Freddy Sanchez Likely Back in 2010

The San Jose Mercury News’ Andrew Baggerly reports, after a conversation with Brian Sabean, that the Giants are almost certain to bring back 2Bman Freddie Sanchez for 2010.  Most likely, it will be a two year deal, since the Giants want to pay less next year than the $8.1 million Sanchez would get if they excercise his option.

Can’t say I’m thrilled about the prospect of Sanchez coming back for (most likely) two more years.  He’s 32 next year and due for a big drop in offense in one of the next two seasons.

In fact, his OPS has dropped substantially from his career year in 2006 (.851 that year) to .785 in 2007, .669 in 2008 and .742 this year.  Looking at those numbers, Sanchez’s 2010 OPS is far more likely to be under .750 than over it.

While an OPS in the .740 range is O.K. for a 2Bman, if the Giants bat him second in the line-up in ‘10, as they did after the trade with Pittsburgh, he’ll be worth a lot less because he makes a lot of outs.  Sanchez has never been a patient hitter (32 walks in a season in his career), and he drew fewer than 25 each of the last two seasons.  The Giants won’t score runs with him at the top of the line-up.

Speaking of which, Bruce Bochy did an incredibly poor job of managing the Giants’ line-up this year.  The prime duty of players batting 1st and 2nd in the line-up is to get on base. Giants’ No. 2 hitters this year had a .299 OBP, the lowest on the team, except for the pitchers’ slot at 9th.  Giants’ lead-off hitters only had a .312 OBP, which was only the fifth best slot in the Giants’ line-up.

Giants No. 2 hitters had the worst OBP of any team in the NL, and their lead-off hitters were only underperformed by the Reds (who went much of the year with Willy Taveras at lead-off because he was cheap and he’s fast) and Philadelphia (this was a surpise: Jimmy Rollins had the worst OBP of his career by far, and his OBP numbers were never that good to begin with — however, Rollins still scored 100 runs evem, almost entirely on the strength of 69 extra base hits and a lot of good hitters behind him in the Phillies’ line-up).

A lot of this has to due with the team Brian Sabean put together.  No one on the Giants is any good at drawing walks.  However, Bochy did not help matters by continuing all year long to bat the likes of Edgar Renteria, Randy Winn, Eugenio Velez, Freddie Sanchez and Juan Uribe in the first two slots.  No wonder the Giants couldn’t score any runs, and Pablo Sandoval had only 90 RBIs in the three-slot despite hitting .330 with 74 extra base hits.

All reports are that the Giants are on the verge of re-signing Sabean and Bochy, presumably to multi-year contracts.  The team had a good year this year, and they can take their share of the credit.  However, I’m still not convinced that either one of them is or ever will be among the games elite general or field managers.