Post by sharksrog on Feb 17, 2013 13:30:08 GMT -5
Fan Graphs's Dave Cameron chose deals involving two former Giants (despite his East Coast bias) among the five best and five worst deals of the winter.
On the positive, he had the Blue Jays' signing of Melky Cabrera #2 on his list of best deals. On the downside of the coin, he listed the Diamondbacks' signing of Cody Ross as the 4th-worst.
I concur with him on those two deals, but while I haven't yet heard anyone say that the signing of the should-be platoon player Ross was a good one at the price and term, I do recall hearing a Clubhouse Confidential guest call Cabrera's signing one of the worst.
My own feeling is (baseball-wise) that had the Giants re-signed Melky, they would be a clearly better team -- one with no obvious weaknesses. If they had re-signed Cody, they wouldn't be much better than they are.
And I believe that Cody got one more year and something like $9 million MORE than Melky.
One guy is a very good switch hitter, while the other is a good platoon hitter. Oh, and Melky has the better glove, as well.
The question with Melky, of course, is how much of his past two seasons' performance has been due to steroids. A plus for him, though, is that he was a major leaguer at age 20 and a regular starter at age 21. The guy that makes me think of is Adrian Beltre, who came to the majors at age 19 and was essentially a regular starter from that point on.
It took Adrian until his age 31 season to become consistently good, but now he has approached superstar territory as a third baseman on both sides of the ball, and could be cruising toward a Hall of Fame career.
That isn't likely to happen with Cabrera, but Melky is still just 28 years old.
On the positive, he had the Blue Jays' signing of Melky Cabrera #2 on his list of best deals. On the downside of the coin, he listed the Diamondbacks' signing of Cody Ross as the 4th-worst.
I concur with him on those two deals, but while I haven't yet heard anyone say that the signing of the should-be platoon player Ross was a good one at the price and term, I do recall hearing a Clubhouse Confidential guest call Cabrera's signing one of the worst.
My own feeling is (baseball-wise) that had the Giants re-signed Melky, they would be a clearly better team -- one with no obvious weaknesses. If they had re-signed Cody, they wouldn't be much better than they are.
And I believe that Cody got one more year and something like $9 million MORE than Melky.
One guy is a very good switch hitter, while the other is a good platoon hitter. Oh, and Melky has the better glove, as well.
The question with Melky, of course, is how much of his past two seasons' performance has been due to steroids. A plus for him, though, is that he was a major leaguer at age 20 and a regular starter at age 21. The guy that makes me think of is Adrian Beltre, who came to the majors at age 19 and was essentially a regular starter from that point on.
It took Adrian until his age 31 season to become consistently good, but now he has approached superstar territory as a third baseman on both sides of the ball, and could be cruising toward a Hall of Fame career.
That isn't likely to happen with Cabrera, but Melky is still just 28 years old.