The following link has this in greater detail.

http://www.mlb4u.com/teamcontract.php?team=San%20Francisco%20Giants

So of course I will get to my suggested offseason moves.  First of all I think most of us would agree that we need to at least TRY to move Durham, Roberts and Winn.

For Durham, who is owed 7.5M next year, I think it would be possible to move him by eating 4.5M of the contract.  Will someone pay 3M to take a chance on Ray rebound?  I do.

Roberts has shown that his injury at the beginning of the year was responsible for his terrible start.  Since returning he has had decent numbers, especially against righties.  Moving him should be easier than we imagined in May.  He is owed 6.5/yr over the next two years and I wouldn't be surprised if we only had to eat 3M to ship him out.  10M for 2 years of Roberts should be reasonable enough for another GM.

And Randy Winn.  He should be much easier to move from the standpoint of his value.  But he can nix the trade to 10 teams, so it might be harder than expected.  I wouldn't think we would have to eat much of his contract, maybe 2-4M of the '08 salary.  Eat a couple mil, ask for only a minor leaguer in return, and I think we could move Randy.

Because of having to eat some of the salaries, moving these 3 guys won't be as helpful in '08 as it will be in '09.  But nonetheless, we could clear up over 10M for '08.  That would be a great first step in the rebuild.  And considering that their replacements will cost less than 2M combined, we can sprinkle that money in other places.

Lets see where that puts us.  57.7M in committed monies for '08, goes to about 46M committed if we move Durham, Winn and Roberts within the framework I suggested.  Considering my 8M discrepancy off of the 95M payroll, that leaves us about 41M to work with, but keep in mind, some of that is going to go to re-signing the kids.

I would like to see the front office open up the pocketbooks a little more next year.  Up the payroll by 10M, putting it around 105M/yr, and go out and get A-Rod.  A bunch of people that are against signing A-Rod are thinking that we won't have anyone around Alex to protect him, and thus it will be just like the Barry-walk-a-thon version 2.0.  But the reason I think we should bring A-Rod in, for about 6 years, is two-fold.  First, it will give the fans a good reason to continue to fund the Giants endevors.  If we do not make some serious splashes in this FA, I fear we will lose some of the fans that help to keep our payroll high.  Second, by the time we are ready to compete again, A-Rod will be in the heart of our lineup, right where we want him.  By signing A-Rod, the front office is saying to the fans, this is a new era of Giants baseball, and although we may suck in '08, we have one huge piece of the future that is going to get us a championship.

Why A-Rod comes to SF?  Becuase we have a fanbase that is 1 million times better than the NY fanbase.  And as for a city, SF is much more beautiful, has much less drama, and yet has all of the great things that big cities provide.  No tabloids, no stress, and he still gets paid how much he wants.  He can pursue Barry's record in peace, while we go through this temporary young talent audition phase.  We know he wants to get a ring, and he would have to be patient while we get our next great team organized.  But we explain to him how we have built a solid pitching staff, and how over the next two years, we will be trying to bring in another marquee player to pair up with him, while we simultaneously develop prospects.

By opening the pocketbooks to get A-Rod, we will have 51M to work with, 30M goes to Alex.  That leaves us 21M to get a lot done.

Resign Feliz for 12M - 2 Years.  If we are trying out a bunch of new prospects, why not keep our longest standing project.  His defense warrants playing time, and it seems like he has been making steps each year with respect to his hitting approach.  Of course they are baby steps, but my point still stands.  If he all of a sudden starts putting things together, it will be good for us as he will be easy to move contract-wise and would return a tasty prospect.

The rest of the money can be used to re-sign the young, cheap kids, both pitching and position players.  I assume Lincecum will get a contract that is somewhere within the framework of Cain's and Lowry's contracts - cheap for what we are getting.  

If there is any leftover money, we can go out and sign one more "vet", maybe someone like Sean Casey, a career .995 fielding percentage at 1B, and a guy who hits for average - career .300.  His power has fallen off, but even if it didn't, it would still be hard for any left hander to come into our park and have success hitting for power.  So that doesn't concern me.

Try and trade Lowry for a good young MLB ready prospect.  

C - Molina
1B - McClain
2B - Frandsen
SS - A-Rod
3B - Feliz
LF - Lewis
CF - Davis
RF - Schierholtz

IF - Aurilia
OF/1B - Ortmeier
C - Knoedler

I left a couple spots out for some flexibility.  

That lineup has 100 game loser written all over it.  But then again so will just about any team that any of us try to write up.  The positive thing is that we will have created an atmosphere that is conducive to prospects.  Alex will provide the occasional thrill, along with the pitching, to keep us entertained for the next year.  

If any outfielders completely flop, we will have Horwitz, Timpner and Bowker in AAA.  Frandsen needs to be an everyday guy for at least a half year so we won't have to worry about him too much.  Having Ort and McClain covering 1st buys us at least a half year, hopefully more.

Going young helps us get our entire minor league system moving.  We may not have a lot in terms of position prospects, but between this year and next, I think we will be repleneshing plenty of young talent behind Alderson/Bumgarner/Noonan/Villalona/Fairley.  

Oh yeah, and some of the biggest moves we need to make is bringing in new coaches.  I know we are stuck with Bochy, but hopefully we can get rid of Leferversresfvevssresfveee and that dirty old Rag we have laying around.

I would love for the Giants to spend about $30 million for Bonds and a long term contract for Arod.  That right there might instantly make them a playoff team or at least contenders in the NL West.

I really like Alex Rodriguez, especially if he can still play shortstop.  But the sad thing is that by the time the Giants are likely to be good, he will be about 37 years old.

As much as I like Alex, I wouldn't sign him at this point.

What is the deal with the contracts for guys from our farm system? Do they automatically make the league minimum, and how long do we have their rights for?

Whatever happens this offseason, we need to do something about the infield. We have the cheap players to play outfield, but nobody ready to play infield. Problem is, A-Rod is the only real decent free agent infielder on the market to be a real lineup presence. Everyone else is a role player. Big FA bats are outfielders, but we have young players ready for their shot out there. The only other way to get a decent bat on the infield is to trade someone like Lowry. It's A-Rod or bust. We are screwed.

No player is worth 30 mil a year especially when you have a 90 mil payroll.

JUST SAY NO TO AROD.

If we sign him this team will be crap until he leaves.

People complain cause Bonds has stopped this team from rebuilding (which is BS. Management didnt have the guts to make a change and is running a smear campaign against Bonds to cover its own mistakes) and with Arod this team will have even more trouble rebuilding cause he will be taking even more of the payroll not to mention Zito.