Giants Don't Offer Bengie Molina Arbitration

Giants GM Brian Sabean just doesn’t value those draft picks.  The Giants would have received two picks by offering Bengie Molina arbitration, because, I suspect, there was little chance that Molina would have accepted.  Even if Molina had accepted, I don’t see the down-side.

Molina is not a great player at this point in his career, but taking a look at the other free agent catchers out there (they really are a sorry bunch this year), one can see that a solid defensive catcher with an OPS of .727 in 2009 and a .767 OPS in 2008 is not chopped liver.

Even if Molina accepted arbitration and the Giants had to pay him a lot for 2010, the Giants have options.  They could start Buster Posey in AAA in 2010, so that he’s really ready when the Giants make him their everyday catcher.

I’m not convinced that Posey is truly ready to be the everyday catcher on Opening Day 2010.  If he is their starter in ‘10, I think he’s going to take his lumps at the plate.  Even if his bat is ready, the Giants could get him ABs at 1B.  First was black hole for the Giants in 2009.

Also, the reports seem uniform that Molina wants a multi-year contract.

The reports suggest that the team most interested in Molina is the Mets.  They were so bad in ‘09, that signing Molina, if the Gints offered him arbitration, would only cost them a second-round draft pick.  That’s not much of a disincentive for a win-now team like any team playing in New York City.

Part of the problem is that the Giants have not had success drafting second round players.  The Giants like physical talents, not necessarily proven baseball ability, and the players with the very best skills are usually gone by the second round.  The Giants then draft skills players like Todd Linden, who don’t quite have the skills to make it to the majors unless they understand the game well enough to make the adjustments that are required to progress past the AA level.  (In fact, I’m still not quite sure why Linden couldn’t establish himself as a major league player.  He had mad skills, but just couldn’t seem to make the adjustments fast enough to establish himself as a major leaguer.)

Sabean knows the Giants past history well and doesn’t want to waste sandwich pick and second round money on guys who aren’t going to make it.  My preference, of course, would be that Sabean and his merry band of dunces figure out what types of players still available in the sandwich and second rounds do progress (plenty of these guys do develop into major league stars) and draft those kinds of players.  Unfortunately, this seems to be too much to ask from the current talent evaluators.