Trade Zito for Figgins!

Someone should really make this happen.

9 months ago Robert Praetor 15 comments 1 recs |

Comments

Zito is at least average. Figgins has been Emmanuel Burriss, and the Giants have a decent amount of infielders better than Burriss. If the Giants are forced to eat the difference in salary, it makes no sense to take the worse player, too.

My adopted Giant, the young Reinier Roibal

by garbanzo24 on Sep 16, 2011 12:13 AM PDT reply actions

Wow, a realistic Zito trade scenario in which the Giants actually lose value! Good work.

MY DAD WAS WRONG!
MY BOY NEEDS TO THROW HARDER!

by Roger on Sep 16, 2011 4:22 AM PDT reply actions

Zito actually has value to the Giants, as strange as it seems. They have the big four, Zito, Sanchez and Surkamp, and nobody else even close to starting in the major leagues. What do you do next year if a couple of starters go down? Plus if you do decide to trade or non-tender Sanchez, Zito becomes even more important.

Buster Posey: still better than Eli and Stewart, even with a broken ankle.

by rxmeister on Sep 16, 2011 5:53 AM PDT reply actions

Zito has no value on the Giants

Zito has value on a team that doesn’t have five better starters. The Giants are not that team. For those of you who want to see him in the bullpen, I give you his 2011 pitch number splits. By far the worst part of his game are pitches 1-25 — which happen to be the most important for a reliever. Those numbers follow a similar pattern for his career and are exacerbated when you look at pitches 1-15 (not available on Baseball Reference, but on sites like ESPN). Bring on Chone, por favor.

by chacabuco on Sep 16, 2011 10:47 AM PDT reply actions

This why Zito coming out of the bullpen is suh a good idea

Let someone else throw pitches 1-25!

/off to solve other problems

The thong is, it happened.

by Goofus on Sep 16, 2011 3:25 PM PDT up reply actions

Zito DOES have value, because saying the Giants have five better starters assumes that a sixth starter is never needed the entire season. How often does that happen?

Buster Posey: still better than Eli and Stewart, even with a broken ankle.

by rxmeister on Sep 16, 2011 8:32 PM PDT up reply actions

(not available on Baseball Reference, but on sites like ESPN)

That’s your first clue that you’re looking at a useless stat.

My adopted Giant, the young Reinier Roibal

by garbanzo24 on Sep 16, 2011 8:33 PM PDT up reply actions

Pitcher in "has better results against the bottom of the order than the top of the order" shock

by sarf_london_niner on Sep 17, 2011 5:12 PM PDT up reply actions

I'd do it

If no cash changed hands. Saving 25 mil would be worth it. However, if those savings would be reduced (aka the giants send money back) i’d be less and less enthused.

Adoptive father of Caleb Hous.... hous... housyourdaddy?

by OmahaGiants on Sep 16, 2011 11:24 AM PDT reply actions

Yes, that’s the issue. The link is to a Seattle PI blog post which in turn links to a David Cameron post on USS Mariner. Cameron is suggesting the Giants eat almost all the difference in salary, and then it doesn’t appeal to me at all. A straight-up deal sounds great, but that’s tantamount to asking the Mariners to sign a new bad contract on top of Figgins’ deal. Is there middle ground here? Tough to make one team happy, let alone both, when dealing with players as disappointing as Figgins and Zito.

by Tristram on Sep 19, 2011 11:08 PM PDT up reply actions

I'd do it

assuming Seattle would pick up roughly half of the difference between what Figgins is owed and what Zito is owed. At that rate the Mariners are essentially releasing Figgins and paying Zito 6-7 mil per year to be their 4th/5th starter. Figgins has been bad, the drop in LD% and rise in GB% is troubling but he’s also had pretty bad luck the last couple years. Even if he can’t get back to his career average line of .280/.352/.368 I don’t think its unreasonable to think he might be able to post something like .250-.260/.320-.330/.300. Thats not a good player but with his speed and ability to play multiple positions its a pretty useful bench player. I think a useful bench player and somewhere between 10-15 mil in salary relief over the next couple years is pretty good return for Zito at this point.

Thing A

by sam23 on Sep 16, 2011 1:11 PM PDT reply actions

I doubt the Mariners would eat that type of money.

My adopted Giant, the young Reinier Roibal

by garbanzo24 on Sep 16, 2011 8:34 PM PDT up reply actions

They’ll have to sign a couple pitchers for the back end of the rotation anyway. If they really are considering cutting Figgins, getting Zito for 2/12 wouldn’t be thata bad of a deal.

Thing A

by sam23 on Sep 16, 2011 9:52 PM PDT up reply actions