Villalona Suspect in Murder

[Stanford]

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=t ... &type=lgns

**** moron

[RIPskaterdude]

Today just keeps getting better and better.

[bill curley II]

We waste a year of our #1 and #2 prospects for 5 IP and 3 AB.

Our #3 is going to jail.

Our #4 gets dumped for an aging 2b with no power.

What a year.

[GswStorm3]

It's not like were 11 games over .500 in September.

[Stanford]

It's not like were 11 games over .500 in September.

That's fair. It has been a pretty good season, and I'm sure we'll all look back on it and agree, but it's kind of tough to be content at this point in time.

[bill curley II]

It's not like were 11 games over .500 in September.

Are you honestly satisfied with the season or are you just saying that? What does being 11 games over .500 do for you? Did it really make the season for you being 11 games over .500 instead of 5 games under? Because I don't know what's there to be happy about being in 3rd place, losing 2 of your top 4 prospects for basically nothing, and losing a year of the other 2 top 4 prospect to let them sit on the bench.

[GswStorm3]

If you would've told me in ST the Giants would be 12 games over .500 in late September, I would have thought you were nuts. Yeah I'll say I'm satisfied with a team that has way surpassed my expectations with not a lot of talent offensively.

Of course I'm not happy about this Villalona news, but the Giants did him a favor to let him go home for a little bit and he caught himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Alderson I could care less about as he got pounded even worse with Pittsburgh's Double A affiliate than he did in Connecticut. Villalona may be joining Alderson on the way out, but I'm fully confident with Tommy Joseph and Zack Wheeler replacing those two on the prospect chart next season.

[GswStorm3]

BTW we didn't lose Alderson for nothing. I have no idea what you're talking about there. Villalona we may lose for nothing, but we only gave up cash(Not a draftpick) to give him a shot.

[bill curley II]

What did we get for Alderson (of value)? An aging, injury riddled Sanchez and his sub .700 OPS doesn't count. We could've just played Aurillia for that crap.
Hopefully he can bounce back next year, but he's only getting older. And even if Alderson never becomes a quality starter in the majors, he would still have pretty decent trade value next year.

The point I'm making is that it's nice I guess to be in a race for most of the season, but the end result is no different then being like 75-87, since either way, it's a 3rd place finish out of the playoffs. But the big thing is that the franchise is not in a better shape then they were at the start of the season, or if they had decided to keep/play more of the young guys.

We could've used the year to give guys like Lewis, Bowker, and Fransen a chance to see if they're legit starters in the league or career fringe players, but instead Winn, Rowand, and Renteria were the guys that got the ABs.

Instead of getting Garko, Sanchez, and nothing for Barnes, Alderson, and Villanona, those guys could've been kept as assets for when the Giants were true contenders. Obviously, the Villanona thing was out of the Giants' hands, but this is just general displeasure about the season, not the team or the front office.

I think the only big successes this year were Jonathan Sanchez becoming a good starter after his exodus to the bullpen and seeing that Velez could be an average 2B/good utility player. But in my mind, those don't equal out the bad that came out of the season regardless of the nice surprise they accomplished in the W-Ls.

[GswStorm3]

How does Sanchez not count? lol

Say we offer him arbitration and decide to let him walk this winter. That's draft picks we get in return, which you're also basically saying doesn't count. We can even pick up his option and just trade him later. That doesn't count for value also? Poor choice of wording there.

"We could've used the year to give guys like Lewis" I stopped reading there. I'm sorry but did you see Fred Lewis play at all the first 30 games. This guy is flat out terrible defensively and for a team built around pitching you can't afford Lewis dropping so many flyballs in the outfield. And Fred's bat definitely doesn't compensate enough for his weak glove. The only young guy that really should have played more was Nate Schierholtz. He's shown a better all around game than guys like Bowker, Lewis and Frandsen ever did.

The big success this year was Pablo Sandoval without a doubt and it's not even close. He was only 22 years old most of his first full season and he carried this offense a big chunk of the season. Cain's breakout year is a close second.

Sanchez had a good second half, but he's far from the biggest success.

