Rog -- I see your point, and to an extent, it is right. But if the Giants can somehow land Moncada, I'll be thrilled that they didn't spend the money on Pablo or Lester.
Dood - and yet you kept telling us about how untested Tomas and Abreu were coming over from Cuba...this guy is even LESS proven and yet you prefer him over proven studs like Lester and Pablo? Wow
Rog -- Unless it's the Dodgers, a team has to look for value. It's risk vs. reward, and the higher the length and cost, the higher the risk. (A longer length can also offer more reward.)
Abreu and Tomas each went for about $10 or $11 million per season, with a six-year commitment. That's Nick Markakis money, although with two more years of commitment.
Thus far Abreu has been a tremendous bargain, one whom by all accounts the Giants just missed out on. 2014 worked out great without him, of course, but wouldn't you just love to have the guy going forward? If he were a free agent today, we'd be looking at an Clayton Kershaw-type contract.
In other words, for a little over $60 million, the White Sox got around $300 million worth of player. With $30 million per season, the White Sox could have both Abreu AND Sandoval. Now THAT'S what we're talkin' about.
So let's look at Pablo -- and then Lester.
Pablo isn't a stud player. If we go back five years ago, he was. Now he's a very good player. Five years ago he was a 5-win player. That put him in the top 20 players or so, right around where Abreu is now. The past three seasons Pablo had been a 2.6 win, a 2.3 win and a 3.0 win player. That's a good player, but not anywhere near a stud.
It appears it would have cost the Giants at least $20 million per season for Pablo. That's a LOT of money for a good to very good player. It would not surprise me if over the next five seasons, a healthy Brandon Belt would be a better player. If I were the Giants and the medical reports on Belt are good, I would wrap him up right now, while he can be signed for a halfway reasonable price.
Now Lester is better -- and probably less of a health risk, which may be one of the reasons his contract is a year longer than Pablo's. Still, six years is a long contract for a pitcher. Very few six-year pitching contracts have worked out well.
But Lester HAS been a stud. The past seven seasons his WAR has been 5.0, 6.2, 5.4, 3.5, 3.2, 4.3 and 6.1. That's what a stud does. Even so, remember back in 2012 when Tim Lincecum fell apart? Tim pitched 186 innings with a 5.18 ERA. Lester pitched 205 innings with a 4.72 ERA. Tim was awful; Jon wasn't a huge amount better.
2012 was Lester's only truly bad season, and even then he pitched well when it counted most. But it likely would have cost the Giants $28 million per season for six years to sign him. That's a pretty fair amount of risk.
Moncada could be something of a bust. But the scouts are extremely high on him. Whoever signs him will get him just as his career likely takes off. Call me a gambler, but I would rather have him than Lester. Part of the reason is that although Moncada will be plenty expensive, he won't cost nearly as much as Lester -- and he should be at a much better time of his career.
Given how the market turned out this winter, I would have been OK with signing either Pablo or Lester. But they carried weight and age risk -- at a very high cost.
Abreu looks like a GREAT deal. Tomas may turn out differently. The scouting reports say Tomas has power but "he's not Abreu." The scouts are much kinder to Moncada, who appears to have superstar potential.
Those three Cubans weren't/aren't cheap. But they're a lot cheaper than Pablo and Lester -- and a lot younger. (Pablo is only 28, but it appears likely to be a very old 28.)
It comes down to risk/reward. I see two of the three Cubans as being a better risk than either Pablo or Lester. And with Tomas, I'd say it's close.
It isn't just that Abreu and Moncada will likely be better over their contracts than Pablo and Lester, it's that it costs so much less to sign them.
Give me Moncada and a long-term contract for Brandon Belt, and I will be delighted with the Giants' winter. I think those two contracts could wind up being at least as good as Pablo and Lester -- at a lot lower price.
When we look at Pablo and Lester -- as is the case with the Cuban free agents and Belt -- we need to look at how we see the players performing over the full course of their contracts -- not at how they have performed in the past.
The past three seasons are probably better predictors for Pablo and Lester than their full careers are. The past three seasons, Lester has gone 4.72, 3.75 and 2.46. That's not great pitching, but I like the trend a lot. Pablo's OPS has been .789, .758 and .739. That's good, not great, performance with a poor trend.
With the money's being a lot less, give me Belt and Moncada. That pair does carry more risk, but they're a lot cheaper and have just as much potential.
Except for the Dodgers, teams do not have unlimited funds. It is value that a good team seeks.
Read more:
sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/2667/giants-hold-private-workout-moncada#ixzz3PSKpjD6J
