Time for Franny to step up

I’m very unhappy with this.

Doesn’t someone have to answer for this like Sabean or someone?!

I wanted Denker to succeed here for no other reason than the Dodgers essentially gave him to us.

whatever

I bet Magowan pressured Sabean into doing this!!

Wait…

uhhh, damnit. They let the wrong guy go.

Who left the gate open?

at least the Dodgers are losing.

just when i was starting to think sabes was making some decent moves. I guess I don’t have to look too far to remember why I don’t like him though. If Denker (and ellison for that matter – hey, he still has time to develop!) turns out good like I think he will, I will personally haunt the crap out of sabean for at least like a year. At least.

thats bad roster move #1 of the off-season in my book. I will try to keep a running total going.

unforgivable

fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck

next year? like was this a rule V draftee or what?

didn’t even give him a chance in September….

but I don’t think it’s gonna come back to bite us.

There is just no way they got rid of him for the sole reason they thought he wasn’t good enough. He’s younger than our other second basemen in his league of talent, and its not like we’re exactly crunching for space on the 40 man. There is something else afoot, and none of us know what it is.

Their GM has a freaking blog in which he rationally explains things to the fans. WTF?!! That is one of the best things I’ve seen. Can new ownership demand that Sabean does this?

…..for all the dumb roster moves that the Giants made during 08.

Seriously – Alfonzo needed to be kept on the 40-man? He could easily be repalced by a younger career minor-leaguer [with better defense] if needed down the line.

Also surprised that both Correia and Hennessey were jettisoned. I figured it’d be one or the other, not both.

Not sure what this means for the 5th starter next year…..

I think exposing Denker before Alfonzo is criminally stupid. Also, I’m not sure how roster stuff works with guys whose contracts are up, but what about Yabu and Vizquel?

I don’t get it all. Denker might never amount to anything, but he looked like he could be a strong offensive performer for a second baseman.

Stupid start to the offseason.

The way McCoven talks about this fella we should be seeing him in the Mid-Summer Classic for the next ten years

Well there’s an encouraging start to our offseason.
not

Would you rather have Travis Denker or Eugenio Velez?

wtf

I wish I knew more about roster rules to put the move in context. Are the Giants essentially picking Jesse English or something over Denker, or what? Are they making room to select somebody else’s prospect exposed in the Rule 5 draft?

since Denker could play a little 3B, the candidates to start at 3B are now Rohlinger, Frandsen, Pablito and Mystery 3B. Not only that, but unless we sign a FA at 3B and/or 2B, we are ridiculously thin at those positions in the upper minors. Removing Depth for shits and giggles is not a sound organizational philosophy. Outrighting Bocock would have made more sense (not much more, because he looks to be the AAA starting SS next year, but still).

…in my earlier post;

for me Denker > Frandsen. I’ve never understood the relative fascination with Frandsen.

Denker’s weaknesses – poor defender, sluggish baserunner – are matched by Frandsen. Denker’s hitting potential for me is significantly higher than Frandsen’s, and he’s 4? years younger.

I guess if you’re a local kid, and a perceived ‘gamer’, that outweighs talent in this org….

Sorry Travis, I guess I wasn’t a good enough adoptive father to you. In fact, I think someone stole you from me. But anyway, it was fun while it lasted, especially that part where my adoption of Mark Sweeney turned into a semi-promising young 2B. Sigh. Have a nice life.

I remember Sabean making a comment about how “we’re all rooting for Frandsen” to win the 2B job. What the hell does that mean? And is that how he came up with the idea to get rid of all the competition?

I’m still very unhappy with this.

I have a feeling Denker had some clubhouse problems. I mean besides his obvious defensive flaws, I don’t see a bat like that getting flushed away by 2 organizations so quickly.

I’m in agreement with lots here in being pretty unhappy with this, it’s a terrible move that makes no sense whatsoever. The thing that’s baffling about this move is that there just isn’t any logic behind it. I can understand, although disagree, if the organisation doesn’t think highly of him, but there’s seeminly no purpose to getting rid of him now.

We’ve got loads of room on the roster, we may have to protect a few from the draft, but we had plenty of room to do that anyway, and if we have problems due to future aquisitions (which i doubt, given the amount of space we have) then we could make this decision then. It’s a very dissapointing & negative start to the offseason.

