Giants Find a Third Baseman in Evan Longoria
The Giants had a hole at third base. The Rays are cutting payroll and looking to the future, again. So today, they struck a deal.
Source: Giants get Evan Longoria for Christian Arroyo, Denard Span, Matt Krook and Stephen Woods.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 20, 2017
Longoria has $86 million left over the remaining five years of his contract, so Span’s inclusion is a salary offset in order to help the team stay under the CBT threshold. The Rays are also sending an undisclosed amount of cash in the deal, so we’re exactly sure how much of that $86 million the Giants are picking up.
Longoria is still a nice player, projected for +3 WAR in 2018, but I do wonder if the Giants should have just signed Todd Frazier instead. For comparison, here are their numbers over the last three years.
| Name | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | wRC+ | BsR | Off | Def | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Evan Longoria | 2032 | 0.268 | 0.320 | 0.461 | 0.330 | 109 | 3.2 | 25.0 | 13.9 | 11.1 |
| Todd Frazier | 1920 | 0.233 | 0.317 | 0.466 | 0.334 | 110 | -1.8 | 20.1 | 13.7 | 10.0 |
Both the crowd and I thought Frazier would sign for 3/$42M, or roughly half of what Longoria is still owed. Signing Frazier wouldn’t have cleared Span’s money off the books, of course, but they probably could have gotten a comparable player for a less significant financial commitment without surrendering with any real talent.
Of course, neither of the pitchers in this deal look like much, and Christian Arroyo has always struck me as wildly overrated, so I don’t think the Giants gave up tons of long-term value here. But given that they aren’t that close to contention, I’m not sure Longoria moves the needle enough to justify taking on this kind of money. Even with Longoria, the Giants still aren’t very good, and now they have even less money to spend to fix their dreadful outfield.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
I recall the days Longo was firmly entrenched as number one trade asset in baseball. Aging I am.
Giants reportedly want Jay Bruce now (Olney) ………….
Oh Lord.
So…the Giants strategy is 1) rebuilding is a myth and 2) “we can win 80 games this year”?
Even the most optimistic “everybody who sucked last year has a strong bounceback year in 2018” puts them 3rd in their division at best. Adding Longoria and Bruce makes them about two spots closer to a wild card spot but still not actually holding one.
Maybe the plan really is to keep the fans interested and just save enough payroll to re-sign Bumgarner.
http://www.spotrac.com/mlb/san-francisco-giants/yearly/payroll/
Oh, oh my. This is what the proverbial “window slamming shut” looks like, especially when considering their trash farm system.
So I guess this means Pablo ain’t comin’ back… I wonder what Longo looks like in a pando suit?
Better than Sandoval for sure.
Is it true they have less money for the OF? Bob Nightengale said on twitter this actually saves them $1M for 2018 somehow…I have no idea how the luxury tax works
Fun fact: Christian Arroyo and Cody Bellinger debuted in the same game.
Funner fact: People thought that would actually be a thing.
Is this better than signing Moustakas? Seems like they gave up a lot and still have to pay him more than Moose will get.
Will be interesting to see who is better over the next 4 years
Travis wrote an article here on how Moustakas was a bad fit for SF’s home stadium.
That’s certainly true – take away Moose’s power and there is not much there. Probably not enough games at AZ or CO to make up for suppressed power in 81 home games
Right, and since we don’t think for ourselves this is now Bible.
Looks like the plan is to try and make runs with the gang until MadBum becomes a free agent, and then be a very, very expensive and old team.
My opinion was that the Giants should probably stop digging themselves a deeper hole financially and prospect-wise, given that they’re not exactly favorites (or even close to it) in that brutal division. I guess this doesn’t matter so much if they don’t care about the talent they gave up. But man, this is going to be ugly in 2020.
Arroyo’s no big loss, but it also points out the abject poverty of their farm system that he was considered one of their best prospects. It seems like the moves they want to make move them toward the center of the pack than anything else, which is probably the last place you ever want to be when you’re any of 1) old, 2) bad or 3) expensive. That’s quite a trifecta.
