Memo to San Francisco Giants GM Brian Sabean: it's time to clean house, and I think a yard sale may be in order.Henry Schulman at the San Francisco Chronicle says that if the Giants don't fare well this weekend against the Dodgers, it's time to start thinking trades.
And Mr. Sabean, we're not talking about the kind of trade that mortgages our future for a glimmer of hope in the present. At the risk of sounding extremist, this franchise is ready for a good old fashioned fire sale.
Here are the players to put on the block and the price tag we should expect in return:
- Matt Morris -- he's assembled a surprisingly good first half of the season, which unfortunately has been wasted on a losing cause. Also, as Schulman points out, he's got another year on his contract at a relatively reasonable price.
Asking Price: Arguably the most attractive item at our sale, Morris should yield two solid pitching prospects, or at least one very good one. - Ray Durham -- Why Sabean re-signed an aging Durham to a two-year deal is beyond me. After a career season last year, Durham is once again acting like the 35-year old human that he is.
Asking Price: With his aging body and oversized contract, Durham is going to be tough to trade. I'd take anything I could get without having to eat any of his salary. Another option is to package him with another player, perhaps Morris. - Pedro Feliz -- The word that defines Feliz's career with the Giants is average, and that's not to be confused with producing a hit every three times up to bat. San Francisco has waited seven-plus years for Feliz to realize his potential, only to realize that they were only kidding themselves.
Asking Price: Disappointing though he may be, Feliz's salary is fairly modest. And one team's "average" may become another team's "steady." I'd hope to trade Feliz for a solid hitting prospect, preferrably an outfielder. Given the current state of the franchise, I wouldn't mind some raw talent; time is not an issue. - Barry Bonds -- Gasp! Not the face of the franchise! Face it, San Francisco signed Bonds to be in a Giants uniform when he breaks the record. If Bonds does that during the month of July, I see no reason not to trade him. In fact, it might be unwise not to, given Bonds' statements about returning for another season next year.
Asking Price: It would certainly take the right fit to be able to move a player with Bonds' contract and attitude, but I think it can be done. I can see an American League team (maybe Oakland?) signing Bonds as a rental to aid in a playoff push. What San Francisco could get in return is beyond me, but I think that ridding the team and the city of a Giant albatross would be accomplishment enough. - Randy Winn, Dave Roberts, and Steve Kline -- These guys aren't terrible, but they are eating up the budget and preventing younger players from establishing themselves at the big league level.
Asking Price: Whatever you can get.
Mr. Sabean, it's pretty clear that this year's team isn't in any danger of winning the World Series, much less finishing above .500. So now that you've been granted a reprieve by Peter Magowan, can we allow ourselves a rebuilding year?
The Giants have established a reputation as buyers at the trade deadline over the last decade, and the strategy nearly won the franchise a World Series in 2002. But the glory years of the late '90s and early 2000s have clearly faded, and it's time to start looking to the future.
4 comments:
The best thing that could happen in SF is for Bonds to break the record and retire. Then they could get rid of the dead weight and start from scratch.
Two points:
1) Any team with even a bit of sense will stay away from Morris (at least at the price you're asking). His ERA looks nice enough, but looking deeper you see a bunch of disconcerting facts. His strikeout numbers are the lowest they've ever been, and his walks are the highest since 1998. The biggest reason his ERA is low is that a low number of fly balls are leaving the park on him...and that's something that will come back to the norm soon enough. His FIP (fielding independent pitching) is just about league average, and I can't see any team giving up anything approximating top level talent for him.
2. Barry Bonds isn't the problem with the Giants. In fact, he's (yet again) their best player. The problem is that they're paying Barry Zito a ridiculous amount of money to be a below-average pitcher, or that they've got weak hitters at way too many positions (basically everywhere but LF). While Bonds may be a jerk, he's also still one of the best 2-3 hitters in baseball, and trading him just makes the team worse.
I think they are sort of stuck. People value prospects so highly right now that even if they do have a fire-sale they might not get a whole lot in return.
They need a serious injection of young hitting.
Complete agreement that it's time for a fire sale. Having said that, a few nitpicks...
-Why would you want pitching prospects out of Matt Morris? We already have a kajillion of those. I say even one good hitting prospect would do it for me. They need to find where there is a logjam in another organization where a young stud is keeping another young stud from coming up...then we trade for the "another young stud".
-Durham is definitely underperforming, but I actually think it was a good idea they re-signed him. He's only making $7 mil per year for 2 seasons, and considering the year he had last year, he could have made a lot more than that somewhere else. Plus, Frandsen wasn't ready this year to start @ 2nd. He's still getting on base at a clip of .321, which isn't horrible.
-Agreed on Feliz except there's no way they'd get anything back for him. Everyone has got to know he's worthless by now.
-Barry won't pass Hank by July, so they definitely won't trade him. We just gotta bite the bullet of his contract and part ways at years end.
-Correction: Dave Roberts IS horrible. When all he's ever been good at is getting on base and stealing bases, hitting .243/.311 and SB of 17 makes you pretty much useless.
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