Thursday, July 30, 2009

Giants acquire Freddie Sanchez for Tim Alderson

The Giants announced last night another trade, acquiring Pirates All
Star second baseman Freddie Sanchez for AA pitcher Tim Alderson.

Alderson was one of the Giants top 4 (suposedly) untouchable prospects
with a live arm and great command. He has been projected to be a solid
#2 starter. Many have envisioned a "dream rotation" of Lincecum, Cain,
Bumgarner, & Alderson leading the Giants for years to come, comparing
to the great Braves staff if the 90's. It's hard to compare prospects
though until they reach the show.

Baesball America had Alderson ranked as the midseason #26 prospect in
baseball. Others all had him listed in the top 50. He was #4 in the
Giants farm system and will move up to #1, maybe #2 behind Pedro
Alverez, in the Pirates farm.

Sanchez brings stability to a shaky second base this season and a
consistent #2 hitter. Sanchez doesn't hit for power but high average
and on base % he excels in. Sanchez has an $8 million option for 2010
that vests at 600 PA's or becomes a club option if not. Either way,
you can count on the Giants picking it up and looking to extend him
another 2 years this offseason.

This is a high price to pay for Sanchez, but if the Giants reach the
playoffs this season this deal will look better. If they reach the
world series, Sabean will be lauded.

In the end though, it will be difficult to determine how good or bad
this trade was until a few years have gone by. Alderson will likely
make his MLB debut at some point next season for the Pirates, whereas
it wasn't likely until 2011 with San Francisco. If he starts his
career off strongly, Sabean once again will have an earful of critics.

My opinion: I was in favor of and was hoping the Giants would go after
Sanchez, but not to this extent. Many of the 2B prospects didn't get a
fair shake this season &/or are still very young and were pushed to
hard to fast. The organization decided to go all in on 2009, a move
that is hard to argue with given the position the team has put
themselves in. Freddie Sanchez will make a lot of fans in San
Francisco as long as they accept he won't bring the power bat they
desire, and he should be here for years to come.

Last but not least, this will likely spell the end of the Kevin
Frandsen era in S.F. and he will be gone by next season, if not
sooner. Matt Downs still has time in the organization to play himself
into a role here. Emmanuel Burriss, once healthy from his broken foot,
will have his focus shifted back to SS, where the team will have thru
the end of next season to see if he can take over for Edgar Renteria
in 2011, a much healthier time-line for him offensively given his age
of 22 now.

2 comments:

Frank McNair said...

To me it is very frustrating that the Giants are willing to trade for a talent level they may already have.

Garko is an upgrade, but a small upgrade from what Travis brought. Travis appeared to have a better glove. He may not hit .285, but 20 points in batting average isn’t that much of a difference; especially when you consider how good his defense was. Travis could very well provide the same type of numbers that Garko does.

Sanchez is a pretty good average hitter, but he hasn’t exactly lit the world on fire in a few years. Kevin Frandsen got all of about 5-6 starts at 2nd base this year. They give Burriss 2+ months, but give Frandsen about a week. While Frandsen wasn’t exactly hitting .300, the quality of his at bats was pretty high. Granted I am a Frandsen fan, but that is neither here nor there. Downs got more at bats and starts this year than Frandsen did, and they are already giving up on him.

My issue is that with time, Travis and Kevin, could together contribute as much as Garko and Sanchez could have…or at least close enough to it that we would not have had to give up Alderson. My main issue though is that we have been told for years that Giants were going with a youth movement, but instead of a youth movement, we get 2 months of one 2nd baseman, and about 40 at bats each from another two before making another trade for what is considered established talent. What the Giants needed to do, was actually let all of the young people play for a year to really evaluate them.

Oh well, what do I know? I guess I know we just traded one of our top pitching prospects for someone who wouldn’t have been an all-star the last couple of years if he had been on the Giants. Time will tell if this was a good trade or bad trade, but the fact remains that most people already think it was a bad trade, made by somebody who is just trying to get another contract.

To sum all this up: I don’t like this trade, and I don’t think that Sabean knows what he is doing.

Anonymous said...

that is hard to argue with given the position the team has put, I don’t like this trade

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