“But man, this is going to be ugly in 2020.”
No doubt, but it was already blindingly ugly this year, too, and at some point there is a threshold beyond where extremes become indistinguishable. Or maybe that only applies to subjective experiences like pain–wins can always be counted. Ouch, for now and a long time to come.
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering…
~ Anonymous Mets fan
Doubt it will be all that great before then, I dont realistically see the Giants beating the Cubs, Nats, Dodgers, Cle, Nyy, Bos or any of the other top teams in the next two years. I don’t even see them being the best team in the Bay Area in any of the next 3 years.
With how bad it will get winning enough to draft in the middle of the pact while getting zero return on MadBum/Posey/Shark before they leave or lose value, and still having a ton of low value long term commitments stretching into 2023, they might not beat the A’s record in any season until after a new stadium in OAK has opened!
Even at Longoria’s age he still has +4 WAR upside. Frazier’s skill set would have been an awkward fit to play half his games at AT&T Park.
Regardless of proximity to contention this could be an absolute heist for SF given that they got to dump salary and also received cash in return. If there is a bounce back candidate in the NL it’s SF who could have 7 players put up 4+ WAR if they have the same amount of good luck in 2018 as bad luck in 2017.
“If there is a bounce back candidate in the NL it’s SF who could have 7 players put up 4+ WAR”
Thanks, I needed the laugh.
How’s that funny? Posey, Belt, Panik, Crawford, Longo, Bum, and Cueto have each put up a 4+ WAR season in the last two years.
Add to that Shark, owner of the league’s best K/BB ratio in ’17, a healthy Melancon, and Hunter Pence, who’s quietly delivered four 120 wRC+ seasons in the last five years, and you have quite the ballclub.
People are wildly underrating SF’s core
Yep. You know how far back you have to go to find 4 WAR, 5 WAR, and even 6 WAR seasons for some of these guys? 2015. At the most. 2016 for most of them. Now, Panik’s great year was the outlier, and Crawford and Pence are on their downward trend, but Shark? Posey? MadBum? Belt? Cueto? These guys aren’t 35, folks.
Even Jay Bruce is 30. (I know, I was surprised too)
They aren’t 35 yet but name one that is still on the correct side of the aging curve 32 year olds like Crawford dont peak later, catchers getting into the 30’s dont usually keep it up. Most of them should be in the gradual decline part as opposed to the steeper part of the curve, but none should be expected to peak any further outside of Bum. You get maybe one more peak season out of each in the remainder of the deals, and its no guarantee it happens in the same year for each.
Most of those contracts have either moderate surplus value or are underwater, with only Bum/Posey having premium trade value. Belt at 17mm a season for 4 more years isnt getting you much. Cueto and his money after 2017 arent getting you much. Crawford and Panik arent worth much. Melancon, Pence, Belt, Crawford, Cueto would all go unclaimed if they were DFA’d right now I think. So Moore out means more pitching needs, any trade that saves you money opens another hole, and a lot of the big money deals are looking especially low in value right now after coming off an MLB worst 2017 season, and those guys were a big part of why!
Also with the way the game is trending right now 32 is the new 35, and cost controlled players are King!
And the convenient point you left out is that what one of those players actually did it last season. Most of those guys are past the aging curve peak, and should be expected to decline. Also most people seem to feel Panik and Crawford likely had career years, and asking for a repeat isnt likely. They have enough marketable upside in a lot of those players that they could get value back for most of them.
If they went full teardown and traded most of those guys with some money to get better returns. It would bring the farm back to middle of the pack and free up a big chunk of payroll even keeping some on the books for 2018-19. Take the money you free up and sign as many of the FA that can be scooped up late for less as you can, and then you have the option of dealing them too. You do that and maybe you resign Bum in 2020 to lead your new young core. SF is oldschooling themselves into a deep dark hole though. Poor drafting and developing, while constantly paying market price for wins to augment your team will end badly.
