Breaking the Site's Deafening Silence on the Subject of Edgar Renteria

Short deals certainly limit risk, but you don’t think the relatively short-term deals to Neifi Perez, Jose Vizcaino and Dave Roberts hurt? Not nearly as much as the Barry Zito deal, certainly, but the point is that make GOOD signings is what is important. The four deals mentioned above were all dumb deals the day they were done. Any HACK sabermetician could have told Brian Sabean he was making at BEST questionable moves.

If Furcal is healthy, he’s a very good player, contributing both offensively and defensively. Health is the issue here.

I expect Renteria to bounce back a bit next season, with an average closer to .300. But his glove seems to be declining, and just how much better is he likely to be than Kevin Frandsen or especially a semi-platoon of Frandsen and Eugenio Velez? Yes, I think Edgar will out hit Kevin by a bit, but will it be by enough to offset both Kevin’s better glove and his salary’s being somewhere around $8.5 million less? Doesn’t sound that way to me.

Renteria would certainly provide insurance should Burriss need more seasoning, which could well be the case. And it appears he could be had for only a two-year contract. But at $9 million per, does he really improve the Giants enough? Particularly when his fielding seems to be in decline and may not even be average.

My feeling has been that with the exception of an ailing bullpen, the Giants should sign the top free agents or not sign any at all. Renteria hasn’t changed my mind in that regard.

No, we won’t… Cain’s very good, but not elite. I’m only talking about Timmy.

Timmy, by himself, is a good enough reason. We have perhaps the best young pitcher in baseball, and he may not be here forever. Why should a team with an above-average payroll ceiling piss that away? Because we don’t have Tampa Bay-level young talent? Because we’re sick of veterans? Because we think sucking for a couple years will magically make us better? Because we’re just so convinced that guys like friggin’ Nick Noonan are worth waiting for?

We are not the Royals. We are not the Marlins or the A’s. We have enough money to compete. The current combination of our talent and our money could make us competitive in 2009, and it wouldn’t have to hurt our chances in future years. Signing Renteria wouldn’t cost us Bumgarner or block a high-upside guy, and it might not even cost us a draft pick… it’d just cost ownership some money. What is so entertaining about seeing ownership keep their money?

Any Giants fan that wants us to punt on a season for its own sake needs to take a step back. We want these guys to win, don’t we?

I don’t think the Giants have any elite talent at the major league level aside from Tim Lincecum. It does appear that Madison Bumgarner, Buster Posey and Angel Villallona have the potential to reach that level, and certainly Matt Cain and Brian Wilson are at least potential All-Stars, as Wilson already was last season. Pablo Sandoval appears to have the ability to hit anywhere from well to VERY well as a catcher.

I think the Giants are indeed eager to compete. All they lack is the talent to do so.

Agree with that. But let’s remember, Zito

A) was a stupid signing to begin with, and
B) has gotten much, much worse than anyone could’ve expected.

Barry Zito is not the norm in free agency. His contract is a horrible, horrible outlier.

Look at Aaron Rowand. Rowand brought us skills we didn’t particularly lack, and he didn’t have a good season. Are we in a worse position as a result of his contract? Not at all, in fact, because Sabean got a good player at market price. There are a number of teams who would be okay with Aaron Rowand at that price… if we wanted to, we could probably trade him without eating a penny in salary. We probably won’t, because it looks strange to trade a guy a year after signing him, but we could. Rowand was a good player at market price. Zito was a good player at a wildly inflated price, who then stopped being good.

Free agency isn’t always an efficient way to improve, but it’s pretty rare for a team to be flat-out stuck with a non-asset, in the way that we’re stuck with Zito. Fear of that can’t dominate the Giants’ thinking.

If Emmanuel can man TWO positions simultaneously, I may have to fore go my reservations about his hitting.

Once when Willie Mays hit a triple, Bob Stevens wrote in the Chronicle of the extra base hit, “The only guy who could have caught it, hit it.”

The good news is that Edgar Renteria’s K rate has declined each of the past three seasons and that his batting average should pop up closer to .300. The bad news is that his power and fielding are declining. The ugly news is that it costs $9 million a year for a shortstop who is above-average offensively but below average defensively and who is declining at an unknown rate.

When I look at K/BB ratios, I look at them in the context of power. Power hitters usually strike out a lot, but they also have that power and often walk a lot. The less the power, the lower the K/BB ratio I’m looking for.

The problem with a guy who doesn’t strike out much but also doesn’t walk much is that each of those strikeouts cost only about 3/10th of a hit. A lost walk is a base not taken and the loss of a full out.

Emmanuel Burriss doesn’t strike out much, which is good. He also hasn’t walked a lot, which isn’t so good. But he did hit a streak in late August or so where he was walking a lot, so hopefully he can retain a good portion of that.

Also, he made more progress in a short time from the left side than anyone I can recall seeing.

Bottom line, Emmanuel already appears to be an above-average fielder at second base, which augurs well for his being able to eventually achieve that status at shorstop. His improvement from the left side was impressive and much needed. If Manny is to have offensive value to the Giants, he will need to draw a lot of walks, getting on base in order to take advantage of his speed. He probably isn’t going to hit for a lot of average, and I would be shocked if he ever hit for any power.

At all levels, Manny has averaged about two extra bases for every 11 hits. By comparison, Omar Vizquel averaged about four extra bases for every 12 hits. Omar had no power, yet he was almost twice as powerful as Manny.

If Emmanuel can reach base 35% of the time and become an above-average shortstop in the field, he can be an asset. If not, he will be pretty much a place holder.

When you make Omar Vizquel look like a power hitter, you’d better field somewhat like him and get on base a lot. If not, you should try to become the best utility infielder you can be.