the books for so long, not given how they operate. Span, if he sticks around, will fill in in the outfield from time to time. A few years from now people will forget he ever belonged to Tampa Bay. Arroyo is the centerpiece, a 22-year-old infielder who’s ranked as a top-100 prospect before. He’s coming off a rough big-league debut, and he also missed a half-season with an injury, but Arroyo has contact skills while being shortstop-capable. In this era, you don’t want to discount any young player who can put the bat on the ball.
Both Krook and Woods are low-level pitchers with strikeouts and control problems. They’re fliers, as prospects, worth a few million apiece. Woods is the righty and Krook is the lefty, and while, again, Krook has struggled to throw consistent strikes, he ended last season with a terrific run as a reliever, and his fastball and curveball give him a rather extreme ground-balling profile. You could therefore see Krook move pretty fast, although I should also note he’s already had Tommy John surgery once. He’s just interesting, is the point.
The Rays were probably going to have to do this eventually. Players just don’t stick around their whole careers anymore, certainly not with operations like Tampa Bay’s. The Rays handled this well, as they prepare for just another reloading or rebuilding attempt. As far as Longoria’s concerned, the Rays have now given him an opportunity to try to win. From the Giants’ side, they’d sure like to be able to win in 2018. Because, after that, it’s going to be awfully hard. As such, I’m not sure how future Longoria is going to feel about this. But the Giants don’t want to think too long or too hard about the future. They just want to focus on the very next season, because if they do things just right, they could squeak to 85 or 90 wins. From there, who knows? I don’t envy the Giants’ overall positioning, but if you’re heading for a cliff anyway, I guess you might as well make the most of the trip.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Nice of the Rays to be open with Longoria. On the other hand:
https://twitter.com/JohnSheaHey/status/943529169039761408
What is the other hand? That they should have waited for his 10/5 rights to kick in and then tried to trade him?
Y’all might think this is funny but Dodgers brass pissing their pants right now…Farhan Zaidi needs to spend a lot of $$$$ soon.
Awful trade for the Giants. Straight up stupidity
It was either this or sell everything. “Straight up stupidity” is a bit much.
Or sign/trade for anyone else from the mountain of available 3B and DON’T give up by far the best young player in the organization.
Being “by far the best young player in the” Giants’ “organization” doesn’t even mean he figures to provide more surplus value than Longoria over the next several years.
What other 3B are available? Frazier and Moustakas are the only ones on the FA market. Moustakas will come with even a bigger contract even before the savings from Span or the money the Rays kick in. Plus the Giants would lose a 2nd and 5th round picks, plus international bonus money for signing him.
Frazier would be a bit more understandable as his projection is similar, and would come with less total years. Perhaps though they explored the market and didn’t see a fit there, or the money the Rays are contributing is enough to offset the difference.
Outside of that who else is there? Machado or Donaldson would cost just as much in terms of prospect value (and likely more) and only bring back one year of value. Who is the next best trade or FA option? Josh Harrison I guess, and there is no guarantee he’d be dealt.
If the goal is to push all in for 2018, trading for Machado or Donaldson makes a ton of sense because they are significantly better than Longoria so adding one of them might actually push the Giants into the 2018 playoff picture, and neither comes with $13.5-$19.5 million commitments through the player’s age 36 season like Longoria.
Signing Frazier also makes sense. Buster Olney agrees: https://twitter.com/Buster_ESPN/status/943611970103709699
Anything but this.
The Giants don’t have what the Jays/Orioles want. Of coarse theyd make better sense but the reality is the cost is significantly more than LonGo
I get the Frazier appeal, I will say I think Longoria not only projects to be better (albeit) similar to Frazier, but also probably safer than Frazier esp. for any hope that he gets back to his 2016 and prior production (not saying he’ll be a 7 WAR player again, but could maybe have some 4-5 WAR years. Frazier has had a couple 4 WAR years, but they are of course fewer and a 2 yrs since his last one, not one year. Again not a huge difference, but I think it’s there.
Frazier’s cost over the next 2-3 yrs is likely to be pretty similar to Longoria’s even without the cash kicked in by the Rays and def. not counting the $ saved from Span.
As for Machado or Donaldson, sure they should have taken a shot at them, but I think the price would be higher and no way are those teams kicking in money or taking back Span.
Why not trade for a guy like Forsythe, Freese, Headley, etc.? Or sign Eduardo Nunez?
None of them project as good as Longoria for next year, but it would have allowed them to split the difference between totally mortgaging their future and selling off now.