Glad I was able to make you laugh. Seems you’re the only one who thinks it’s a joke, so that’s fine.
Whew, that was good sarcasm there man. Funny stuff.
4+ seems like a big stretch for Longoria. 3 of the past 4 years he has been essentially league avg at the plate, due in large part to his rapidly cratering OBP/SLG, and he is moving to a less friendly hitter park. At 32 it seems unlikely that his defence is going to get better so I have a hard time seeing how he gets to 4+ wins. I would probably even take the under on 3.
They actually have 9 players on their roster who have put up 4+ win seasons in their careers, 6 of whom did it in in 2016. Is it really that hard to believe that guys like Posey, Belt, Crawford, Longoria, MadBum and Cueto might have good years and or not get hurt in 2018? (Panik, Pence and Samardzjia have also had 4+ WAR seasons).
I love Fangraphs but sometimes you guys need to have the ability to think for yourselves and not just look at a projection number and think it’s the holy grail.
Trust my gut rather than blindly following the projections?!!
You mean like those idiots who said that Aaron Judge had a history of making adjustments and improving his contact numbers after a rough start, so it might be premature to claim that he’ll never hit .240 in the MLB?
How did THAT work out?
Hey, just because that was wrong (and was it ever wrong) doesn’t mean the logic wasn’t sound. Hitters who have those kind of strikeout issues are not good bets.
Besides, let’s not be jerks.
Us not being jerks is obviously too much to ask for, and I don’t necessarily think this specific Giants team is the best stalking horse for this argument, but I do think there’s something to be said in the general case about how overestimating the chances of the median projection can lead you to make bad strategic decisions (and I do agree that that’s a problem I see in a lot of comments and sometimes even articles around here). The projections have super-high variance, and a good strategy will take that into account rather than just shrugging and figuring it’ll all even out in the wash — which it of course often doesn’t over the course of any given season.
Not saying this is necessarily the case with this Giants move, though I think it arguably might be, but — at least sometimes it probably is a better strategy, with the assets a team has at its disposal, to take the best gamble they can on upside with a core group of players and just resign themselves to having a crappy season if things don’t work out the right way.
I would generally agree with this. I’ve long wanted to see some sort of spread statistic on the projections because I suspect that it is really big. This is why I think the people who say the Dodgers or Cubs have a playoff spot locked up are being far too deterministic about games that haven’t been played yet.
The difference, I think, is that it is a lot easier for a team to lose value unexpectedly (due to injuries) than it is for a team to suddenly gain a bunch of value unexpectedly. But even then, it’s not impossible for a team to overperform by 8-10 games to their projection, and this puts them within striking distance of wild card territory in the projections (81 wins, I think).
I do think that the Giants are making a defensible (if not slam-dunk) decision to give it a couple more shots as long as they have Bumgarner and hope for the best. Their players have no-trade clauses so it’s not like they can do a teardown. If they don’t believe in Arroyo, this only cost them money. The Giants are in a position where there aren’t any obvious options.
Yeah, exactly.
The Giants are at 81 on the win curve. Let’s say that’s post Longoria (I don’t know that it is or isn’t). The worst team to make the playoffs the last 3 three years had an average of 86 wins. I GUARANTEE there are five wins of varience in EVERY teams projection on the win curve.
The error bars arnt going to be split equally for each team. Some will have a lot of upside, usually younger players that have recently improved, and some will have more downside like older more injury prone players. So you will have some 80 win teams with a decent chance at 90 if things go to the highside with most members, or a team like SFG that projected as a playoff contender in 2017 and watched injury and underperformance drag the team almost to the bottom of the projectable outcomes.
2017 still happened and it matters to 2018s projections.
Teams with strong minor league systems have higher potential for gaining value.
