Sometimes the best deal....

[tzill]

Is the one you DON'T make:

Tampa Bay Rays' Evan Longoria impressed after workouts with Manny Ramirez - St. Petersburg Times

Sabes "almost" had Bartlett but the Pads got him.

Thank fucking G-d, I say. This dude is on a serious defensive decline.

He projects out to 277/341/387 with a 324wOBA 18SB and 110 ISO

He "contributed" 0.7 WAR last year

His UZR/150 was 2.8 in 2008, -6.9 in 2009, and -13.8 in 2010.

He's 31 and not likely to improve (though he's probably not as bad defensively as he played last year).

He will make $4MM this year, $5.5 next year, and a $1.5MM buyout in 2013.

He's not a huge risk, given his relatively small salary, but I don't see enough upside in his hitting to offset his defense. I wouldn't be shocked if he put up a negative WAR this year and actually LOSES the Padres money.

Add to this that the Pads gave up FOUR prospects for him and it's a definite head scratcher.

 

[msgkings322]

Agreed. Just shows how empty the cupboard was/is for reasonably priced leftside of the infield guys (and why Uribe got so much $).

This highlights what might be one of the Giants' only real weaknesses. Infield (left side) defense is going to be tricky. Even if Panda can play his position ok it won't be Brooks Robinson out there, and Tejada is long past good SS defense. The good news is our pitchers are strikeout-heavy (all but Zito) or fly ball pitchers (Zito) so it won't matter as much. But it is nice to get those rally killing DPs.

 

[SFGRTB]

This is good timing tzill.

My Baseball America Prospect book came today and I was reading about Ehire Adrianza. For those of you who don't know, he's our 5th ranked prospect and a defensive wizard at the SS position.

Where this ties into this thread is that it says he was almost traded for David Aardsma on July 31, but fell through late. I think Ramirez and Lopez worked out juuuuust fine and we get to keep the next possible Omar Vizquel.

 

[Yoshi]

How much does it cost to get that Baseball America's prospect book? I'm thinking about joining them online and have thought about doing so for the last 6 years.

 

[SFGRTB]

How much does it cost to get that Baseball America's prospect book? I'm thinking about joining them online and have thought about doing so for the last 6 years.

I bought the book for the first time off of Amazon.com for about $20 bucks. It's probably cheaper and a bit more user-friendly online, but I really didn't look into it.