Giants and Posey agree to 9 year deal

Buster Posey will be sticking around for a long, long time.

The deal was first reported by Bay Area Sports Guy and the total value comes out to $167 million over the nine years. This includes the $8 million he was slated to make this season for a grand total of $159 million in new money guaranteed. In addition the deal includes a full no trade clause and a team option for a 10th season at $22 million.

This deal is pretty close to about the best I could have expected when I heard a mega deal was in the works.

I had got it in my head that it would be hard to see him sign for less than $200 million even with his arbitration years helping to push the price down for the Giants.

Looking at what actually happened and I really couldn't be any happier. One of my favorite players is going to be with the team for a long time and it didn't come at an outrageous cost that will hurt who the Giants can put around him.

Rough estimate of the Giants break even in this deal in terms of wins above replacement is probably in the 30 to 35 win range which really isn't all that high of a barrier to meet. This assumes a 7 percent rate of salary inflation, which in honesty might be a little low considering all the money flowing into the league right now.

Here is the breakdown on a yearly WAR basis:

2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
4	3.5	3.5	3.5	3.5	3	3	2.5	2.5	2.5

Tough to ask for a better deal for the player or the club.

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Giants Notes and Links 3/26

Time to catch up on what is going on with the Giants.

Andrew Baggarly has a bunch of notes as Spring Training comes to an end, most importantly Pablo Sandoval is likely to not have surgery and is determined to make the opening day lineup.

Chris at Bay City Ball took a look at Tim Lincecum's fastball over that last couple of seasons. A great article, I wish I had thought to pull this data and examine it.

The Hardball Times has five questions for the Giants coming into 2013.

Dave Pinto takes a look at the Giants optimal lineup and discovers the offense hopefully shouldn't be too bad this season.

Some fantasy baseball advice from Bryan Murphy at McCovey Chronicles, basically he says don't draft Giants.

Last but not least, if you are looking for tickets, TiqIQ's job is finding the best deals and sellers out there for for San Francisco Giants tickets.

Giants Notes and Links

It has been a while since I have done this but with Spring Training wrapping up it seemed like a good time to try to catch up with all of the Giants news.


The Giants and Buster Posey are working on a big contract extension. Also SI.com has some thoughts on what he is worth.

I think it is probably better to wait a bit, they aren't likely to get a huge discount buying after an MVP season and he is at a minimum staying for this season plus three more. If they get it done great, if they don't well there is plenty of time down the road.

Keith Law has some interesting things to say about some Giants, first he scouted Tim Lincecum last week and he was having similar issues to last year, he had some more on Lincecum and the coming year and he also listed Brandon Belt on his breakout list.

The Giants made some cuts and are looking at Nick Noonan as the second backup infielder. All I can say is that the Giants bench might be the worst I can remember in a while, those late pinch hitters are not going to put much fear into opposing managers.

Bay Area Sports Guy has some needed thoughts on how to properly handle the injury to Dodgers star Hanley Ramirez.

Last but not least, if you are looking for tickets, TiqIQ's job is finding the best deals and sellers out there for you, and for the Giants you may want to have a look at Razorgator for San Francisco Giants tickets.

Can Hunter Pence rebound in 2013?

Hunter Pence has been the talk of the Giants, partially for his crazy singing and dancing and also because he will play a very import role in the 2013 Giants offense. Over at Bay Area Sports Guy I wrote up a post looking at what to expect from Pence in 2013.

When the Giants traded for Hunter Pence last season they thought that they were getting a big bat to fill the middle of their lineup.

It didn't quite turn out that way for the Giants with Pence hitting just .219/.287/.384 in 248 plate appearances, not that it ultimately mattered as the Giants won the World Series in spite of his offensive ineptitude.

Looking back at his partial season with the Giants, he put up numbers well below his career norms. His full year stats also resulted in career lows in batting average, slugging, isolated power, strike out rate and Wins Above Replacement. His season was so bad that he lost 7 points on his career batting average, 4 points on his on base percentage and 10 points on his slugging percentage.

Overall, things were ugly.

So the big question for the Giants is what to expect this season? Should we expect the weak hitting guy who suited up for the Giants last year or the middle of the order threat they thought they traded for last season?

Check out the full post.