MLB 25 man rosters will always have less value then projected with WAR600 at bats, and value swings in projections have a lot to do with projected ABs, for those 25 players over the course of a season since any injuries remove value from the total. The real question is when you lose that value to injury how much of it does the replacement make up for? If you get surplus value out of your replacements you beat your projections, if the replacements are below avg you get compounding negative value depending on how positive the player being replaced is.
Do we really think all SFG will have a career year in 2018 after 2017 at the ages they now are? And when the inevitable injuries occur what will that farm system be able to do in terms of in house replacements or facilitating acquisitions. Ever since getting Beltran for Wheeler SF has either bought or traded for almost every additional win. They have had a consistent bleeding of the minor league system to prop up a major league contender. Payroll has risen dramatically since 2010 and the farm has been depleted more and more since 2015.
And I’m sure they’re absolutely devastated by their performance “since getting Beltran for Wheeler”!
Yeah, it’s also worth noting that Sabean does stuff like this all the time, haha. The boom or bust roster is practically his staple.
They dont project to be anywhere near 2017 bad next year, but they also project behind OAK in the very back of the potential wild card contenders. They are hanging out in the top of the bottom 3rd, without the assets necessary to improve enough to justify sacrificing future value for where it gets them in the 2018 race. The only way they could dramatically improve is a spending spree, since they have 1 good trade package worth of minor league talent, and that hurts them within a season or two, damages the next 5-7 years payroll, and still wouldnt even make them favorites for the division.
How much future pain is it worth to chase a wild card berth and pray for more miracles.
I’m pretty sure everyone who thought Judge might be able to reduce his strikeouts, based on his past history of doing so when repeating a level, was being an idiot for not blindly regurgitating the projections and taking him off the Top 100 list.
Just like anyone who believed it unlikely that Sandoval would increase his wRC+ by over 10 points in 2015, after it had declined in each of the previous three seasons.
Or, back in the day, How anyone who didn’t realize that Ricky Nolasco was a good #3 starter didn’t understand DIPS.
If there’s one takeaway to be had from my years in the FG comment section, it’s that projections are not a useful tool in gauging the statistical evaluation of a player’s true talent, but rather the inerrant Word of God.
So three out of how many players projected per season since 2015 were wrong? Ok. Lets use those three to discredit projections for valuation of players.
Finish reading comments before you reply to them.
Some of them will probably bounce back some, but depending on a bunch of early 30s guys to turn the clock back 2 years is not a great bet.
If Posey, Crawford, Belt, Longoria, Bumgarner, and Cueto all turn the clock back to 2016 they would have six players with 4+ WAR. Then they have an average player in Panik at 2nd, one average player in the outfield (Pence), and the inconsistent Shark as 3rd in the rotation. Ideally, Melancon turns back into a good closer, and the inconstencies of relievers break in their favor so that it isn’t a weakness. Hopefully Blach and Stratton keep the back end of the rotation afloat, and absolutely no one gets hurt. And with all those things they still have no one to play two outfield spots.
This is almost certainly what the Giants are thinking, but wow do a lot of things have to break right for them.
With almost no payroll room for in-season upgrades
If nothing else, Sabean is great at putting the Giants in a position to take advantage of things breaking right.
I counted six If’s, two Ideally’s, and three Hopefully’s in your post to get the Giants within sight of knocking on the door of contention. I think that about sums it up.
It makes me wonder who in their FO wears the rosiest tinted glasses. It seems Old Sabes stares (glares) at the world through the bottom of a bottle, and if refraction through water distorts one’s view, it ought to much moreso through the stronger stuff.
Seriously, though, I’d say the jury is still out on Slater and Parker. Even Hernandez, too, his primary value being defense. Any of those three might be as good as Pence going forward, whatever that turns out to mean.
so 4 mediocre to bad OF?
And a number 4-5 SP for a first division team sliding the current two down enough to have some semblance of a depth chart at SP. Me thinks they wish to much on this one, and the more they try the worse the future becomes. It would cost 40mm in 2018 to make this team close to a division champ contender.
