Hot Stove: Giants Budget Math Looks Bleak

With the signing of Jeremy Affeldt and Javier Lopez the MLB Hot Stove season has officially kicked off for the Giants. With that in mind I think it is a good time to take a look at how much of the Giants budget will be left to spend on Free Agents this off season.

To get an idea I pulled up the Giants from Cot's Contracts and took a look at what MLB Trade Rumors projects for the Giants arbitration eligible players to get a rough estimate of where things will be for next year.

Here is the table with the 2012 salaries with an assumed $130 million budget:

Player	Salary	Budget Remaining
Lincecum, Tim	$    19.20	$  110.80
Zito, Barry	$    19.00	$    91.80
Cain, Matt	$    15.33	$    76.47
Rowand, Aaron	$    13.60	$    62.87
Huff, Aubrey	$    10.00	$    52.87
Wilson, Brian	$       8.50	$    44.37
Sanchez, Freddy	$       6.00	$    38.37
Sanchez, Jonathan	$       5.20	$    33.17
Affeldt, Jeremy	$       5.00	$    28.17
Lopez, Javier	$       4.25	$    23.92
Sandoval, Pablo	$       3.20	$    20.72
Jeff Keppinger	$       2.70	$    18.02
Torres, Andres	$       2.50	$    15.52
Ryan Vogelsong	$       2.50	$    13.02
Ramirez, Ramon S.	$       2.30	$    10.72
Casilla, Santiago	$       1.90	$       8.82
Fontenot, Mike	$       1.30	$       7.52
Romo, Sergio	$       1.30	$       6.22
Schierholtz, Nate	$       1.20	$       5.02
Whiteside, Eli	$       0.70	$       4.32
Burriss, Emmanuel	$       0.60	$       3.72
Posey, Buster	$       0.50	$       3.22
Bumgarner, Madison	$       0.45	$       2.77
Runzler, Dan	$       0.45	$       2.32
Belt, Brandon	$       0.45	$       1.87
Chris Stewart	$       0.45	$       1.42

Guys in green are arbitration eligible who I expect to come back, guys in yellow are arbitration eligible and are candidates for not having a contract tendered to them. The guys in white have a contract already for next season or are under team control still. Finally there is Aaron Rowand who was released but still owed $13 million for next season and I am pretty sure counts against the Giants budget.

If everyone comes back that leaves about $1.5 million for Free Agent Activities. If the non-tender candidates don't come back that leaves about $12 million for Free Agents. If the partners that control the team are feeling generous and don't count Rowand's money owed to him this season and the non-tender candidates don't come back the Giants have about $25 million left for Free Agents.

The last issue is what the final number will be for the budget. For this exercise I have assumed $130 million but the more realistic number is a small increase from this seasons $122 million. If that is the case the chances of getting a big free agent are nearly zero, and the chance of getting more than one mid-tier free agent seem slim as well with around $118 already committed.

We will see how Brain Sabean deals with this situation, barring a big deal that moves a high priced pitcher or a change of heart from management this off season won't be one that offers any big name quick fixes.

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Analysis of Giants Bringing Back Lopez and Affeldt

Well it seems that so far the game plan for this off season is the same as last year, keep the band together and hope for the best.

The Giants have announced that they have signed Javier Lopez to a two year $8.5 million deal and picked up Jeremy Affeldt's $5 million dollar option.

Lets take a look at how these deals shape up for the Giants. First up Javier Lopez and his two year deal.

To examine the contract I took the weighted average of the last three years WAR and then an assumed $4.5 million value for each win above replacement. I have the WAR from both the Fangraphs, Baseball Reference and an average of the two.

Javier Lopez
Year	fWAR		rWAR		Average
2009	-0.1	$    (0.45)	-0.5	$    (2.25)	-0.3	$    (1.35)
2010	0.6	$       2.70	1.5	$       6.75	1.05	$       4.73
2011	0.7	$       3.15	1.3	$       5.85	1	$       4.50
2012	0.58	$       2.60	1.17	$       5.25	0.87	$       3.93
2013	0.58	$       2.60	1.17	$       5.25	0.87	$       3.93

With a contract that pays him $4.25 million in each of the next two seasons, he appears slightly overpaid according to the Fangraphs version of WAR, slightly underpaid according to the Baseball-Reference version and pretty much right in line when you take the average of the two.