BA had Arroyo as Giants’ fourth best prospect a month ago so I have no idea what you are talking about.
Arroyo is no longer eligible…
The 2018 BA top 10’s are out for some teams, including the Giants, and Arroyo is still eligible and still 4th.
Heliot Ramos is the “best young player in the organization.” Arroyo is not too exciting, BA has him as the Giant’s 4th best and with baseball’s 29th best minor league system he’s just not important. Getting even older with Longoria is distressing, and so’s this trade, but not because of Arroyo. It’s about taking even more long-term debt.
Especially since they can’t actually “sell everything,” considering the NTCs they’ve given out.
I don’t think much of Arroyo, but even if he never pans out, this is not a good idea for the Giants.
It would have been better to stand pat and add a few mid-tier free agents instead. Or trade for an aging third basemen that doesn’t have a huge contract (Headley, Beltre, etc.?).
Now they are really hamstrung going forward.
Can’t argue with that logic.
Forsthye to the Dodgers last year was straight up stupidity…this is actually gonna work out great for the giants next 3 seasons…
Yeah, that worked out horribly, what with the NL pennant and all.
Right after your gm blew his entire load the past 2 seasons. Good luck getting back there
Nice greenhouse, Preller.
I think that the decision to get a third baseman by the Giants is reasonable for the reasons Jeff lays out. Yeah this is going to be an expensive and very old team and not very good team in 2020 but they also have a lot of no-trade clauses so they can’t tear down. If they don’t believe in Arroyo then they just spent money. There are no easy options here.
My big concerns if I’m a Giants fan are twofold:
1) Whether this is going to prevent them from a free-agency splurge later down the line. If not, then I’d be pretty happy my team was willing to throw money at the problem for a long-shot wild card berth.
2) Whether this indicates they’re going to keep trading prospects for diminishing returns. Even if the front office doesn’t think Arroyo is going to make it, it might signal that they’d be open to moving Heliot Ramos and whoever they draft next year. Borrowing from 2020 to for a quixotic quest in 2018 wouldn’t bother me, but borrowing from 2022 might.
Yup. They’re almost certainly screwed in 2020, no matter what happens, and they genuinely aren’t capable of selling.
Wringing our hands about 2020 looking slightly worse seems like a waste of emotional energy.
*Longoria is going into his age 32 season and is guaranteed $86M. wRC+ is 109 over the last 2yrs
*Cozart, also 32, just signed for 3/$38 to play 3B. wRC+ is 116 over last 2yrs
Both are projected for a little over 3 WAR next year. The three prospects that the Giants sent are also easily worth more than the $13 owed to Span.
-What are the Giants thinking??
Huge overpay based on current market rates. And Todd Frazier, also 32, is only a little worse than Longoria/Cozart and will cost less than both. Giants had options and chose poorly
That is a bit deceptive, as it heavily weights Cozart’s massive outlier offensive production last season and compares it to Longoria’s worst offensive season.
Cozart’s wRC+ had never cracked 100 before in any of his full seasons, where as Longoria’s wRC+ had never dipped below 105 prior to last year. Cozart’s 3 WAR projection is made up almost entirely of his defensive value, where as Longoria’s offense carries his projection (though his defense helps some as well). Given that the Giants offensive WAR last year was the worst in baseball, it’s not surprising that they’d value a 3 WAR offensive player greater than a 3 WAR defensive player.
I disagree that it’s deceptive to compare the last two years for Cozart/Longoria. The most recent info is what should be weighted most heavily in a projection. Cozart has been really good in his last 1000+ PA’s. And Longoria is slipping. And the fact that most of Cozart’s 3+ WAR projection is made up of defensive value makes no difference. SF needs wins. Doesn’t matter how they get them. This is likely a plus for Cozart, because if he maintains even a portion of his offensive gains from last year then he is easily at 4+ WAR again next year. SF has huge holes in the OF and wasting money like this doesn’t help.
You are basing Cozart’s numbers on an unsustainable offensive season. No one thinks that Cozart is a better hitter than Longoria, despite what the numbers showed last yr. This is not a case where Cozart is younger and just hitting his prime either. If you are worried that Longoria’s bat will decline with age, why is that concern not there with a guy like Cozart who is basically the same age and has no sort of track record to fall back on.