I’m not in any way implying that I think SF is going to have a 50+ WAR roster. They would need plenty of good fortune to get there, as I stated, but if they receive the equal amount of good luck in 2018 as the amount of bad luck in 2017 that led to them having the worst record in the league then they will almost certainly be in contention. The plexiglass principle swings both ways. Just look at the 2013 to 2014 Red Sox. If that team could go from first to worst, the Giants can certainly go worst to playoffs with this roster.
Is it really true that they aren’t that close to contention? They were awful last year but they were projected for 88 wins before the season. They had some tough injuries and some poor performances but there’s a lot of talent on this team, even with an awful outfield. It’s not like their core is that old either. Posey is only 30 and he’s the oldest of Posey, Bum, Belt and co.
Yes
They had A tough injury. The rest were not hurt any more then you expect players with the age and milage they have to be. So not letting MadBum dirt bike is not going to get you back to 88.
Belt missed the last 2 months of the season, Melancon and Will Smith killed their BP depth, Cueto had blister issues most of the year. That’s their best hitter from 2016, expected top 2 relievers, and 2nd best pitcher in addition to their ace.
I’m not saying they should be favorites for a WC spot but it’s silly to act like they have no shot. Very few teams each year have no shot. Based on this comment section you would think their core was way past it’s prime. In reality they’re all right around 30 y.o. No reason to think they can’t find their way into a WC spot if things break their way.
I don’t know what the Giants are doing. I’m an A’s fan, so I’m happy they are plowing forward to being old, shitty and expensive for many years, but this just doesn’t make any sense.
Why add a 32 year old in decline mode and give up one of your top 5 prospects. I know Arroyo is not loved by all, but the dude is only 22 and he’s had success in the high minors, so he at least has a chance to be as good or better (not to mention WAY cheaper) than Longoria over the next 5 years.
And now they are talking about adding Jay Bruce??? Adding low OPS over 30 guys is not going to look good in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022…
how’s that invaded meth lab you call a stadium these days?
think you guys’ll Tarp Out on Opening Day? Btw, where can I find a Tarp out leaderboard on FanGraphs? Would that be in the ‘leaders’ section?
Pretty shitty! MAN IF ONLY THE GIANTS OWNERS WERENT TOTAL DICKS AND GAVE US BACK THE RIGHTS TO SAN JOSE WE GAVE THEM!!!!! FOR FREE!!!!!! IN THE EARLY 90S. I JUST DONT KNOW WHY WE ARE BITTER ABOUT OUR NEIGHBOR TRYING TO RUN US OUT OF TOWN SO THEY CAN TAKE OUR PROPERTY TOO. WOULD HAVE HAD A BALLPARK IN SJ IN 2009 IF YOU FUCKERS DIDNT SUCK!
AFTER WE WERE SO NICE WHEN THEY WERE IN A SHITTY BALLPARK AND NEEDED HELP!
I used to like both Bay Area teams, but the Giants ownership sucks ass, and I detest the team because of them. I can appreciate the Giants good players, but Baer and his crew are the fucking worst!
Totally stupid! Staff if the crabs come out and register a verdict in SAN Jose! For FREE! In the early 90 ‘s, I don’t know why we have to add efforts to get away from the city, so that they can take ownership of our own end. In the year 2009 there was a ballpark in NORTH one if the first FT SUCK!
After what we have done so on Friday, when the glittering Ballet and I need help!
I like grouping in regional, but huge funds, and therefore was a disgusting team. I appreciate a good player of the Giants, but the bear and his group are the worst!
Quick help this guy I think he had a stroke!
Can you name the last prospect Brian Sabean has regretted trading?
I doubt Sabean regrets anything at all. And anything he should regret gets washed away with another tall drink.
Alright, can you name one he should regret trading?
The Giants, last year and next, would be improved by Luis Castillo and Adam Duvall, both traded away to get guys who were gone within a couple months of being aquired. Couldn’t hurt for them to have Adalberto Mejia either.