This deal isn't a killer and Lopez certainly does play an important role in the bullpen as the late inning LOOGY. It is hard to swallow paying full price for a reliever like this when it really shouldn't be too hard to get one nearly as good for relatively cheap on the open market.

For Affeldt it is the same process for estimating how much he will be worth next season as what I used for Lopez.

Jeremy Affeldt
	fWAR		rWAR		Average
2009	0.7	$       3.15	2.2	$       9.90	1.45	$       6.53
2010	0.2	$       0.90	0	$           -	0.1	$       0.45
2011	0.2	$       0.90	0.9	$       4.05	0.55	$       2.48
2012	0.26	$       1.15	0.74	$       3.35	0.50	$       2.25

Affeldt's option that was exercised pays him $5 million next year. This seems like far too much money to be paying him. Both Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference WAR estimate that he will be overpaid by roughly $2-4 million dollars.

In addition the Giants could have gone the route of declining the option, offering arbitration and if he declined potentially had a draft pick (he was projected to be a type B free agent). This probably would have been the way that I went because if they were comfortable picking up the option they were willing to bring him back should he accept arbitration. If he declined the Giants get a late first round draft pick as compensation which is pretty valuable and the farm system could always certainly use more depth.

Then if he left there was always Dan Runzler there to fill in for him at the league minimum salary. Some people may not care for Runzler but really the difference between Affeldt and Runzler talent wise is not that great, Runzler has a higher walk rate but also a much higher strikeout rate. In addition he has some nasty stuff that could give him a high ceiling should he gets some semblance of control.

Th Affeldt signing so far isn't one of my favorites and taking both deals into account knowing the Giants self imposed budget means that there is that much less to spend on upgrading the worst offense in the National League.

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Don't Worry Too Much Rangers Fans

One of the major story lines after last night's fantastic game is that it will be very difficult for Texas to comeback today from being one strike away from winning it all twice.

While I certainly don't think taking that kind of a loss would be easy but baseball more than just about any other sport is all about dealing with failure one day and putting it behind you to play on the next day. That is just the nature of the game.

History is also on their side with this one.

There have been 35 times where the World Series has gone to 7 games and the team that lost the day before has a record of 17 and 18. Yeah that isn't great but there have been some equally heartbreaking losses over that span where the next day the team that just suffered a defeat was still able to lift the Commissioner's Trophy.

If we take it a step further and look at what are the expect winning percentage compared to the actual winning percentage the same general pattern emerges. Using on my playoff predictor tool I plugged in every Game 7 match up in history and the expected winning percentage of teams that lost Game 6 was 52.5% the actual winning percentage was 48.6%.

I haven't figured out what my margin of error is with this tool but I would be pretty comfortable saying that this is pretty close to no meaningful carry over for winning Game 6.

When the team that lost Game 6 was favored to win in Game 7 their record is 12-8, when they are under dogs they are in trouble with a record of 5-10.

The playoff predictor gives a slight edge to the Rangers in Game 7 with a 52% chance of winning. So as hard as it was to watch for Rangers fans this game is far from decided.

Here are the full table with the odds and results:

Year	Odds of Winning	Win?
2002	46%	0
2001	47%	0
1997	47%	1
1991	47%	0
1987	50%	0
1986	50%	0
1985	55%	0
1982	47%	0
1979	46%	0
1975	57%	1
1973	39%	0
1972	40%	1
1971	57%	1
1968	68%	0
1967	55%	1
1965	61%	1
1964	53%	1
1962	44%	1
1960	60%	1
1958	47%	0
1957	50%	1
1956	50%	1
1955	46%	1
1952	61%	0
1947	50%	1
1946	48%	0
1945	59%	1
1940	53%	0
1934	53%	0
1931	54%	1
1926	67%	0
1925	50%	0
1924	53%	0
1912	56%	1
1909	77%	1
Average	52.5%	48.6%

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Andres Torres Makes Me Nervous

I'll take a quick break from the end of season review and focus on something that has come up quite a bit lately and that is Andres Torres.

I like Torres, I think that he plays excellent defense and is far more valuable than what most people understand. That being said there is a very worrying trend that is starting to show up.

