Giants Making Run at Mark DeRosa

ESPN’s Jon Heyman reports that the Giants have made a two-year $12 million offer to Mark DeRosa.  In the present market, I doubt that DeRosa is going to get a much better offer than that, given his age the next two seasons (35 and 36) and the fact that he had a poor second half for the Cardinals in 2009 (.696 OPS) after a strong first half in Cleveland (.799 OPS).

If the Giants sign DeRosa, he would almost certainly play third with Pablo Sandoval sliding over to first.

DeRosa is not a great defensive 3Bman.  In approximately two full seasons at the position, he has a career .955 fielding percentage, has 2.57 chances per nine innings and has made 32 errors against 44 double plays.

Strictly average, but a little better than Sandoval’s career numbers at 3B (.962 fielding percentage, 2.28 chances per nine innings and 11 errors and 13 DPs turned).  Sandoval will likely be a good defensive 1Bman in terms of range on groundballs and fielding short-hop throws because he’s quick for a man his size and has good hands.  However. he’s also only 5′11″ inches tall, which is short for a 1Bman and will likely make it difficult for him to catch throws high or wide of the bag.

I think the odds are good that Mark DeRosa’s bat would help the Giants in 2010, but much less so in 2011.  DeRosa’s performance over the last three seasons in total suggests that DeRosa has a reasonably good chance to be a good-hitting 3Bman next season, but at age 36 in 2011, he’ll be due for a substantial decline.

While I can’t get wildly excited about the prospect of the Giants signing Mark DeRosa, at least he is a right-handed hitter with some power.  If the Giants can also sign Johnny Gomes, they’ll definitely be stronger from the right-side of the plate going into 2010, without spending a tremendous amount of money.