Andrew Baggarly on the Giants

Here’s an article from Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News on what he thinks the Giants are thinking about this off-season.  He repeats the conventional wisdom that the Giants would like to bring Bengie Molina back on a one-year deal for not much more than the $6 million they paid him in 2009, but that Bengie is unlikely to sign with the Giants since he wants at least a two-year deal.

Frankly, I can’t see any chance of the Giants resigning Molina to a one-year deal.  The free agent pickings at catcher this off-season look awfully slim to me.  Most of these guys just can’t hit.  In fact, the available catchers look so bad with the bat, that the top three in 2010 look likely to be Miguel Olivo, who the Royals cut loose rather than picking up his $3.3 million option, Bengie, who will be 35 next year, and Gregg Zaun, who will be 39.   Molina is the only Type-A free agent catcher on the market.

Given the other options, I can’t imagine Bengie not getting at least one team to offer him at least $16 million over two years even if he costs the team that signs him a draft pick.  The upshot is that the Giants absolutely have to offer him arbitration, so they can get the two drafts picks.

Baggarly suggests the Giants will look to sign Pudge Rodriguez to a one year contract to back up and mentor Buster Posey.  This makes a lot of sense to me.  Aside from the fact that Baggarly says that the Giants have had some interest in Pudge for the last couple of years, the odds are good that the Giants could sign him to a one-year, low-base-high-incentive contract, given his age in 2010 (38) and his drop-off with the bat in 2009 (.664 OPS).  Given the other catchers on the market, the odds are good that Pudge will be one of the better hitters of the group, particularly if used in the right role.

Baggarly also writes that the Giants like Jason Bay better than Matt Holliday as a possible big-ticket free agent sign.  I do too, although I’m not sure my reasons for preferring Bay are entirely rational.  Holliday is represented by Scott Boras, which generally means that teams have to way overpay to get one of his free agents to sign.  Also, I’m not convinced that Holliday isn’t already well past his peak and can hit well over a full season away from the mile-high air of Colorado.  Not entirely rational, but my gut feeling is that I’d rather see the Giants over-pay Bay for five years than Holliday.

Baggarly also thinks the Giants won’t offer arbitration to any of Randy Winn, Bob Howry or Randy Johnson.  Well, duh!  They are all way overpaid for the performances they provided in 2009, and you can’t reasonably expect that any of them at their advanced ages are going to be any better in 2010.  Better to free up these salary slots and chase some other, younger players.