Defense was not the Giants problem last year, while it could have been a bit better, and their pitching disappointed it was their league worst wOBA/ wRC+ that wrecked their season. Some of that can be attributed to down years of guys who can bounce back, but a lot of it was the massive holes at 3B and in the OF. This deal gives them a player who has a good shot of being over 100 wRC+ and maybe even in the next tier. A guy like Cozart would be an improvement offensively, but his defensive value upgrade might not be as much given that Arroyo projects to be a pretty good defender.
I’m not sure where they are “wasting money” here, if you are arguing for Cozart, he is getting $12.66M this year, Longoria’s contract is for $13.66M this year. While Cozart’s salary stays flat, Longoria’s rises to $14.66M in 2019 and $15.16M in 2020. So over the 3 yr term Longoria is making a grand total of $5.5M more. With the Rays kicking in some money it’s likely a wash even if you discount the savings from Span’s deal (which looks to be $16M if the signing bonus payment on 1/20/2018 is now on the Rays).
Longoria doe have bigger hits in 2021 and 2022, and maybe those will be completely prohibitive, but the reality is this isn’t costing the Giants any more really than if they signed Cozart, esp. considering the money they save from the Span deal.
Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. I don’t think it makes sense to only look at Cozart/Longoria’s salaries for the next three year and proclaim ‘cost parity’. I’m sure JD Martinez would accept only $40M over the next 3yrs if you also pay him $120M over the following 4yrs. The reality is that Longoria costs $86M, Cozart $38M, and Frazier even less. I believe the Giants could have spent $86M (+ prospects) far more efficiently to address their 3B & OF needs.
You seem to be treating that $86M as it’s all up front, it’s spread out over 5 years. That is just $17M a year. It’s not cheap, but it’s not exactly dead money either. A lot of the $ is in the final 2 years, so any “savings” of it is only assumed vs another player signed or traded for with control during those years. Also what is the value of a win expected to be at the back end of the deal $13-14M? So if Longoria is even less than a 2WAR player it’s not a bad deal.
By the way it is now being reported that the Rays are kicking in $10-15M
I don’t know if you would call this version of Evan Longoria an “offensive player”. Longoria had a good offensive output last year, but the two years before that he was just a touch above average.
I haven’t done the math on this, but it looks like if you take Longoria’s 3 year average and Cozart’s 3 year average you’re looking at pretty similar offensive contributions.
That only works if you say that Cozart’s 2015 season of 52 games is equal to his 16 and 17 campaigns of over 120 games. (worth noting here that Cozart has missed a lot of time over the last 3 years).
And again it is significantly influenced by his 2017 huge offensive production which was atypical for him. The odds of him averaging out a 110 or higher wRC+ over the next 3 years has to be pretty small. Longoria on the other hand that seems like a reasonable projection (and likely over 150-160 games).
Nah, I included that in my quick eyeball calculations–you weight it by PAs it comes out to about 110 wRC+ for both. Lemme do the math real quick to check.
[opens excel]
Cozart comes out to 114.2384 wRC+, while Longoria comes out to 109.3883.
So yeah, over a 3 year window if you weight by PA Cozart beats Longoria on offense. You have to go back 4 years, when Cozart was horrific but Longoria’s wRC+ barely budges, before Longoria has a clear edge.
It’s pretty clear that on a rate basis, Cozart at half the salary is a pretty good deal compared to Longoria. The real argument (that you allude to) for Longoria over Cozart is that while Longoria’s salary is double Cozart’s, he’s also had nearly twice as many PAs. Longoria’s super-durable.
Longoria projected for 3.1 WAR
Cozart projected for 3.4 WAR
wins are wins.
Longoria is much more expensive- you are right it’s only about 5m more each year until 2020, but then you also have to back-end years with Longoria in his late 30s.
The prospects have value similar to the Span money, so this is costing SFG alot more than signing Cozart.
What makes you think they didn’t go after Cozart, rather than they thinking they probably did and he said no?
Maybe they did, but I think the point is that they could have kept increasing the offer to Cozart for quite a long time before getting to the point where it was a worse deal than the Longoria one.
Unless you think Cozart was going to turn down an extra $10 million.
Tampa pays 14.5 million plus the 13 million due Span. If this boils down to $60 million plus two non-spectacular prospects for five years of Longoria—well, it doesn’t feel like an overpay, even compared to Cozart’s deal.
Oh I don’t know, the prospect of playing with Otani and Trout has to be pretty appealing for a player, compared to a Giants team rather lacking in excitement value.
