(Ed. note: I know I have at least one diehard San Francisco Giants fan in my readership. My apologies to the rest of you. Everyone else can either choose to read and fall asleep or skip it entirely and wait for my "2007 Celebrity Trainwreck In Review" article).Each year I keep hearing people getting all excited about the big Giants' contracts that are going to come off the books each year and how much money that will free up.
"Just wait until the end of
Last year, it was Bonds, Morris, Benitez, Feliz, and Klesko, who made approximately $42 million combined (obviously, not all of that was paid by the Giants last year). What did it get us? So far, we've netted Aaron Rowand and pay increases for the rest of the team.
The year before, it was Bonds (again), Schmidt, Alou, Finley, and Feliz (again) freeing up almost $49 million. And for that relief, we locked up Barry Zito after failing to land Soriano and added another year of Bonds (whose $15M salary doesn't looks so bad, baggage nothwithstanding).
In 2008, the following player contracts will expire:
Durham ($7M)
Vizquel ($5.3M, unless he plays in 140 games in which case his 2009 salary vests)
Feliz (let's not kid ourselves, it's inevitable that the Giants resign him for another $5M in 2008)
Kline ($3.5)
Aurilia ($3.5M)
So that's approximately $25 million, not to mention the salaries of Roberts ($6.5M) and Winn ($8.25M) the Giants somehow are hoping to rid themselves of in 2008.
(Note: salary data was gathered from ESPN, mlb4u.com and baseball-almanac.com, so it may not be 100% accurate.)
So let's assume that the Giants somehow convince another team to take Roberts and Winn off their hands (which I pray doesn't include something insane line packing either player with Cain and/or Lincecum). That's about $40 million to spend on shiny new free agents in 2009, right? All we have to do is hold tight in 2008 -- the Giants will sort out which youngsters can contribute, the graybeards will be gone and we'll sign the best available free agents. With a little bit of luck, we'll be back to 85-90 wins in 2009, right?
It's a nice plan until you realize that next year's FA class is just as thin as this one was. The below list (courtesy of mlbtraderumors.com) obviously will get shorter as teams and players exercise options and teams lock up players to multi-year extensions. For example, there's no chance that -- absent horrific injury -- Vlad will not have his $15M option (which is really a net $12M option when you factor in the $3M buyout) picked up by the Angels. So in either case, he won't be available for the Giants. Same with Thome, Crawford, and Renteria.
Please note that I have focused on the hitters mostly because (a) the Giants already have a very good SP staff with some decent arms in the minors, (b) they already made a big free agent SP splash last year and we see where that got them, and (c) their hitting sucks. But for anyone interested, the best FA pitchers that will likely be on the market include Santana, Sabathia, Joe Nathan, Francisco Rodriguez, Pedro Martinez, Ben Sheets and Rafael Soriano. It's not a bad FA pitching class.
The list of FA hitters, though, looks much weaker. In reviewing the list, it looks like Teixeira, Dunn and some decent shortstops. In looking at the list, there doesn't seem like a lot of hope on the horizon. Are there really a lot of names on that list that people are eager to sign? Hell, Bonds looks like the best FA hitter in 2009.
So absent the meteoric rise of some unknown hitting phenoms, I'm not sure if there's a way that the Giants can avoid trading one of their quality arms in exchange for some good, young, cheap hitting. And no, I don't mean Lincecum for Rios. Call me crazy, but I don't see anything worth spending $40 million on there folks.
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Catchers
Michael Barrett (32)
Johnny Estrada (33)
Kenji Johjima (33)
Jason Kendall (35) - club option for '09 (110 games)
Paul Lo Duca (37)
Ivan Rodriguez (37)
David Ross (32)
Jason Varitek (37)
Gregg Zaun (38) - $3.75M vesting option for '09 (160 games)
First basemen
Ben Broussard (32)
Carlos Delgado (37) - $16M mutual option for '09 with a $4M buyout
Nomar Garciaparra (35)
Jason Giambi (38) - $22M club option for '09 with a $5M buyout
Scott Hatteberg (39)
Kevin Millar (37)
Richie Sexson (34)
Mark Teixeira (29)
Jim Thome (38) - $13M club option for '09 with $3M buyout
Second basemen
Mark Ellis (32)
Mark Grudzielanek (39)
Orlando Hudson (31)
Tadahito Iguchi (34)
Jeff Kent (41)
Felipe Lopez (29)
Mark Loretta (37)
Jose Vidro (34) - vesting option for '09
Shortstops
Orlando Cabrera (34)
David Eckstein (34)
Adam Everett (32)
Rafael Furcal (31)
Cristian Guzman (31)
Cesar Izturis (29)
Felipe Lopez (29)
Edgar Renteria (33) - $11M club option for '09 with a $3M buyout
Juan Uribe (30)
Omar Vizquel (42) - $5.2M club option for '09 with a $0.3M buyout
Third basemen
Casey Blake (35)
Hank Blalock (28) - $6.2M club option for '09 with a $0.25M buyout
Joe Crede (31)
Nomar Garciaparra (35)
Troy Glaus (32) - $11.25M player option for '09
Wes Helms (33) - $3.75M club option for '09
Chipper Jones (37) - $8-11M vesting option for '09
Left fielders
Moises Alou (42)
Garret Anderson (37) - $14M club option for '09 with a $3M buyout
Milton Bradley (31)
Pat Burrell (32)
Carl Crawford (27) - $8.25M club option for '09 with $2.5M buyout
Adam Dunn (29)
Cliff Floyd (36) - $3M club option for '09 with a $0.25M buyout
Raul Ibanez (37)
Jacque Jones (34)
Jason Michaels (33) - $2.6M club option for '09
Craig Monroe (32)
Jay Payton (36)
Wily Mo Pena (27) - $5M club option or $2M player option for '09
Manny Ramirez (37) - $20M club option for '09
Juan Rivera (30)
Center fielders
Rocco Baldelli (27) - $6M club option for '09 with a $4M buyout
Jim Edmonds (39)
Jacque Jones (34)
Mark Kotsay (33)
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