It certainly doesn’t hurt to have Santos and Anderson.
I guess Duvall would have been a great bet to step in for Nunez after they sold at the deadline? He can’t play CF, so he wouldn’t have stepped in for Span, and he wouldn’t have played over Pence, either.
Castillo for McGehee may very well be his worst trade this decade, though.
So what your saying is that they draft terribly but managed to get some value back based on the position in the draft of the pick they traded away?
And its about what you get back for what you give up in value at the time of the trade. Getting Miller for Enciarte and Co was a horrible deal when it was done because that package should have gotten more value at the time by a lot. Future value aside you want good return on value at time of trade. Even good GMs fuck up Donaldson was worth more then BB got for him, although the total value of Graveman, Barretto, might surplus Donaldsons TOR value over all years of control, they still should have gotten a lot more at the time of the trade then they did, like a couple top 10 prospects, instead of a top 20 and Brett Lawrie!
After a quick google search, Sabean’s worst trade was definitely Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano, and Boof Bonser for AJ Pierzynski. The fact that I had to do a quick google search and that I came up with a trade in 2003 should provide the rhetorical answer to the rhetorical question.
Yup.
Sabean almost never trades good players, even as he has had a Cards-esque stream of 25 year olds who come out of nowhere to manage a 105-115 wRC+ for a couple seasons.
They’ve already committed to an aging core that isn’t going away and which still has enough talent in it to potentially contend in 2018 and maybe 2019. What they’re doing is trying to improve the team for those years.
The team’s likely going to be awful in 2021 regardless of whether Longoria and Bruce are under contract, and regardless of whether Arroyo turns into anything. So why not try to win now?
Great move!
If they really want to be the new 2013 to 201? Phillies, you should send your resume in.
would upvote twice if allowed
Dumb ass.
So…once the Giants missed out on Ohtani and Stanton there was some thinking that they might tear down and rebuild, right? I’d love to see a piece about what that could’ve looked like. What type of prospects would their current roster have brought back in return, etc. It’s not often that a team is at such an obvious crossroads. What was the path not taken?
2 good packages for Bum/Pos and salary dumps or mediocre returns on the rest. You have to give up prospects for someone to take Pence and his money. Deal everyone and eat cash on some to get better returns and your maybe a little over middle of the pack farm system. Sign deadline value players with the savings and maybe turn it around before Bum is a FA and you can resign him.
The only contending teams in need of a third baseman now appear to be the Yankees and perhaps the Mets if they choose to go that route. Third base just seems to be a really strong position right now in MLB. I wonder what that means for the markets of Frazier and Moustakas.
The Braves were looking for a 3rd baseman, more in the Frazier price range than the Moustakas price range. The Rays might fit that bill too. The White Sox and Phillies were interested in trading for Machado.
It’s not good but they’ll find jobs somewhere.
Frazier is a bit more dependent on power through home runs, as opposed to Longoria’s power through doubles+. At AT&T, I’m not sure how Frazier would hold up…
Maybe Frazier didn’t want to play for them. Every free agent is not actually available to every team even if they want to pay market rates.
For those bashing the Giants for not rebuilding, it truly was not much of an option. Almost everyone expensive that they already have signed have no-trades – Posey, Crawford and Melancon have full no-trades, Pence has 10/5 rights, and both Samardzjia and Belt have partial no-trades. There just is no avenue to a full tear-down of this team.
If you can’t tear it down, well, then you have to try to compete. I actually think this is a decent move for the Giants.
I agree with this too. The prevailing wisdom at FG seems to be either rebuild or go for it. Nothing else. Binary decision. No gray. First, as this post mentions, rebuild doesn’t happen just bc you say it, and certainly doesn’t work all the time. I get it…the last 3 WS champs did it that way, but I might be willing to call BS that the only way to build a team is by either by buying it or rebuilding. At minimum, I’m going ask for more evidence before I accept that hypothesis. On fangraphs, this shouldn’t be an inflammatory ask.