Tangential question — what is Toronto’s strategy now? Rays are in tear down, and Orioles are done. If I were a Jay’s fan, I’d want them to give it one more shot – it will be tough to catch Boston and/or New York, but those two will likely get even stronger in the years to come. So what would a “go for it now” Toronto strategy look like?
Interesting question.
Probably need to address the middle infield as both Tulo and Travis are perpetually hurt. Cozart would have been a great idea, but who now? Walker? Nunez? Phillips? All 2B, none SS.
Donaldson should be solid, assuming health.
Need another wing-and-a-prayer season from Smoak or who: Alonso, Carter, Duda, LoMo, Napoli, Reynolds? Can Frazier play 1st? They’re not going to be a player for Hosmer (but that may be a good thing, anyway).
Need at least one, and maybe two, outfielders. Pillar + Hernandez + who? Bruce or Cain might work (if Bruce is cheap enough)? Dyson, A. Jackson, Maybin, R. Davis have anything left? There might actually be some outfielders to pick from here.
Probably should upgrade at catcher. Avila? Lucroy?
Pitching staff looks to be above average: Stroman, Happ, Estrada, Sanchez, Biagini. They’re not going to be in on Darvish or Arrieta. Cashner as a depth piece?
Could try to sign a reliever or two I suppose.
How about trades? Don’t think the Orioles or Rays are going to trade in division. They could call the Marlins to find out about Realmuto (C), Bour (1B) or Yelich (OF) and maybe even Dietrich for MI (but he had a brutal year last year after a decent 2016). Call the Phillies about Williams or Altherr now that they have seemingly moved Hoskins to OF after signing Santana or St. Louis about Fowler or Grichuk? I wonder if the D-backs would part with either Owings or Ahmed at SS? Lowrie and/or Semien from Oakland?
All right, more questions than answers at this point, so what do we have as best bets:
C: Sign Lucroy and Realmuto in blockbuster with Marlins
1B: Bour in blockbuster trade with Marlins
2B: Lowrie (Dietrich back up in blockbuster with Marlins)
SS: Owings/Ahmed in trade with D-Backs (Dietrich backup)
3B: Donaldson
OF: Pillar, Hernandez, Yelich (in blockbuster with Marlins), A. Jackson in case Hernandez sucks, Dyson
DH: Morales (ugh), then Duda and Frazier.
SP: Cashner
RP: Take your pick.
Man, they need a lot of help and it won’t be cheap!
I don’t think Toronto has the farm system to trade for Yelich and Realmuto (to say nothing of the add ons for Bour and Dietrich).
Vlad Jr. and Bichette maybe get you Yelich, but then there isn’t much left for the value that Realmuto has. Bour and Dietrich obviously are less valuable, but they are cheap enough that you have to add something.
Yeah, you’re probably right about the prospects, unless they take on some of the Marlins’ bad contracts like Tazawa. That, and no one this season has accused Derek Jeter of being particularly shrewd.
Tulo and Travis project for ~2 WAR each. They’ve had injury problems but so have lots of players, the idea that they are basically worthless is just a false meme that came up when discussing the Donaldson-to-Cardinals hypothetical. Lowry and Owings, for example, have also both had similar injury history.
Tulo, for example, has missed less time in the past 3 years that Lowrie and projects for more war (2.5 to 1.8). Owings has had injury trouble and projects for 0.2 WAR, while Travis projects for 1.8.
There’s a solid chance that Lowrie and Owings would be two expensive downgrades. Dietrich also projects for 1.0 WAR and has never played 136 games in a season, having knee problems in 2016. Plus you have left out Diaz, who projects for 1.0 WAR, and 1.9 WAR per 600 PA.
Cashner projects for 0.9 WAR, he adds nothing above what Toronto has.
Bour projects for 1.9 WAR, he’d add only 0.4 WAR over Steve Pearce’s projection (1.5 WAR).
Signing Lucroy and getting Realmuto is unrealistic and needless- Lucroy wouldn’t sign a pillow deal to be a backup, and the Jays already have Martin (2.6) and Jansen (0.6 WAR, just 22) at C- so adding Lucroy/Realmuto wouldn’t be a substantial upgrade. They also have Reece McGuire as a decent prospect hitting AAA next year.
Morales has been worth 0.4 WAR combined over the past 4 seasons, so 0.1 WAR per year. Toronto has several better options at DH already.
I don’t think any of those moves would help, save Yelich but that would mean giving up Bichette or Vlad Jr, so that would seem very poor as well.