I agree with all of you guys about losing Denker, but I can’t believe how everyone is focusing on that when the fact that Correia and Hennessey being dumped is so much more important. Sabean said they would not go into the FA market for starters, yet they now have just four. (you can’t count Noah Lowry) I think it’s obvious that Neukom is starting to exert his influence, and the Giants’ are going to make a serious run at a top starter. To me, the excitement over that trumps the loss of Denker. I can’t see Travis doing anything at the big league level that would make me think in the future that I’m sorry they went with Frandsen, Velez or someone not here yet. With regards to Denker, I really don’t see how his perfomance this year could have turned them off to such an extent. Might it have been something personal?? He should have been called up in Sept. and wasn’t, and now he’s just dumped. Is it possible he rubbed people the wrong way??

And I don’t feel like digging stuff out for myself. What just happened? Is Denker absolutely gone or can we pull him back? Why aren’t we keeping Espineli up? Who’s our fifth starter now if Lowry gets busted again?

The obligatory Denker Career path Chart

I picked the wrong off-season to stop sniffing glue

Well, he’s now in an organization which will better be able to appreciate his Todd Walker-esque skillset.

Denker could have been a cheap, good hitting second baseman for a long time. Now we’re stuck hoping that either Kevin Frandsen’s too-old-for his level minor league numbers translate to the majors or that Eugenio Velez figures out how to play baseball.

/sadly updates signature

Meh
/shrug

This is the Giants Way!

Whether or not we’ll all look back one day with regret over this move isn’t really the main point for me. I mean, sure, Denker showed real signs of being a Major League caliber hitter—more so than Velez or Frandsen, so I’m not happy about losing him. But if the point is only, “we lost Travis Denker”, I don’t know that I’m going to lose a ton of sleep over it.

What bothers me more is the lack of any apparent benefit to this move, and what it says about the person making the move. The Giants are dumping a middle infielder—an area where they’re demonstrably weak—and a middle infielder who is young and had some nice upside with his hitting—another area where they’re demonstrably weak. Denker had a chance to become a valuable player—a better chance than some of the guys who remain on the 40-man, and definitely a better chance than the seven empty spots left on the 40-man. And the dumping of Denker yields… what benefit? Increasing the savvy, good clubhouse guy quotient?

So, the larger issue is that Sabean still appears to be an idiot. I get releasing Denker if there’s something better in the wings waiting to take his spot. But clearly that isn’t the case here. This just smells of another in Sabean’s long line of dumb, incomprehensible moves for six years running now. I doesn’t give me any confidence that the bigger moves still to come this offseason will be any better.

The Denker choice is just too much stupidity and arrogance mixed together. No I don‘t care to figure the ratio either its enough for me to know its bad. I don’t care if Denker never sticks at the Mlb level a 23 year old playing 2nd in Fresno learning the game. Not a bad thing. In fact a better then Zorak considering were the talent is, and isn’t, currently in this franchise.

Before someone brings up "Trust the scouts" it a moot point. One the scouts are not making the choice. Two tell me how well you enjoyed Joe Castle this season over Buscher? Because had the system been handled properly ( ie. think about more then 1-2 moves ahead of time) that would have been our choice in 2008.

The other 6 are not bad though. In years past I could see a Correia or Hennessy being kept. In franchise just interested in getting by would have kept one or both and hoped they turned out well enough to get some one’s O.K low level protect. You know like he Sabean does with a veteran free agent position players once they have gone over the cliff. To me this makes me think the front office is looking at bringing in 2 guys to compete for the bottom of the rotation. Sorry Rainman but C.C. is not one of them.

Ochoa it was fun and thanks for ‘08!

I had traded him away (along with Dave Roberts) to the Mets in my Baseball Mogul sim and he was an average starter from 24-27. an .831 OPS year mixed in there too. Then he took off and I signed him back as a free agent, and reaped the benifits of a 1.074 OPS and .992 OPS. He’s now 34 and making 24.5 million a year for the next 2 seasons.

about ever going back to Dodd again now.

I swear to god, I leave town for a day and the Giants screw the pooch. Every time. It never fails.

For the next trade suggestion including his name as a throw in.

Slightly OT, the Blue Angels are strafing SF this afternoon. Can we get them to unload some of their weaponry over Sabean’s office?

this move was completely unnecessary. that’s why it is mind boggling. If Denker was a 26 year old career minor leaguer, none of us would care that much, but he’s barely 23 years old and can hit with pop and we just gave him away for nothing.

But it seems the team was never willing to give him a real chance, so there must’ve been something about him they didn’t like. I just hope someone explains the move publicly.

For runs at veteran players. I hope Sabean doesn’t think getting veteran players is the only way to contend in 2009. All he has to do is look at the final four teams and realize that using young players isn’t wrong.