The farm sucks, and every player on the roster is losing value for a variety of reasons. Tear down now or take longer to rebuild, its a tradeoff on how long the rebuild takes.
Players want to play for winners the worse you are the more they want out, this is exactly why the idiot Marlins should have dealt Stanton last. He would be motivated to wave the clause if there was nothing left, and now Realmuto and Yellich want out anyways.
Why are the Rays dumping an overpaid player for a backend of the Top 100 prospect and a vet making middling money on a shorter term deal?!!!!
I mean, they have Marlins-level revenue!
Dumping Span is addition through subtraction, same as Moore was. Given how young Arroyo is, though, I suspect that might be a significant loss of future value.
For a team looking to upgrade offensively, perhaps it ought to be worrisome that .272/.329/.427 (Span ’17) was just replaced by .261/.313/.424 (Longoria ’17).
And if they now add Bruce’s .250/.320/.500, to the spot they just opened?
Then the OF defense will really really really suck.
I, for one, am said to see Longo go as a Rays fan. He had what – $17mil per over 5 years left, after putting up 11 War last three years, 3+ War projected this year…he was still a relative bargain. I see people say ‘just sign Mosse or Frazier’ but…maybe those guys will get more than the 3/42 I saw someone post for Frazier. Maybe it’s more like 3/60 (Santana) or even higher. If the cost of a Win is now $9mil in FA, 3/42 seems pretty cheap for Frazier. I bet he gets 4 years and $80mil, moose probably 5 and 100mil+. I guess the Rays can flip Span because with KK, Mallex Smith, Souza and even Brad Miller I just don’t see it. Of course, if this is a full rebuild then KK is probably out the door along with possibly Souza and Miller probably at trade deadline if he rebounds. Ugh. this is going to get ugly
I dont like this deal for either team, I think the Rays did need to take a look at this season, and with Bos NYY prolly sell. I would be in the minority of GMs for sure but to me the best move would be trading Archer to NYY for a big chunk of the Yanks system, and deal most of the other assets like KK, Suaza, Odorizzi, Ramos, Colome that have more value in the next two seasons, and look for a window that opens in 2020 with a cheap good team.
I would have kept Longo around to mentor young players and keep him for his whole career as Mr Rays. I don’t like that TB traded Longo with what he has meant to the franchise. I would have understood dealing him last, after the others, if thats what he wanted, but not like this. Look to contend in two years and trade as many players to the rivals as possible to strip down opposing systems for 2020.
SF is just delusional in thinking that they can do what they want to, how they want to. They wont cross the luxury tax, but don’t have any payroll, they still have a ton of holes to plug, but are basically out of resources. If they say fuck it and really spend maybe they have one last shot with this team, but that would prolong the rebuild much further. SF should tear it down while they still have assets of value, instead of adding 5 years of mediocre value money on Longo who is worth more to Tampa then anyone else, and now they are poking around on Bruce.
SF just had the worst record in baseball, and have enough prospect value to get one good player who’s cost effective, but after that they might have the worst system in baseball. Even picking second in this years draft, any player taken wont be in San Fran till after Bumgardner/Posey are gone. They project mediocre, need to do a ton more just to finish the team, have a bottom five farm system, and are out of payroll space. If they win more they draft worse, and cant use any of the financial advantages the team has to acquire amateur talent. Sign Bruce for 5/80MM and it might really cost you 5/110 or more with the tax, and still be left needing a center fielder, one more starter plus depth, a couple pen arms, and a +35 or so win swing on last seasons record to even smell the Dodgers. As it sits right now I would say SFG is racing with the Pads for last place, and well behind Col/Ari/LAD.
The worst team in baseball over the last year and a half has added an expensive, declining player. I know they must feel trapped into trying to do something, but this? Just putting off the inevitable, and making it all that much harder to rebuild when they finally face facts. You’d think seeing what has happened in Philadelphia and Detroit would be sobering for them, but apparently not.