In 2009 he was a huge surprise, posting a .270/ .343/ .533 triple slash line. In 2010 he did his best to prove that it wasn't a fluke posting a .268/ .343/ .479 triple slash line while smacking extra base hits all over the yard, playing excellent defense and being one of the most valuable guys on the team.

Leading into 2011 I was nervous but at the same time optimistic that this would be a new normal for the journey man center fielder. Looking back makes me look like an idiot and a bad trend has emerged.

This is his daily wOBA over the last 3 years and it paints a rather bleak picture. That trend is going in the wrong direction and it makes you wonder if the scouting report has caught up with him and if he is capable of making the needed adjustments to get back to that previous level of performance that made him so special.

Even with this kind of depressing trend I would really like to see Torres get one more chance, because even with all of his struggles at the plate he was still one of the most valuable position players on the team last year according to fWAR (although that might tell us less about how good Torres was and instead just how bad the rest of the offense was) and I think at a minimum he can be a perfect 4th outfielder.

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Giants End of Season Review: Infielders

Aubrey Huff:

	BA	OBP	SLG	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB
2011 Projection	0.277	0.356	0.466	84	34	3	21	82	5
2011 Actual	0.246	0.306	0.370	45	27	1	12	59	5

Looking back at this projection makes me sad. I had such high hopes for Huff, even my “Worst Case Scenario” ended up being too rosy with a .249/ .320/ .419 triple slash line. Of all the disappointments on the 2011 Giants this one is probably the one that hurts the most.

First of all getting this tiny amount of production out a first baseman is a travesty, getting this level of production on an already offensively challenged team is a death sentence for an offense. Huff didn’t have a single month where he was able to post an OPS above .800, of the 14 NL first baseman that played at least 60 games only Lyle Overbay was worse.

To put the icing on the cake it came out that Huff was out of shape to start the season but because he has veteran grit he wasn’t benched and was allowed to be an anchor for the Giants offense. All this is certainly making me look forward to next season…

Freddy Sanchez:

	BA	OBP	SLG	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB
2011 Projection	0.287	0.331	0.390	63	27	2	8	51	3
2011 Actual	0.289	0.332	0.397	21	15	1	3	24	0

Freddy Sanchez was having very nice season. It wasn’t spectacular but at the time that he was injured he was arguably the Giants second best hitter and with him gone the Giants went from a bad Major League lineup to a bad AAA lineup. The drop off from Sanchez’s backups wasn’t as severe as the one from Buster Posey to the Whiteside/Stewart duo but it still meant a whole lot more Miguel Tejada which was no ones idea of a perfect situation.

I have to say that I am pretty worried about Sanchez ability to stay healthy for a full season next year. You have to go back to 2008 to find the last time that he was able to play at least 145 games and each injury that he has sustained over the last few years has a tendency to nag and flare up especially now that he is coming into his mid-30’s.

Seeing as Sanchez is somewhat fragile I think it would be in the Giants best interest to bring back a Mike Fontenot as a back up plan in case there is a replay of the last few years.

Miguel Tejada:

	BA	OBP	SLG	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB
2011 Projection	0.269	0.315	0.399	77	30	1	14	77	3
2011 Actual	0.239	0.270	0.326	28	16	0	4	26	4

If Huff was the biggest disappointment of the 2011 team, Miguel Tejada was probably a close second. Not that I had too high of expectations for him but he was able to slip under even that very low bar. Here is what I said at the time:

Here is what I expect; a free swinger who will avoid walks at nearly all costs. He will play rickety defense that will make fans cover their eyes at times and, baring catastrophic failure, should give the Giants league average or better offense for a shortstop.

Man was I an idiot. I should have listened to the devil on my shoulder that was trying to convince me that this was a bad idea. I was right about the defense and I couldn’t have been more wrong about the offense, his bat looked slow and his ability to drive the ball seemed to be all but gone last year.

If next season the Giants sign a free agent short stop they should send a fruit basket to Tejada because he set the bar so low for the next guy that if he can play any sort of defense and hit even a little bit it will be like adding Babe Ruth in comparison.

