The 32.4 million we tied up in Rich Aurillia, Ray Durham, Omar, Dave Roberts and Randy Winn sure seems like it could have been used better.
I know I am beating same old issue that us Giants fans have been whining about for the last couple of years but it is rediculous. I think Sabean needs to go.
We need to spend that money on some quality young players and stack our farm system so we will have trade bait when needed and maybe find a few gems along the way.
Hindsight is 20/20... Randy Winn is finally producing, plus he is not that old, so I think that his contract is fine, he did hit .300 last year... I agree with you questioning Omar Vizquel being resigned, and the signing of Dave Roberts last year, but Rich Aurilla was coming off of a .300 season and we got him fairly cheaply, we just gave him too many years.
I also think that a MLB club needs to have some vets on the team, we cannot expect to field a AAA team everyday.
I am glad to see that you didn't include Aaron Rowand on your list, he may be getting 12 mil per season, but he is producing better than any of the other FA's from this year's pool, and he was tons cheaper., plus he is on the upside of his career.We could've signed Andruw Jones at 18 mil and had a lazy fat man manning center field. Or we could have signed Torii Hunter for the same 18 mil per season and gotten the same production as Aaron.
So far I am happy with what the Giants are doing this season, considering the "experts" evaluation of them prior to the season.
What is really interesting is that Matt Cain has more HR than Durham, Winn, and Roberts combined. I know Roberts is hurt, but after last night, he and Cain both have 17AB. Cain's sluggung %, .706.
25 karat, I agree with Rowand, I liked his signing from day one.
However hindsight has nothing to do with some of these contracts. I don't mind Rich making 4.5 mill so much as he was a good Giant back in the day and is still fairly capable, but Roberts and Durham making 6.5 and 7.5 is rediculous. Sabean is an idiot for paying them that much. I like Winn as a player but for 8.9 million I want some more pop in the bat baby.
Hey JESUSFREAK ... isn't it great how well Cain is hitting this season! That slugging % will surely come down some but perhaps Matt is going to become one of those good hitting pitchers. Arizona has more than one on their team and it helps. If this continues, there will be less reason to pinch hit for Cain in a close game. Have you noticed how Bochy uses the whole bench sometimes, especially in extra innings. Matt might even be an option to pinch hit on his off days. The Giants could always use another right handed power hitter. Go Giants!
Yes Sabean does need to go but McGowen also has a active roll in signing and his decisons hasn't been good. Just like Stenbrenner of the Yankees but not as baseball savy. We need to get rid of all players over 35. And get younger.
While the Giants will have much of their money tied up in Zito and Rowand in the upcoming years, their overall salary will be relatively low until Cain and Lincecum become arbitration eligible. However, though they may have more money to play with in the next few years unlike those of the past, the real challenge will be landing quality free agents, regardless of their contract size. Top notch younger players are being locked up in multi-year extensions in unprecedented fashion, thus reducing the supply. The result will be guys like Mark Teixeira and Matt Holliday getting ungodly offers from teams that can truly afford them. The Giants wont be the kind of team putting large amount of money into the few, very high quality free agents, while continuing to "lick their wounds" from the Zito deal and remaining gun-shy. Look for the Giants to retreat into more of an Oakland A's strategy, than like the Yankees or Red Sox strategy.
thats money u talk about being better spent, who are you gonna spend it on? someone who is younger and plays jsut as good as wut we got? sometimes its not how much u offer but they got to want to come here, when Carlose Lee became a free agent we offered him more then anyone, but he didn't want to come here, the hitters are afraid to come to pur beautiful ball park because there afraid there power numbers are going to drop....
the Giants rebuilding process is not going to happen though FA there arnt enough good players that are worth the money they are asking for, we better pray that we can draft some good position players, and take a page from Billy Bean ( who i swear to god sold his soal to the devil for all of his moves to work) and make some deals for some players...
but hey if we were a better defensive team and could pick up a few key hits with runners in scoring position we'd be over .500 right now, soo we are really not as far off as everyone thought we were going into this season..
About the Zito contract, I'd rather see them treat it separately, not counting it towards our payroll figuratively. That way we could still sign some of the guys we need to(Cain, Lincecum) and not trade our key players, turning into the A's. I agree, we cannot built through FA, that's what brought us Aurilia and Durham. Oh yeah, Durham is gone at the end of this year, can't remember who, but man, talk about sweet relief. We are getting to the end of most of these horrifically overpaid contracts.
