Monday, July 27, 2009

Garko joins Guzman

Giants get Garko.

He's sporting a .361 wOBA, 2nd best on our club.

He played at Stanford, so there's a local connection. I'm glad we got a right-hander and the youngest guy on the list. We gave up a 21-yr. old lefty, single-A pitcher Scott Barnes.

It appears we improved our club without giving up too much. Baseball America rated Barnes our 9th-best prospect, just ahead of Sergio Romo. I can live with it.

Go, Tim! Win tonight!


UPDATE: Super-smart stat-guy Dave Cameron (FanGraphs) is "meh" on our end, thinks Barnes was too high a price to pay.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

First, let me clarify - I thought that Ryan Garko was an outfielder. Now that I realize that he is primarily a 1B, I must say that ... I have been a Ryan Garko fan all of my life! What a great acquisition! A genius move. Well, sort of. I guess, for the time being, I think that it's an improvement to have a right-handed option at 1B. Is it a 'difference-maker' move? Probably not. If we had a real 2B, then maybe we could go places.

Ron said...

Anonymous above is Ron - sorry, I hit the 'publish' button early.

Unknown said...

I'm a little 'meh' about this trade. It's a very marginal upgrade over Ishikawa and Garko's about to get more expensive in arbitration.

Barnes is a solid prospect, but it makes me wonder, did the Giants really need to trade for the left-hand side of a 1B platoon? Aren't there like 100 guys floating around the majors that can crush LHP and play poor defense at 1B?

Scott McClain where are you.

M.C. O'Connor said...

You'd think there were 100 guys, but we've had one hell of a time FINDING one! Makes a fella wonder.

Ron said...

Not sure where the comment comes from about 'poor defense at 1B'. My examination of the stats shows that Garko is a decent 1B, so now we have 2 good defensive 1B. I do agree that giving up a good prospect for a platoon guy is a bit weird, but that's sort of 'par for the July 31 course', when you're not the Yankees, Red Sox, or dodgers or now Phillies or Cardinals, I suppose.

Unknown said...

Mark,

For the Giants, finding an adequate first basemen has been akin to finding the Fountain of Youth.

Ron,

Check out Garko's career UZR numbers at first base. He's below-average. I've got a bad feeling the Giants will try and get his bat into the lineup by playing him in LF on occasion -- that would be a big mistake.

Brother Bob said...

I've never heard of Garko or Barnes. A big nothing trade.