The Jays simply need the 2nd wild card sport to be in the low 90s to have a shot, they have a superstar in Donaldson, 6-9 other guys who project around average in the field, and
a legit 2-3-4 in Stroman, Sanchez/Happ.
The Jays project for ~82 wins at the moment (i.e 34 WAR, 23 Off, 11 pitching). They can add 4 projected wins by adding one more #3 SP (i.e ~2.8 WAR) over Borucki, plus a couple Hunter/Neshak type (i.e. 0.8 WAR, $9m) relievers over the 0.2 projected guys they currently have. That would put them around 86, close enough to see how the season starts and see how ready the youth look.
Yeah, I hear what you are saying, but remember WAR is just a point estimate, not a distribution. If the Jays want to make the playoffs, their only option is likely the 2nd wildcard (assuming NY, BOS, HOU, CLE are locked in) and to beat out the others (MINN, OAK, SEA, TX and the rapidly improving LAA) they’re going to have to take some risks. Owens was breaking out before getting hurt last year whereas Tulo has no where to go but down due to age and history. You’re probably right about not needing both Realmuto and Lucroy but Realmuto had a breakout season last year whereas Martin, like Tulo, has no where to go but down. So while Tulo/Martin may have similar or even better WAR projections than Owens/Realmuto, the former likely has downside skew to the distribution while the latter likely has upside skew.
IIRC, the only big contract commitments they have at the moment are Tulo and maybe Martin. So they could afford to make a push for one big upgrade (J.D. Martinez) but probably not more. And ideally, they should be careful about any no-trade clause to said star, so they can pivot to a rebuild if the future looks Giants-y.
Other than that, they and others in the same boat should just wait out the glut of mid-level free agents and see if they can snap up a bargain or three.
What I don’t get about the Giants strategy is the idea that they should get under the tax. I get it that it’s getting expensive, but this is a team that has maybe one or two years of even thinking about being competitive.
On the plus side this team has an infield of Belt, Panik, Crawford, Longoria and Posey at catcher. That group combined has a projected WAR of 16, and given the track records of those players it wouldn’t be surprising to see it closer to 19 or 20. In addition their pitching staff projected WAR is 15, which is currently the 13th best projection and it’s also easy to see how that mark could jump if MB and JC return to form.
Obviously they desperately need OF help, and they prob. could use another starter and solid reliever, but this is not a team that should look to reset their tax rate. I would make one last push for a run this year or next.
What if they are resetting their tax rate to make a push next year by signing big FAs for which they otherwise couldn’t offer as much as the Dodgers/Yankees/Red So?
The issue is that the Dodgers and Yankees are also resetting their tax rate, this season.
They simply aren’t good- it makes sense to get under the tax if they aren’t trading anyone good. Obvious and hard to pull off, but not impossible.
I wonder how much SF would have to eat on the Melancon deal to use Miguel Gomez to move him- 8m total? Gomez projects for big surplus value if used, but even in a 200 PA/year role projects for $20m surplus. A speculative +$20m and another $8m would make Melancon a $5m a year guy. I assume Pence would block any deals.
Wait, I thought the Marlins got criticism for being too open in the Stanton trade talks, thus giving up their purported leverage…
There was though the silly story that Jeter didn’t personally meet with Stanton (because the meeting was handled by the Marlins’ GM Michael Hill).
If we’re already pretending that the Marlins have more revenue than the Rays, might as well be in for the proverbial pound!
Yea a very transparent coordinated smear job by the the sport tabloid/Disney Sport media and Boras, nearly every detail related to Miami matters exaggerated and in-step with Boras.
Pretty amazing to compare the normal press reaction to this deal, compared to the Boras/ESPN style smear towards Miami for a very similar situation.
“Don’t be afraid to get older” is a good tip for most of us.
The problem, for me as a Giants fan, is that the current depth chart in the outfield shows Jarret Parker/Mac Williamson in left, Gorkys Hernandez in center, and Hunter Pence in right. And still no leadoff hitter, and the highest payroll in the majors. So they’re not done yet.
Too much importance is put on tanking around these parts. Ownership does not want to tank, it’s not good for the brand or the bottom line when the team has surrendered before the season has even began.
I’m glad the Cardinals didn’t get stuck with Longoria. He’s arguably not even an upgrade over Jedd Gyorko, anyway.
“In this era, you don’t want to discount any young player who can put the bat on the ball.”
Are you referring to the juiced-ball/fly-ball era? Or rather that he hasn’t struck out at a high clip in his minor league career thus far?
Both.