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Full Squad Workouts Begin

Wednesday marked the first day of full-squad workouts, but there was still plenty of buzz about the pitchers, and even gold 'ol Joe Crede was back in Giants news.

One of the newest Giants showed up and looked good, according to our good friend over at Giants Jottings. I reported a few weeks back that Edgar Renteria showed up for the fanfest looking about 15-20 pounds lighter than he ended the season at with Detroit. Renteria looked lighter on the field as well as he supposedly put together a strong fielding session followed with a solid batting practice. The Giants, once again, have a lineup built around contact hitters, so Renteria will have to rebound and carry his share this year if the Giants are going to improve on last years league's worst offense. The 33 year-old shortstop is still being significantly overpaid in this market ($18.5 million over the next 2 seasons when he should have gotten $10 over 2 years max) but as I said when he signed, if he reverts to the way he played in Atlanta and during his better years in St. Louis, then he'll be fine. The new shortstop could also be getting a new third basemen flanking him after all as Joe Crede's contract talks with the Twins have apparently stalled, and the Giants may end up being his only remaining option. More on that as it comes.

As far as the pitchers are concerned, a lot of the talk has shifted to Tim Lincecum's contract situation. Now I know that it's spring training now, and we're supposed to be done with contract talks for a while, but this one is important. It looks like Lincecum could start becoming eligible for arbitration after this season (aka a Super-Two player) in which case he could start netting 9-12 million a year from the Giants if they end up going down that route. The best thing the Giants could do is go ahead and sign the kid long-term. The Phillies and the Brewers are two teams to look at who've recently looked up their young stars before they got into arbitration. The Phills locked up Cole Hammels for 3 years and a little over $20 million while the Brewers nailed down Braun at 8 years and $45 million. I think Lincecum's going to commnad a little bit more than either of those guys did as he already has a Cy Young award under his belt in barely a year and a half in the league. The Giants should be thinking of 5+ years at $8-10 million annually, but I don't think I'd do it until after the season. Not that I am at all worried about the kid, but let's make sure he starts off well here in his second full season before committing 50+ million dollars to him. But yes, the Giants do need to lock him up long term and better sooner than later.

Another pitcher I wanted to mention in today's post is Merkin Valdez. The 27 year-old right handed reliever has shown up to spring training, taken part in full workout and is supposedly feeling no pain at all. This is huge news for the Giants and Valdez. This kid was arguably the teams best reliever over the first month of last season and if he can get healthy again, he will provide a huge boost to the bullpen and possibly challenge for the right-handed set-up role. With Valdez, Romo, Wilson and Hinshaw, along with the new free agents, the Giants could have the makings of their best bullpen since 2003.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Whats this "trade Noah Lowry" hogwash I keep hearing about. Is he really in a contract year already? I thought this kid just started his career? He seems more valuable to the Giants (if he can get healthy) than he would have trade value for him. Just my opinion.
10:37 PM
Anonymous said…
Tim LinCyYoung is definitely worth the 50 million big ones or whatever the Giants give him. He's a great pitcher and a humble human being. He's the kind of guy that the team should build around and there needs to be more Lincecums in baseball period.

I also got to meet Pablo Sandoval and Brian Wilson when they played with San Jose. Both of them were cool too have turned out to be quite the ballplayers. I think the Giants may have something folks. Don't sell them short just because they haven't won for a few years and they don't have the big-headed (no pun intended) Barry Bonds on the team any longer. BTW, first time visitor and nice blog. I'll be back for sure.
3:01 AM
Anonymous said…
I heard they are sending Posey down to the minor league camp??? Why??? This amazes me because his manager is talking about him actually playing in the big leagues this year. I also wanted to see him take some live batting practice against the major league pitchers.
3:28 PM
Trevor Cole said…
The reason why Posey won't likey stay in big league camp is because Molina chose not to play in the WBC. If Molina had chosen to play in the WBC, we would have probably gotten a heavy dose of Buster. But between Molina and the guys battling to become his backup (Eli Whiteside, Steve Holm and Todd Jennings). Posey won't start the year with the team, no matter what, so they won't prepare him too. You never know though. The Giants really haven't had a young positional player like this in a while so we'll see how they go about bringing him along. Regardless, I still think there is a better than 50-50 chance we'll see him up in San Francisco before the 2009 season is done with.

Also, I don't think Lowry will be traded, at least anytime soon. He's got a long way to go before anyone would be comfortable trading for him and like said, Anonymous, he'll probably have more value to the Giants than what he'd get them in a trade. A good sign is that he supposedly threw off a mound Thursday and reported no discomfort.
2:27 AM
rxmeister said…
there are healthy free agent pitchers out there still looking for jobs, so why would anyone trade talent for an injury risk like Lowry, who makes 4.5 million dollars? Even if he stays healthy throughout spring training, what chance is there that he goes out there every five days for 162 games?
8:42 AM
rxmeister said…
as for Renteria, some "experts" have called this the worst signing of the offseason. The Giants' didn't see the drop in the market coming and spent more money than they had to on players like Renteria, Howry and Randy Johnson, but why should us fans care? It obviously hasn't handcuffed the team because they continue to talk about possibly signing Manny or Crede, so what does it matter? However, it's good to see Renteria report to camp in such good shape and attempt to show all of baseball that they are dead wrong to write him off. If we get the Renteria that I used to watch with the Braves, we're getting one hell of a good player. He's not a homerun hitter, but he's not just a singles hitter either. They'll be lots of drives into triple alley and down in the corners. This guy can really hit, and when slimmed down like he is now, he plays a superb shortstop.
8:48 AM
jameskong123 said…
whats with all the mlb divorces?
http://fanzak.com/fzrants/The_MLB_Network=_An_Increase_in_Divorces
2:19 PM
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