Pablo Sandoval:

	BA	OBP	SLG	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB
2011 Projection	0.294	0.346	0.466	70	38	3	18	77	3
2011 Actual	0.315	0.357	0.552	55	26	3	23	70	2

For all the hype surrounding Pablo Sandoval’s off season it sure seemed to live up to things. Sandoval turned a very impressive season and considering the down offensive year around the league and his hamate bone fracture it was arguably better than his 2009 season that got us all excited about him.

What was really exciting is that in the second half of the season he was really, really good after he had a month or so to have his hand recover. In the second half of the year he posted a .325/ .370/ .593 triple slash line and was one of the best hitters in the league even while playing with a pretty bad shoulder injury down the stretch that limited him from switch hitting.

This season makes his down year in 2010 seem like a hazy memory and if he shows dedication to coming into Spring Training in good shape again I am thinking another big season is definitely a big possibility. He is probably the only position player on the Giants that doesn’t have any big question marks for next season, which is great for him but makes me nervous about the rest of the team.

Jeff Keppinger:

	BA	OBP	SLG	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB
2011 Projection	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
2011 Actual	0.255	0.285	0.333	17	11	0	2	15	0

I had hopes that Keppinger could be a decent replacement for Sanchez, but I turned out to be off the mark. I said that I expected Keppinger to be a 0.7 to 1 win player over his time with the Giants and his actual production was a dismal -0.3 fWAR. I was hopeful that the Giants would keep him around for next season as Sanchez’s backup and now I am on the same page as Brian Sabean thinking that he might be an expensive luxury who isn’t likely to live up the salary that he will command in arbitration.

Just about everything about him took a nose dive when he put on the Giants uniform. His power disappeared, his ability to make contact dropped off and he certainly didn’t walk enough to make up for the lack of hits that fell in and to top it off his range was rather abysmal at second base.

In a perfect world I wouldn’t mind giving Keppinger another shot with the team as a back up infielder but with the Giants budget constraints I think I would rather have Mike Fontenot in that role.

Mike Fontenot:

	BA	OBP	SLG	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB
2011 Projection	0.270	0.327	0.388	36	19	3	4	35	2
2011 Actual	0.227	0.304	0.377	22	15	3	4	21	5

Mike Fontenot put together a nice little season, sure his batting average isn’t pretty but he made up for it with decent power numbers and a respectable walk rate that kept his OBP above .300. When you compare him to Keppinger who he will be competing for with next season for a roster spot he looks even better. Each had similar amounts of plate appearances with the Giants and Fontenot was significantly more valuable to the team in terms of fWAR because of his better defense and ability to get on base even when he didn’t get hits.

If we are looking at backups I think that Fontenot fits that role nicely. He doesn’t have a huge amount of upside but he is a high floor guy that can actually play a passable short stop in addition to third and second base.

Orlando Cabrera:

	BA	OBP	SLG	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB
2011 Projection	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
2011 Actual	0.222	0.241	0.270	4	3	0	1	13	2

Orlando Cabrera was not a good player to get and I don’t think anyone will miss him when he is not with the team next season. He had pitiful offense and only slightly better than Miguel Tejada defense. This was a classic Brian Sabean move and it didn’t quite work out.

The fact that Cabrera got any at bats let alone more than 50 in the first two spots of the lineup makes me depressed. The guy didn’t hit at all but because he has some track record of hitting in the past he go the benefit of the doubt despite what the results on the field were screaming out.

I don’t really want to think about this any more.

Brandon Crawford:

	BA	OBP	SLG	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB
2011 Projection	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
2011 Actual	0.204	0.288	0.296	22	5	2	3	21	1

Brandon Crawford was rushed up to the big leagues and I have to say that even though his offensive numbers weren’t great I think that he did fairly well. He more than anything else just was the victim of bad luck at the major league level and his batted ball data suggests a hitter better than the one in the above stat line.

The defense was as good as advertised and baring a big free agent I think that he is probably a better option than most of the second tier free agent short stops on the market this season (see Tejada, Miguel and Cabrera, Orlando for an idea of what is out there). He is putting up some good numbers in the AFL (although it is coming with a high BABIP that isn’t sustainable) which is encouraging.

Crawford showed that he can play MLB caliber defense and showed that he is no worse offensively than some of the other MLB short stops out there, given his MLB minimum contract for team with a pretty tight budget it could certainly be worse if the Giants can’t get a decent guy to play short next season.

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