White Sox sign Jose Abreu

Well, shoot.

I don't know if I wanted Jose Dariel Abreu on the Giants. It would have pushed Brandon Belt to left field, and the reports on Abreu are conflicting. Maybe he's Edgar Martinez, or maybe he's Brett Pill without the athleticism. The Rangers were in on Abreu until the very end, and they seem like a bunch of smart folks. Maybe Abreu is really going to be that good.

How good? Sixty-eight million worth of good. The White Sox are signing him for $68 million over six years. That's not too far from Hunter Pence money for a semi-squishy first baseman who has never hit major-league pitching.

Dingers, though. All of the dingers. Imagine a latter-day Andres Galarraga, threatening the Coke bottle with all sorts of absurd dingers. I'm not sure if I would have wanted the Giants to pay the price. Watch the Tigers over the next few years to see what a lumbering one-tool first baseman can do for payroll flexibility.

I wanted to dream. And Abreu signing with the Giants in October would have been good for six solid months of dinger-related dreams. I'm kind of jealous of the White Sox and their fans. In a much more specific way, I am absolutely not jealous of the White Sox and their fans. They're thinking about dingers, though. That'd be some good fuel for the hot stove.

Okay, so the Giants didn't stick around for the final round of this dinger raffle. Big deal. The offseason hasn't really started, right?

If you want power, though, Abreu was pretty much it. That's why he got $68 million. And when Jose Abreu goes somewhere else, the odds of Nelson Cruz coming to San Francisco go up, even if incrementally.

Suddenly, Curtis Granderson looks really, really good on a four-year deal ...

...

Gross. He'd so have 12 home runs in AT&T Park over the life of the contract.

This free-agent market is all gross, at least for hitters. And, again, the Giants' problems are more about pitching instead of hitting. Upgrade in left and focus on the rotation and bullpen. Maybe the white whale should be Masahiro Tanaka. I was prepared to take to the streets and chant, "Tanaka and Abreu! Tanaka and Abreu!", even though I never really had a good comeback prepared when the Giants responded with, "We tried that last year! Didn't work!"

One slugger down, one or two to go. I think the only free-agent slugger the Giants were ever going to sign was Hunter Pence. That shouldn't be much of a surprise, but it's still a little disappointing to see all of those dingers go away.