Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Sanchez on the block?

Lots of rumors about our boy Jonathan. Peter Bendix of FanGraphs has a piece about our young lefty titled "Breakout candidate." (There's also a piece on Fred Lewis.) A lot of this stuff is fantasy analysis for people in roto-leagues, but it can be useful when thinking about trade value. The lastest rumor involves Jorge Cantu. I know we are desperate for a 3B, but I don't think he's enough for Sanchez. We actually have some options at third, like Kevin Frandsen or even Pablo Sandoval. I like to see power hitting, but numbers like "29 HRs" don't translate well at our park and in our division. Cantu's not a bad player, and may improve, but he doesn't seem like the right type. We have to find hitters that hit a lot of line drives and get on base a lot, and not be mesmerized by HR totals.

And we'd be foolish to give away a guy--a lefty--who averages a K per IP.

Thoughts?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Chomic this morning says that Pablo Sandoval will be playing third base. Yet another feignt by the crafty Brian Sabean? Who can tell with this master of obtusity?

You want a guy who hits a lot of line drives? I've got a suggestion and his name is Edgar Renteria.

If Cantu is not "the right type," what is? I am not promoting a trade of Sanchez. I hope he does real well as a Giant and was thrilled at his occasional stellar performances. It does seem that, although Sanchez MAY be really good, the upside is conditioned on a lot of hope and the downside is under-assessed for the same reason. I have not seen one blog post anywhere that suggests ANY player mentioned is worth Sanchez straight up. Does this seem realistic to you? Have you seen the list of the people that the Giants have allegedly been interested in? There is damn near no one that you can think of who is not on it. If every other team is really interested in Sanchez, it indicates two things. One, Matt Cain is going nowhere, and we should be thankful for that. Two, that Sanchez' perceived value is high enough that we can hopefully get something positive out of him.

M.C. O'Connor said...

I am OK on Edgar Rental because I expect he will improve offensively, being a good contact/linedrive hitter.

Cantu does not seem a fair trade for Sanchez. His OBP is .317, he has 3x as many K as BB in 500+ ML games. Sanchez may be a bust, but his POTENTIAL trade value is higher than Cantu's (flamethrowing lefty starter). If we get an AA or AAA good-hitting IF prospect with Cantu, then maybe it is a fair exchange.

Unknown said...

I want nothing to do with Cantu. He'll hit a few HR's but he's going to undo all of his offensive value by playing defense. He's that bad.

At this point, he should either be playing 1B or DH. Sanchez will be under control for the new few years by the Giants and his upside is much more than anything Cantu will do.

Keep him. Or, if you're going to trade him, trade him for someone of equal value. Cantu isn't it.

Anonymous said...

We can't just give Sanchez away, but I also think it's possible that we've all anointed Pablo based on an extremely small sample size. A lot of guys have great Septembers and there is no way we can be sure Pablo is more than a flash in the pan. I don't think he is and I really hope he isn't...but?

Point well taken on Cantu and power numbers translating poorly to AT&T, see Rowand. What’s your take on moving the fences in? I hear that every season, but my feeling is there are too many cheap homeruns all over both leagues and that on principle the Giants should keep the park as is. However there isn’t much denying that it’s a bit of a liability.

M.C. O'Connor said...

I don't have a problem trading anyone on the team not named Cain or Lincecum. I just want to get good value in return. I think Sanchez should get us more than Cantu.

I think Sandoval would be better at 1B, but we have more options there (Phelps/Ishikawa) so they might put him at 3B. He's our best hitting prospect at this point, small sample size or not.

There's no need to mess with the park. I like our pitcher's park. It would be nice to see our guys hit some HRs there. Other teams don't seem to have a problem launching Barry Zito's pitches over the fence. Hmmm, maybe we just need to hit off Zito.