Brian Sabean Leaves Me in a Huff

The Giants just signed former Oriole Aubrey Huff to a one-year deal at $3 million.  The best thing to be said about the deal is that it isn’t costing the Giants much.

Huff will be 33 years old in 2010, and he’s really only had one good year with the bat (at least for a 1Bman) in the last five seasons.  Huff has experience playing at first, third and the corner outfield positions, but none of them particularly well.  The Giants again got some flexibility, but they still haven’t signed anyone with a good chance of hitting like a 1Bman or a left fielder in 2010.

The odds that Huff will hit well enough for a 1Bman in 2010, even for the Giants, who haven’t got much out of the position for a few seasons now, are not good.  I’d rather the Giants had waited a little longer to see if Adam Laroche would have second thoughts about their two-year $17 million offer, or tried harder to sign Johnny Damon (the Gints apparently did make Damon an offer).

One thing to be said for Huff: his career .340 on-base percentage and .812 OPS actually look good compared to the 2009 Giants.  Only Pablo Sandoval and Freddie Lewis had higher OBPs and only Sandoval and Juan Uribe had higher OPS numbers among 2009 Giants with at least 200 ABs.   Yeesh!

Huff would probably be a valuable role player for the 2010 Giants, like Juan Uribe was last year, but if he gets 500 or more at-bats, he’s unlikely to improve the Giants’ 2010 offense substantially compared to last year.  Also, having now signed Huff, DeRosa and Uribe, it’s unlikely that the Giants will add another bat much more expensive than a Johnny Gomes or other similar player, particularly in light of the fact that they need to add an arm to their bullpen after the losses of Bob Howry and Justin Miller.

As a Giants fan, it looks like 2010 will be another season with a lot of close, low-scoring games.  If either Tim Lincecum or Matt Cain suffers an injury that keeps him out more than three or four weeks, the Giants’ hopes for the post-season are probably over.

In some better news (at least in my opinion), the Royals signed former Giant Matt Herges to a minor league deal for 2010.  Herges will be 40 next season, but he pitched well for the Rockies and Indians last year and deserves the chance to keep on pitching.

Here’s a post from Grant Bisbee of the McCovey Chronicles.  He likes the Huff signing more than I do.