Winn-Win?
I hope the Giants sign Winn and soon. I think he will be a great addition for the future and will improve our offense significantly. Obviously he's not going to hit 11 homers in a month again. I think Winn is worth the risk, he showed a lot in his short time with us, and obviously salary inflation is hitting the league hard again and I don't see any reason for it to stop next off-season.
I think he will do better than people think (i.e. his career), though obviously not as good as his career month-long spree when batting with Barry in the lineup - I don't think it is all a Brady Anderson type of fluke. He's been hampered by hitting at SAFECO and Tropicana and thus far he apparently is one of those rare LHH who can muscle up homers in SBC. We need to lock up players like that. He should be good for .280+, 20+ homers, 20+ steals, OK defense in CF, and be equally adept at scoring and driving in runs, you know, like what we expected from Durham.
Offense is a hard commodity to find in the CF position, his road OPS was .824 in 2005, .821 from 2002-2004; that would have ranked 7th in terms of overall OPS after Junior, Andruw, Edmonds, Jose Cruz Jr, Milton Bradley, and Grady Sizemore in the Majors for guys with over 300 PA, 5th if you counted only players who were qualified. Looking only at road OPS, he would have ranked 10th for hitters with significant ABs, 7th for those with over 250 PA.
And we don't have much coming up soon in the CF pipeline. Fred Lewis took a step back last season and he was already old as it was for his league. And Clay Timpner doesn't deliver much offense already and he just finished high-A league play. He smells like another Calvin Murray type, all defense, all speed, little hitting.
I would still hold my nose to whatever contract we sign Winn for, but like I said salaries are escalating and we cannot be timid in the face of it. I would hope the contract is something like 3 years at $7M ($6M/$7M/$8M; his salary is $5M I think for 2005 and free agent salaries are strongly tied to their last season's salary projected forward with inflation) plus team option at $9M or $2-3M buyout for the 4th year. That seems about right given his old salary and the way the market is climbing.
Sabean said that the two sides would get more serious about negotiating around Thanksgiving and obviously we haven't heard anything yet. I am hoping the only hitch thus far in negotiations is the Giants' pursuit of starting pitching and not that Winn is holding out for more. Most players want to play at or near home and Vallejo, I think, was where he grew up (or was it Richmond?). That's more A's territory but still, it's home cooking and I think his wife is from here as well, so family from both sides will be here, so we might even get a hometown discount of some kind, who knows, or maybe he loved hitting at SBC and that could maybe sway him to stay here. Whatever it takes, as long as it is market-reasonable and not crazy, I hope he stays with us long-term.
I think he will do better than people think (i.e. his career), though obviously not as good as his career month-long spree when batting with Barry in the lineup - I don't think it is all a Brady Anderson type of fluke. He's been hampered by hitting at SAFECO and Tropicana and thus far he apparently is one of those rare LHH who can muscle up homers in SBC. We need to lock up players like that. He should be good for .280+, 20+ homers, 20+ steals, OK defense in CF, and be equally adept at scoring and driving in runs, you know, like what we expected from Durham.
Offense is a hard commodity to find in the CF position, his road OPS was .824 in 2005, .821 from 2002-2004; that would have ranked 7th in terms of overall OPS after Junior, Andruw, Edmonds, Jose Cruz Jr, Milton Bradley, and Grady Sizemore in the Majors for guys with over 300 PA, 5th if you counted only players who were qualified. Looking only at road OPS, he would have ranked 10th for hitters with significant ABs, 7th for those with over 250 PA.
And we don't have much coming up soon in the CF pipeline. Fred Lewis took a step back last season and he was already old as it was for his league. And Clay Timpner doesn't deliver much offense already and he just finished high-A league play. He smells like another Calvin Murray type, all defense, all speed, little hitting.
I would still hold my nose to whatever contract we sign Winn for, but like I said salaries are escalating and we cannot be timid in the face of it. I would hope the contract is something like 3 years at $7M ($6M/$7M/$8M; his salary is $5M I think for 2005 and free agent salaries are strongly tied to their last season's salary projected forward with inflation) plus team option at $9M or $2-3M buyout for the 4th year. That seems about right given his old salary and the way the market is climbing.
Sabean said that the two sides would get more serious about negotiating around Thanksgiving and obviously we haven't heard anything yet. I am hoping the only hitch thus far in negotiations is the Giants' pursuit of starting pitching and not that Winn is holding out for more. Most players want to play at or near home and Vallejo, I think, was where he grew up (or was it Richmond?). That's more A's territory but still, it's home cooking and I think his wife is from here as well, so family from both sides will be here, so we might even get a hometown discount of some kind, who knows, or maybe he loved hitting at SBC and that could maybe sway him to stay here. Whatever it takes, as long as it is market-reasonable and not crazy, I hope he stays with us long-term.
posted by obsessivegiantscompulsive at 12/12/2005 02:49:00 AM
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