Rent-A-Shortstop (UPDATED)

(UPDATE #2 (5:10PM): Per Baggs, the report is “premature, or just plain wrong,” which makes sense given the upcoming arbitration deadline. If the deal has been reached in principle, Baggarly opines the leak severely undermines the Giants’ position to retain their pick as the Tigers can now offer Renteria arbitration and be assured of getting a pick. Very reminiscent of the Yankees situation with Gary Sheffield a few years back.)

(UPDATE (3:18PM): Jerry Crasnick tells MLB Trade Rumors that the report is false, according to Renteria’s agent. Meanwhile, Schulman says that the Giants and Rafael Furcal remain in contact. Ordinarily, reports of a deal are summarily denied by player and team until the contract is finalized, but there seems to be some serious questions as to the validity of WFAN’s original report. The Giants nation turns it lonely eyes to you, Andy.)

Judging by the free agent posturing, it had become clear that Brian Sabean was intent on cobbling together a team that could contend in the porous NL West. And, today, Sabes made his second strike in free agency, signing shortstop Edgar Renteria, according to WFAN in New York. Unconfirmed details of the agreement: 2 years at $18 million.

Off the top of my head, a quick Point Counter Point –

Point: There’s little in the way of organizational depth at shortstop position in the system, so it makes some sense to supplement the team there through free agency.

Counterpoint: Manny Burriss presumably shifts to second base, diminishing his value.

Point: Two year deal.

Counterpoint: $9 million a year to a 33 year old coming off a season in which he accumulated a Neifi-esque .699 OPS. Oh, and the Giants also forfeit their second-rounder.

Point: Renteria has been historically terrible in the AL and and a solid hitter in the NL. He’s a year removed from an .860 OPS with Atlanta.

Counterpoint: That doesn’t explain his decline defensively last season, when he posted the fourth lowest Zone Rating in the majors.

Point: The entire Tigers team was caught up in a highly contagious malaise that affected team morale.

Counterpoint: Expecting players in their mid-30s to experience a major revival is the height Sabeanmetric cognitive dissonance.

I could go on (Renteria’s second half turnaround or the fact that the cold hard statistics belie the common belief that he’s a clutch hitter) but I’ll leave it to you to for further consternation.

My favorite part of this deal is the deal the Giants didn’t make: by not giving a long-term deal to Rafael Furcal, the team avoids committing a long term monies to a guy who could go all Edgardo Alfonzo on us on a dime. Furcal’s coming off a 36 game season, and backs are the trickiest of body parts to project. Even Alfonzo was healthy the year before Sabean signed him.

Comment! Open Renteria consternation thread.

First Blood

The Giants strike first in free agency, signing Jeremy Affeldt to a 2 year, $8 million deal.

The deal strikes me as, well, really good. Not sure what Brian Sabean’s angle is here, but this is a great short-term deal to a guy who is underrated, at least statistically. From FanGraphs:

Based on 2008, Affeldt has shown an entirely new skillset as compared to his major league career, adding a couple of ticks to both his fastball and curve, which have transformed him into one of the game’s best left-handed relievers. Because his curve is a legitimate second pitch, he shows almost no platoon split, and is equally effective against both LHB and RHBs. His stuff is clearly closer-worthy, and while he has no experience as the 9th inning guy, some smart team would be wise to give him a two or three year contract for setup man money and watch him blossom into one of the game’s best relief aces.

But before all of you go out and celebrate the rehabilitation of Brian Sabean’s baseball grey matter, be warned – the needless long-term deal to Rafael Furcal may be forthcoming.

Dissident Dis

Evidently, Chris DeLuca of the Chicago Sun-Times was the lone writer to omit Tim Lincecum from his ballot altogether.

Our good friend Tim K. wrote him this letter in response:

from: Tim K [email redacted]
to: cdeluca@suntimes.com

Chris,

Hi, how are you? Before today I didn’t know who you were, but I’m not sure if you know this, but you got written up in a few national publications earlier this morning following the announcement of Tim Lincecum’s Cy Young award win. I noticed that not only did you not vote for him to win, but you didn’t even rank him in your top 3. You totally omitted him from your ballot. That was a little bit curious to me, so I had a few follow up questions, if you don’t mind. They are listed below:

1) Do you even like baseball?
2) How long have you been writing about sports? How did you get a job at the Chicago Sun Times? Are you related to someone who works there?
3) Is the stress of being one of the official Cy Young voters too much for you? In other words, are you somehow trying to get your privileges revoked?
4) Where have you been living for the last 8 months? How is it possible that wherever it was did not have access to Satellite Television or the Internet?
5) Are you from Florida? I ask because I’m wondering how difficult the Cy Young ballot was to complete as compared with the 2000 Presidential Election ballots. Must be close, if not harder.
6) Are you doing this for attention?
7) Okay – here’s a fair one: Did you intentionally leave Tim Lincecum off of your Cy Young ballot?
Really?
9) Seriously?
10) What is wrong with you?

Thanks,
Tim K.
San Francisco

ConCyLation Prize

In the harsh world of Bay Area sports, for today, justice is served.

Congrats, Timmy.

Destiny Spits on the Giants

So Peter Happy ends up being the guy who gets the game winning hit in the clincher of the World Series, eh?  That hurts worse than the beartrap that’s attached to the canker sore on my tongue.

It is a bit reminiscent of The Polish Catcher Not To Be Named leaving for the White Sox and winning a ring the next year.

Scott Eyre is another former Giant who is dancing after last night.

