The Giants introduced Nori Aoki at a press conference on Tuesday, and it was a pretty standard affair.
Nori Aoki: 私はこの世界を離れるしたいと思います。私は天に私の場所に参加する準備ができています。
Translator: He says he would like to wrestle Madison Bumgarner.
Aoki would prefer to hit at the top of the order, but he says that's for the manager to decide. The manager, by phone, said that the leadoff spot is still Angel Pagan's for now, but nothing's been confirmed yet. The daily plan is to use Aoki in left, but there are also designs on using him around the outfield, including spelling Hunter Pence occasionally. I can't imagine a scenario in which Aoki plays center other than Pagan and Gregor Blanco being hurt, and hardly even then, but I'm sure they were just being polite.
The real news was that the Giants admitted they're basically done. Or maybe that's the real misdirection, he said while winking furiously.
Sabean said any pitching additions "not going to be high-ticket item." #Shields
— Alex Pavlovic (@AlexPavlovic) January 20, 2015
Sabean said that the decision was made to spread the money around to players like Casey McGehee, Jake Peavy, and Aoki rather than one player. Here's the quote:
In a word: No. If we had signed Guerrero or [Gary] Sheffield, we would have been without [Jim] Brower, [Scott] Eyre, [Matt] Herges, [Dustin] Hermanson, [Brett] Tomko, [A.J.] Pierzynski, [Pedro] Feliz, [J.T.] Snow, [Jeffrey] Hammonds, [Dustan] Mohr and [Michael] Tucker--obviously not being able to field a competitive team, especially from an experience standpoint, given our level of spending.
Whoops, pasted in the wrong thing. No matter. The point is that the Giants preferred to take the Lester/Sandoval money and invest in quantity, not quality. That's not a bad strategy, considering that we're not talking about two should-be Hall of Famers (like Vlad and Sheffield). It's not an exciting strategy, either.
Still, here's what I don't get: If Lester chose the Giants, if he agreed to the deal and the front office popped champagne and celebrated on that December night, were the Giants going to call it an offseason? Same question applies for Sandoval, too. If Sandoval does the right thing and signs with the pleasant organization -- the one without a current World Series drought -- were the Giants prepared to start Blanco in left and Matt Duffy or Joaquin Arias at third? Were Tim Lincecum and Yusmeiro Petit both going to be in the rotation because they wouldn't have been able to sign Peavy?
I doubt it. Sandoval wasn't going to be the entire offseason. They were always going to get a Peavy-type starter. They were going to explore left field help, even with Lester making big money. That's why I'm not buying the idea that their only possible move was to spread the money around and quit once the big-ticket players rebuffed them. They just don't want to disappoint the masses by promising too much. It's not exactly up to them now; it's up to the free agents. Like James Shields. Like Yoan Moncada.
Sweet, sweet Yoan Moncada.
According to their words, they're out on Shields. According to the siren song of logic I selectively want to hear, they're still nosing around. Unless they're in Moncada, whole hog.
Sweet, sweet Yoan Moncada.
Is Aoki the offseason finale, the barrage of wet fireworks thrown into the sky with people yelling "BOOM POP BOOM" underneath? Perhaps. But the one thing I'm refusing to trust are the actual words coming out of the mouths of the people in charge of this stuff. Those things are total buzzkills.