It seems every article about the Giants this offseason has had this in it- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/19/SP7H14QUFE.DTL Why do I have to keep reading that? Do the writers not understand what happens if they trade Sanchez? If not then then here is what will happen- 1. Sabean will make the team a lot older. That's what happens when you trade a twenty six year old and then sign a 45 year old to replace him. This team is rebuilding. Does that sound like a good rebuilding plan to you? 2. He will raise the payroll. A lot. Sanchez's salary is about $400,000. RJ would easily get at least TWENTY times that if he were to sign. And that's not even including the salary of the player he gets in the trade. The Giants are far from poor, but bad things happen when they throw money around like it's nothing. See Rowand, Aaron, or even worse, Zito, Barry. 3. He will downgrade the talent on the team. Sanchez has a good chance to be a solid number two type lefty for someones rotation sometime in the future. I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but Sanchez has the stuff to be a top of the rotation guy. Not a number one, but at the very least a number two on a decent team. But after his inconsistency this year, as well as his health problems at the end of the year, he's not going to get a solid return for him. 4. He will be doing it a year earlier than he should. I'm against trading Sanchez, but if it has to be done, it should be done NEXT offseason. That way he can be replaced with one of their top prospects (Madison Bumgarner or Tim Alderson) and not a guy who with one year left in his career (The Big Unit) or a guy coming off two MAJOR surgeries (Noah Lowry). Plus he will have the chance to prove he is a consistently good starting pitcher this year, and not a one year wonder. Right now, they have no either GOOD options for the rotation this year. Why do the writers continually ignore that when writing? I know I'm higher on Sanchez than most, but geez.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3794407 Hopefully Bruce Bochy is reading that. Barry Zito should be your fourth (or fifth, if possible) starter. He shouldn't pitch before those guys. I'm glad they signed him. I don't think they'll trade Lowry until he proves he's healthy, and he might not get a chance to do that unless one of the starters gets hurt this season. This might just be a PR move, but it's certainly not a horrible one. I was not looking forward to seeing Kevin Pucetas as a fifth starter a year after seeing Misch and Correia stink up the fifth spot every damn start.
I'm with you Charles. Don't trade Jonathan Sanchez because he's got upside and is a solid lefty arm for years to come. RJ is a bridge guy, i.e. to help us get past this year, so I don't see it happening just because the Giants paid a lot to get him.
I take it you're being sarcastic. What doesn't make sense is to spend so much money on a player who's not everyday when the team's not ready to compete for the championship. I just made this up, but one figures something like for G-Men in 2009: Lincecum 20-5 Cain 14-12 Johnson 9-7 Zito 12-19 Sanchez 13-12 If my math's correct, that's 68 wins and if CC gets us 7 or 8 more wins, then it's still not enough. If you're paying CC that kind of money, then its for his playoff performance (and he hasn't been that great in that department).