Folks, what’s going on in this comments thread is sort of ridiculous. I’ll say it again. 86 wins. Five wins over .500 (if you want to count that way…most would suggest 86-76 is ten games over .500). That’s the average wins of the worst playoff team the last three years in MLB. This is the age of two wild cards. Do I think the Giants have what it takes to compete with the Dodgers? Of course not. I don’t think the Giants think they do. That’s not relevent to this discussion. I also don’t they are better than BOS or NYY next year, but since THAT’S THE OTHER LEAGUE, it’s even less relevant.
But the Giants (today, in what I’m sure is a pre-Longo-deal number), are at 81 wins on this very web site’s estimated win total. The Rockies are rated below them (the A’s are even below that, but that’s also the AL). That is ALREADY close to squinting at/sniffing/prayer of contention, as the Giants actually wins number is as likely to be 84 as it is 78 and is as likely to be 91 as it is 71. So that is NOT (I repeat…NOT) a “definite rebuild” sort of situation. It is a choice. I think the choice of rebuilding would be defendable. I think the choice of going for it one last time is also defendable.
None of this is to suggest that this deal is great for the Giants. I might be go so far as to say it isn’t…not for the years at the price of the age of the player involved.
But what’s happening here…pretending a .500 team should just fold it up as of Dec 20…acting like the people running that team are crazy…especially when that team won 3 of the last 8 world series…?
Sheesh
Especially since they can’t actually rebuild without all of their best trade chips’ consent.
Although maybe the Giants’ not having debt will be able to convince those players to waive their NTCs and go wherever the Giants would like to send them!
So your argument is to further mortgage the future to try for a wild card that if you win it could just be a one game no revenue playoff experience. I dont think teams that have no shot at a division should make win now moves!
There. Is. No. Future. To. Mortgage.
There is no avenue to a rebuild, either, due to the NTCs they’ve given out.
Arroyo isn’t good, and, for luxury tax purposes, Longo is a $14m-15m a year player (making this season nearly cost-neutral with Span gone).
So…yeah.
I dont think teams that have no shot at a division should make win now moves!
The Angels have done a lot for nothing in your mind. Seattle too. Hell, the A’s should not have trade for Piscotty, right, since they have no shot at the division.
Piscotty is signed through 2023 at very reasonable rates, and was acquired for a minimal cost because of special circumstances. Petit and the Healy trade were both smart moves that got bullpen pieces which can be dealt for value later if so desired, they also have the best farm system of SF/LAA/SEA/OAK by a wide wide margin, and more cost controlled high value talent then the others.
SEA is in a better spot on the win curve although I would consider a midseason tear down if things arent working out. They have a better team then SF as well. They also are probably mistakenly trying to extend a closing window when the odds arent good.
LAA is fucked, you have to win while you have a prime Mike Trout or else WTF. Also they have made much much better moves then SF. Kinsler came for peanuts, and Cozart is a good player signed on a reasonable deal, and Ohtani was a lottery they won because of a number of variables that were random where they made a good pitch for sure, but mostly got lucky that they happened to check off the boxes he wanted.
SF has a much worse farm then any of the 3 but the M’s, has its best player locked in for the least amount of time, and has more bad money then any of the others. SF also has more holes, they need as much pitching as the most pitching needy of the other 3 with less depth. They have less resources then any of those teams both in payroll and prospects, but sure keep mortgaging the future more for a present dice roll with mediocre odds.
So…is the issue that you don’t understand that none of their moves affect their post 2020 future?
Or is it that you don’t understand that the Giants have no choice but to commit to their extant core through 2020?
I’m just trying to parse the source of your amusing, and loud, ignorance of the Giants’ situation.
In 2014 they won the World Series out of the WC game.
Net to the Giants is about $60M for Longo after cash and the Span change hands. If Longoria projects roughly 7-10 wins over the 5 yrs, then the numbers make more sense.