In other news, Aaron Rowand is punching himself in the nads for following the money to the West Coast, but hopefully this team will take him to the Promised Land at some time in the 37 years left on his contract.

It ain’t all bad: Big ups to Bay Area natives Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell (Bellarmine HS) and Brad Lidge (Sacto) for getting their first rings.  All three are solid players and great ambassadors of the Bay Area way to play.

Comment starter: Any other notable Giants who left and went on to win a ring or have huge years immediately thereafter?

Lincecum Wins Player’s Choice

In what is turning out to be a historic election season, our very own Tim Lincecum comes out as democracy’s big winner today, collecting two player’s choice awards: The Sporting News‘ Pitcher of the Year and The Players Choice Award for Outstanding Pitcher. A huge congrats to The Franchise for the first and second of what is hopefully many awards.

Before you start laying down your Cy Young bets, bear in mind that neither are necessarily a precursor to winning pitching’s highest honor: only 4 of the last 8 recipients of the Player’s Choice and 3 of the 8 Sporting News honorees went on to win the Cy.

Schulman, however, finds a couple votes for Timmy in his unofficial exit poll.

Programming Note: Speaking of elections, I’m sure many have you have noticed the relative radio silence of the blog since the season’s close. That is a result of the blogupational hazard of actually having other employment – principally the kind that pays. Mine is linked to these here elections, so publishing may be uneven until then.

Democrat, Republican, Green or other, however, all partisans are welcome here, except perhaps for Lasordans.

Until too long, my friends. In the meantime, I hope you’ve all taken the time to check out the biggest Cinderella story, possibly, well, ever in these Tampa Rays. If you can displace your jealousy with the hope for our very own boys to pull off this kind of turnaround, it’s actually kind of fun to live vicariously through them.

Just try not to compare the teams too closely…

72-90

Barry Passable

And then there was the cessation of the lost season of Barry Zito, who, despite one of his better starts of the year, fell to 10-17.

With 17 losses, Zito now carries the distinction of possessing the most losses in a single season by a Giant in 23 years.

There’s nothing more I can really add about our favorite male model/$126M pitcher that hasn’t already been said.

So I’ll leave the 2008 post-mortem at this: at least he’s not him.

Ugliest Teenagers Take Each Other to Prom What was once presumed to be impossible is now a reality: the Giants have renewed their contract with the Connecticut Defenders.

Why? Default, that’s why. No one else wanted the Giants, and, similarly, no one else would take the Defenders. The match is actually too perfect not to happen.

Here’s hoping the Defenders rumored move to Richmond, Va. comes to fruition – contrary to popular belief, the aura of the frozen tundra does not, in fact, transcend football.

Comment! Best joke thread.

Dirty Dismissal

For Jonathan Sanchez, a season that started with so much promise ended with a whimper.

And if I were a betting man, which I am, I’d wager that Kevin Correia may have thrown his last pitch as a Giant. With all the young pitchers in the system, it makes little economic sense to keep the six year vet.

Plus, he kinda sucks.

Kudos to Andy Baggarly for this awesome find from last night’s otherwise nausea-inducing proceedings:

They fielded nine rookies in the seventh inning: Catcher Steve Holm, pitcher Billy Sadler, first baseman Pablo Sandoval, second baseman Ryan Rohlinger, shortstop Ivan Ochoa, third baseman Conor Gillaspie, left fielder John Bowker, center fielder Eugenio Velez and right fielder Nate Schierholtz.

How long has it been since a major league team simultaneously fielded nine rookies in a major league game? [Snip]

Almost 25 years to the date, according to the hard-working folks at the Elias Sports Bureau. The Los Angeles Dodgers fielded nine rookies on Sept. 20, 1983, in a home game against the Houston Astros.

To counter this uncharacteristically youthphilic behavior, the Giants signed J.T. Snow to keep the average roster age at a Brian Sabean mandated minimum.

But seriously, folks, in case you didn’t hear, he’ll take the field this weekend with the starting lineup and get a nice sendoff from the fans. Class move.

Baggs also reports that Travis Ishikawa took the night off to be with his brand new baby. Congrats to Travis, and huge props to Baggs for using the occasion to recall tales of Harry Caray lore.

HEY! This provides me the perfect opportunity to link one of the best impersonations of all time!

Bye Bye Cy?

Soul crushing start for The Franchise last night. For the glass half full types, Timmy did eclipse Jason Schmidt’s San Francisco K record, notching his 252nd.

Perhaps more importantly, with Lincecum’s Cy hopes all but a glimmer, the braintrust (and I use that term lightly) may finally be convinced to forgo risking his health and skip his final extra start.

JLev, who’s generally known as a crotchety contrarian, and I actually see eye to eye on this point. But maybe we’re too indoctrinated by the elitist, wine and cheese Baseball Prospectus pitcher abuse points crowd, and it’s possible we lack the hairy-chested, red-blooded, beer-swilling attitude of the “throw ‘em out there and let God sort ‘em out” mentality the Bruce Jenkinssssss of the world espouse.

So let me ask you – if Brandon Webb throws a stinker in his next start and opens the door a crack for The Freak, do we try to let the kid storm through it? Do you think, perhaps, that the reason the kid was uncharacteristically mediocre yesterday have anything to do with the fact that he has thrown 383 pitches in the three starts prior?

Let me ask: are we off our rocker for suggesting this behavior is completely reckless? After all, the great ones (Marichal, Gibson, Koufax) ran up high pitch counts regularly and they were fine, right? Responses rife with needless passion and angst encouraged.