Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Old and New

The Giants dipped a toe into the Asian baseball market by signing Korean free agent Jae-gyun Hwang to a minor-league deal. He's a slugging 3B/SS type, is 29 years young, and has ten seasons of KBO experience. This looks like a high reward/low risk venture for the Giants: power bat, infield depth. Could be a fresh face on the big club this year--we'll see what happens with Ehire Adrianza, Kelby Tomlinson, and Jimmy Rollins. I've been expecting Conor Gillaspie to be the hot corner backup and/or platoon partner for Eduardo Nunez, but a good showing by Hwang in Spring Training could mean a shake-up. I will not attempt to guess at what this guy can do, but we know that Korean ballplayers are serving notice in MLB and it's exciting for Giants fans to get in on the action. Not to mention Hwang is coming from the Lotte Giants! They sport orange-and-black and play in Busan. History buffs may recall the "Pusan Perimeter" from the Korean War--that was the previous Westernized spelling of Busan, a port city in southeast Korea. "Lotte" is a multinational conglomerate, teams in Korea are named for the businesses that own them. He looks good in the colors, wouldn't you say?



One of the stalwarts of our team's recent run of success has been outfielder Gregor Blanco who became a free agent after this past season. He signed a minor-league deal with Arizona last month. Blanco was an average hitter at best but a defensive wizard and his speed on the bases and little-ball skills made him a very valuable guy. He made important contributions to two World Series teams. When the Giants lost left fielder Melky Cabrera to a suspension in 2012 the unsung Blanco took over and made the transition seamless. In 2014 he took over center field from the injured Angel Pagan and delivered once again. He made a lot of great plays but the most famous one of course was snagging a ball to save Matt Cain's perfect game. I'd say he earned his rings. Good luck, Gregor, and thanks for everything!



Twenty days until pitchers and catchers report.

--M.C.

15 comments:

M.C. O'Connor said...

Just saw the Hundley news. Can never have enough bodies, man, especially at catcher. Never hurts to have youngsters battle vets in Spring Training for roster spots.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Brown was the only other catcher on the 40-man. If Hundley gets the nod Brown can spend time in AAA polishing his game. That's a good thing. He's only 25 and has a .636 ML OPS. I like the kid but he could use more seasoning. Looks like another good move from BobbyE.

campanari said...

Hundley, at $2M, surely is the presumptive winner of catcher battles this year. He has typically had strong defensive ratings on Fangraphs, so that the youthful, erratic members of the bullpen can be expertly handled when Posey is given the rest he needs. Since he's been with the Padres and Rockies, he knows the division well. And Hundley can hit better than Brown has so far shown he's likely to. Seems like an excellent maneuver to me.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Yeah, I agree. And Adrianza DFA'd to make a spot.

Zo said...

In Japan, Lotte owns the Chiba team, the Marines. Sterile stadium, but they do have the typical beer vendors who carry kegs so as to tap a fresh one for you at your seat.

carmot said...

I like this. Accumulate any talent possible at low risk and with virtually no (or very little) financial obligation. I also hope we can sign Hector Mendoza after March 5th. I first mentioned Mendoza in my 2015 IFA Draft Prospects.

campanari said...

Let me tout, enthusiastically, Kevin Roche's detailed argument that (a) the Giants had one of the very best bullpens in the league in 2016, except for saves (the most save opportunities, second-from-worst success rate with them); (b) the 2017 Giants are likely to have addressed that problem ably while other contenders--Cubs, Nats, Mets, LAD--start the new season with less effective 'pens than in 2016. Roche's body of stats, to be found in a fanpost (by kevinroshay) on McCovey Chronicles, shows that in terms of Runs Allowed, Inherited Runners strand rate, soft-and-medium contact rate, and other such measures of bullpen success, the 2016 Giants were tops, or virtually so--two more runs allowed than the Cubs' pen, one more than the Nats, for a difference of under 1%.

I came away from reading Roche's piece with a greatly increased sense that we're likely to be in a very strong position as to the 2017 pen, with the necessary caveats about injuries. Had we signed someone who could step in for Melancon, should he tweak an oblique or have a hamstring unstrung, my sense of comfort would of course be still greater.

nomisnala said...

In 2016 we lacked a clear closer, but except for a few games the pen was good. A solid finisher would have helped the entire pens numbers. If healthy I think our pen will be very good. Javy Lopez, was a key disappointment in 2016, and had he pitched they way he did on our way to previous championships, we might have had another. Seems when he has some control he was still effective, but he seemed to have lost his control. I wonder if it was mechanics, aging, or a hidden injury. Whatever the cause, is seemed to do him in.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Ehire Adrianza claimed off waivers by the Brewers.

campanari said...

And Sergio Romo will "only look illegal" as a LAD lad. When I was growing up, MLB forbade players on opposing teams from "fraternizing" with each other on the field; and I remember my scandalized shock when I saw players from MY Giants chatting with the catcher or first baseman for the enemy team, on whom I showered figurative fire and brimstone. How unthinkable, then, for someone to defect to the enemy! Those were days when the reserve clause was still in effect, so that teams had more static rosters, and enemy players tended to be much more inveterately so than now. For someone of his own free will to ally himself with an enemy team, and as to the Giants and D--g-rs, with an archenemy team, would have led me to detest him. I had vaportrails of that feeling, residually, about Jason Schmidt and Brian Wilson, so that I wished them both ill. With Romo, though, I expect to feel only non-recriminatory regret when I see him befuddling Jarrett Parker with a "no-dot" slider.

Zo said...

Romo hardly defected to the enemy. He signed with a team that wanted him. I guess there is now one dogger that I can't really hate.

Also, the Brewers dfa'ed Ehire.

campanari said...

Romo did what Schmidt did, Wilson did, and for that matter, Kent did. That made me curious as to why I felt about him differently from how I felt about the now indelibly tainted, in my mind, Schmidt, Wilson, and Kent. Since it seemed to me that my glacially shifting quasi-ethics had to do not simply with my own quirks but also with shifts in baseball attitudes more generally, I thought that commenting on them might be of enough interest to other readers of this blog that I'd post them. Players who actually do defect, such as P. Sandoval, are a different story entirely for me: I expect to wish them ill in their baseball careers ad infinitum, as turncoats and renegades, even when, as with the aforesaid P.S., I was glad to see them go.

If I were Adrianza, I would do what I could to get into another organization than Milwaukee's, given their DFAing of him for some other guy a.s.a.p. Somebody must want him more than *that*.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Yeah I remember old-schoolers like Frank Robinson would bench a guy or send him to the minors if he schmoozed with players on the other team! Definitely better these days. The players have more in common with each other than with anyone else around the game, it's nuts to maintain that old custom of non-fraternization. I like to see them laughing and having fun.

Sergio was wonderful. He will be missed. He's from Brawley, right on The Border, grew up in a Dodgers household. It's not surprising he landed in LA. I have the same feeling I have for all the guys--thanks for the efforts in orange-and-black and good luck to you except against the Giants! I'll admit it's a little harder with Romo, who was a lot of fun, and deservedly well-liked.

Adrianza has tried for ten years to get a steady ML job. Talk about being on the bubble. I hope he makes it, just because I appreciate the effort.


Zo said...

and.....the Twinkies now picked up Ehire Adrianza.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Javier Lopez retires. The LOOGY supreme! Ryan Howard rejoices.