Hot Stove Update: Beltran Signs With the Cardinals

Yesterday, it was announced that the St. Louis Cardinals had reached an agreement on a contract with Carlos Beltran at a cost of 2 years/$26 M. Predictably, the Giants oriented internet community erupted in a salvo of F-bombs directed at Giants management in general and Brian Sabean in particular, raging at a litany of fan grievances old and new, but mostly old.

Before getting into the signing, or non-signing, and it's impact on the Cardinals and Giants, lets get a few things out of the way"

1. Barry Zito and Aaron Rowand were signed 6 and 5 years ago, respectively. Those signings have been hashed and rehashed, reviled, spat upon repeatedly and ad nauseum. Whether they are Brian Sabean's fault or Peter Magowan's, it's water under the bridge, folks. Water under the bridge! The Giants have won a World Series Championship with those two contracts on the books. Time to move on!

2. The Giants are never going to have a payroll like the Red Sox or Yankees or Angels. I don't know if the Giants ownership group can afford more or not. I don't pretend to have inside knowledge of the Giants accounting books. But you know what? It doesn't matter! $130 M is a very reasonable payroll for a MLB team and ownership is going to set their payroll limits based on whatever they set them on and raging about it from now until doomsday is not going to change it. Again, time to move on!

3. The Beltran trade is done and has no bearing on this offseason. There was no team option to use as leverage for a new contract. There were no compensatory draft picks coming. Beltran became a free agent at the end of the season as in free as a bird. The Giants traded their best pitching prospect for a chance to revive a moribund offense, get back into the playoffs and possibly win a second consecutive World Series, nothing more, nothing less. Seeing how the postseason played out, it wasn't a pipe dream that if they could just squeak back into the playoffs they had a chance to go all the way again. It didn't work out. Time to move on!

If you need one more round of raging catharsis about any of the 3 above topics, I suggest visiting the Message Board at sfgiants.com and mccoveychronicles.com. They are conveniently linked over to the left. You will find plenty of like minded folks at both places to rage along with. On to the signing!

Carlos Beltran is one of the better hitters in baseball. He was probably the 4'th best offensive player on the free agent market after Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder and Jose Reyes, maybe even better than Reyes. He signed for a very reasonable contract both in years and dollars. The Cardinals can now move Lance Berkman to first base and put Beltran in RF and still have a very good offense despite the loss of Pujols. They also have to run the table on Beltran, Berkman and Furcal staying healthy for the length of the season at somewhat long odds.

As for the Giants, most fans long ago accepted that they were not going to get Pujols, Fielder or Reyes, but the flame of hope still burned for Beltran. That he ended up signing for a seemingly affordable price caused the frustration to boil over with even greater intensity. Was he really that affordable? Beltran essentially said at the end of the season that signing him came with strings attached for the Giants, namely they had to also upgrade the top of their batting order. In essence, Beltran presented Brian Sabean and the Giants with a Gordian Knot and said, "if you can untie this, I'll consider signing" The knot consisted of 3 strands of rope tied together, 2 strands provided by Beltran, 1 by the Giants ownership group: 1. Upgrade the top of the order. 2. Sign Beltran 3. Stay under a payroll budget of $130 M. Brian Sabean countered by setting his own priorities: 1. Keep the pitching intact. 2. Upgrade CF and the top of the order. 3. Sign Beltran if there was enough left over. You had to know at that point that Beltran wasn't signing with the Giants.

As currently constructed, after all the players offered arbitration are signed, the Giants payroll will likely stand at somewhere around $126-127 M. Signing Beltran would put that number up to right around $140 M, $10 M over budget. The money would have to had to come from cuts elsewhere in the budget. This is where the discussion gets interesting and the rageaholics may have a legitimate claim that needs to be addressed. Did Brian Sabean paint himself into a corner with premature moves that ate up the money that could have been spent on Beltran?

The primary target of the "naysayers" is the contracts for Jeremy Affeldt and Javier Lopez. Add those two and you get just under $10 M. Put that with the $3-4 M surplus and you are right at the $13 M that Beltran signed for. We'll go ahead and assume Beltran would have accepted the same deal from the Giants, no sure bet. Do you really want to lose the advantage the Giants have in the late innings of close games against LH middle of the order bats? Do you really want to turn those AB's over to George Sherrill and Dan Runzler, or to Santiago Casilla? I don't care what the WARmongers say. WAR undervalues those high leverage outs. I know there are a lot of people out there who know a lot about baseball who will continue to insist that Affeldt and Lopez are completely fungible assets and the money spent on them should have been spent on Beltran. I'm not buying what they are selling. The thought of George Sherrill or Dan Runzler facing Prince Fielder or Jay Bruce in the 8'th inning with runners on base is just too sickening, and that doesn't even count the Miguel Monteros, Andre Ethiers or CarGones of the world. OK, maybe Sherrill holds his own against LH batters but there's also the switch-hitters who managers like to turn around to bat RH. Affeldt and Lopez fair much better against them.

What about Melky and Pagan? They are going to make about $9-10 M between them. Instead of trading for them, the Giants could have simply non-tendered Sanchez, Torres and Ramirez and taken the money saved to sign Beltran with the $3-4 M budget surplus thrown in, of course. There are a few problems with this scenario:

1. It eliminates the upgrades at the top of the lineup, something Beltran had stipulated as a precondition for him to consider signing.

2. It leaves the Giants with no CF. OK, maybe you consider Tyler Graham or Justin Christian perfectly acceptable options to play CF and hit leadoff and you might be able to defend it from projections. I'm pretty sure Beltran would not find them acceptable.

As currently constructed, if the Giants stay healthy and, on average, play to their projections, they should make the playoffs and have a chance to get another ring. Signing or not signing Beltran, under the Giants circumstances does nothing to change that, in fact, a case can be made that the cuts it would have taken to sign Beltran would lessen those chances.

At this point, the Giants are looking for 5'th starter options who are willing to sign minor league deals. I think they still need another RH bat with some pop off the bench who can play OF. There should be some options for that still on the shelf after the arbitration guys are all taken care of. I can't wait for the season to start!