[bill curley II]

Because an aging 2b who missed almost a month after being acquired and had an OPS+ of 62 is useless. You can't tell me he brought any value to the team this year. Granted, it's a small sample, but that's no one else's fault except for Sabean for getting a guy with an injury history and Sanchez himself for being made out of glass.
I doubt he'll have much value after that as well, so best chance is to just hope that he bounces back next year for the Giants. And what's so great about a late first round pick? It's a chance at getting a good prospect, which was what we already had with Alderson. So I don't know how you would think exchanging a top 4 prospect in your system for a handful of crap games and a chance at getting a top prospect is good value. And even that's a huge if, seeing how Sanchez's had declining numbers the last 2 years, he'll be 32 playing 2b, and someone's going to have to offer him either a long term deal or more than 5-7 mil to entice him out of the arbitration offer.

And Lewis would actually be a respectable bat in the lineup. He showed that last year, but got benched rather than letting him develop. Can't say the same with Schierholtz, who hasn't shown much in the batter's box. Lewis is a weak glove no doubt, but he's a LF, so it's not like that's a big defensive position at AT&T. And really, it's not even Lewis vs. Nate. It's Lewis vs. Winn, b/c both Nate and Lewis should be playing.
Bowker also definitely deserved a second look this year considering the huge improvement he made in AAA this year. It'd be foolish to say he's just the same player as he was last year, considering his OPS jumped almost 400 points in AAA from last year.

Sandoval and Cain have been great as well and I completely agree that they're two of the biggest bright spots on the team. I didn't count them b/c they were both penciled in as starters in the beginning of the year and both were already promising future stars. I was pointing out things that are different from the start of this year to the start of next year, and the two biggest things to me are Sanchez becoming an unknown to a reliable starter and Velez proving that he belongs on a roster and be a useful player. But overall, I don't know how you can say we're in a better state next year compared to coming into this year, and being a 3rd place team this year doesn't mean sh**.

[GswStorm3]

Curley it is quite possible teams around the league simply didn't value Alderson as highly as you did. A ton of scouts are sent to Minor League destinations to check out particularity players. Then considering with all the hits Alderson surrendered in Connecticut along with his drop in velocity from his previous year in San Jose. I can imagine most of those scouts didn't have a ton of high remarks to report back to their GM's or director's of scouting.

Regrading Sanchez he only had 100 ab's here. Fantasy geeks judge a player by that kind of small sample size, not an actual GM looking for an upgrade at second base.

[bill curley II]

Yeah that's definitely a possibility. From what I've read, his velocity went down and it clearly showed in his ratios. However, just going by BA and other publications, he was consistently rated as the Giant's 4th best prospect and a top 50 prospect overall, and for the time being, that's what I'll have to go by.

Sanchez did have a small sample size, but the main reason was that he was hurt, which wasn't a surprise at all considering his history and his current state at the time of the trade, even though it was a different injury with the Giants. But even if he wasn't hurt, and he put up his career averages, as I said during the time of the trade and as was shown as the season unfolded, Uribe would have basically been almost as or equally effective for the team.

I don't know how you would know how GM's are judging Sanchez as a free agent though unless you're following Sabean's mantra of signing old vets to large deals, but a good comparison might be Orlando Hudson, who didn't get a lot of interest last winter as a FA. Granted he was coming off a much more serious injury then Sanchez, but his numbers were on an uptrend, rather then on a downtrend like Sanchez has shown the last couple years. And if GMs consider them to be similar players/risk, if the Giants do offer arbitration, I think it's a long shot that anyone will give up a pick and give Sanchez a pretty sizeable deal.

Lastly, without looking at which 2b are going to be free agents this winter, I don't see too many teams that'll even be in the market for a veteran 2b and see Sanchez as an upgrade. Maybe the two Chicago teams, but that's all I see.

[GswStorm3]

Minnesota was trying to acquire Sanchez at the deadline also, he'll gather some interest.

[bill curley II]

Don't think the Twins are going to sign an arbitration player for 5-7 mil. At least it'd be extremely out of their MO to go in that direction. They might be interested, but only at a bargain.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/rumors/post/Giants-could-send-GM-packing-along-with-second-b;_ylt=AlQxx.3X1vcGB9DEyKHGNJw5nYcB?urn=mlb,191772

Don't know how credible that is, but hopefully Sabean is on his way out and Sanchez comes back healthier and produces at a lower contract. Bochy can follow, but I don't mind him as much as Sabean.

[WarFan]

What's the latest on this guy?

I hope he didn't really do it and he comes back mashing.