One potential move that has taken a backseat to the Roy Halladay sweepstakes at the winter meetings this year is a deal that could make Dan Uggla a San Francisco Giant next season. According to FOXSports.com’s Ken Rosenthal and MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro via their Twitter pages, the Giants and Marlins are heating up discussions involving Uggla.

Uggla is the right-handed bat that the Giants desperately need. They acquired Freddy Sanchez at the trade deadline last year, but he could potentially move over to third base (moving Pablo Sandoval to first) in order to make room for Uggla, who hit .243 last year with 31 dingers and 90 RBI. San Francisco is already a contender (and I use that word loosely) with its pitching, but in order for the G-Men to make a serious run at the postseason they need more pop in their lineup outside of “The Panda.”

The question now becomes: What do the Giants need to part with in order to acquire Uggla? They’ve already traded one top prospect away in Tim Alderson to acquire Sanchez, and they have zero plans to deal pitcher Madison Bumgarner or catcher Buster Posey.

The problem is that the Marlins would no doubt ask for Bumgarner in a deal for Uggla. The bigger problem is that Giants’ GM Brian Sabean might just pull the trigger on the deal because 1) he’s Brian Sabean and 2) he’s willing to do anything to acquire a player he absolutely covets, and Uggla fits the bill. (Remember, this was the same man that traded Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano and Boof Bonser for one year of A.J. Pierzynski.)

I’m sure Sabean would love to trade Fred Lewis, Kevin Frandsen (who I’m absolutely convinced is hated by the organization) and a couple of second-tier prospects in order to acquire Uggla. But that’s not going to work for Florida. They’re in the market for young talent, not talent that has never developed and by the looks of things, never will.

If Sabean pulls off a deal for Uggla and is able to retain Bumgarner and Posey, then kudos to him. If he winds up trading Bumgarner, well, then the man just traded away his No. 1 pitching prospect for a guy that hit .243 last season.

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]]> http://www.scoresreport.com/2009/12/11/are-the-giants-getting-closer-to-acquiring-uggla/feed/ 0 http://www.scoresreport.com/2009/07/20/ten-predictions-for-the-mlb-second-half/ http://www.scoresreport.com/2009/07/20/ten-predictions-for-the-mlb-second-half/#comments Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:42:04 +0000 Anthony Stalter http://www.scoresreport.com/?p=21545
The second half of the 2009 MLB season has kicked off and with that, I’m going to make some predictions that are sure to be proved wrong in a couple months.

Feel free to whip out your crystal ball in the comments section but before you do, please do everyone a favor and take off your favorite team prescribed glasses and be objective for once in your life, will ya?

1. The Blue Jays will trade Halladay…to the Phillies.
Toronto GM J.P. Ricciardi is reminding everyone who will listen that he doesn’t absolutely need to trade Roy Halladay – which he doesn’t. But the bottom line is that he’ll probably get more in return for the “Doc” this season than he would next when Halladay is set to become a free agent after the 2010 season. And despite Ricciardi stating that he’s open to trading Halladay within the division, he’s not stupid. He’s not going to trade Halladay to the Red Sox or Yankees and risk becoming public enemy No. 1 in the eyes of Jays fans for not only getting rid of their best and most popular player, but also trading him to a division rival in the process. In the end, I think Ricciardi will trade Halladay to an NL team and my guess is that it will be Philadelphia that will eventually puts a package together to acquire him. Although they might balk at the $7 million that’s remaining on Halladay’s contract, the Phillies are built to win now and need more starting pitching to make another run at a World Series. They also have enough appealing prospects to entice Ricciardi to make a deal.

2. The Dodgers won’t win the NL Pennant.
The Dodgers are the best team in baseball and I’m not afraid to put that in writing (which I did here). But something tells me that while they’re almost a shoe-in to in the NL West and probably go to the NLCS, they won’t be heading to the World Series. Chad Billingsley had a great first half, but he’s starting to look more human with every outing and while Clayton Kershaw is a phenomenal young pitcher, the back of L.A.’s starting rotation is very beatable. Of course, their lineup is outstanding and can certainly compete against anyone in the NL. But this team kind of reminds me of the 2008 Angels and Cubs. Neither team suffered any slumps throughout the season and essentially was on cruise control in the second half. When they got to the postseason and the games were all tight, neither team responded well. Will the same thing happen to the Dodgers? Again, this is more of a hunch than anything and I wouldn’t blame the Dodger faithful (or anyone for that matter) for eating my soul and preaching how wrong I’ll be. But I just think that this club could get overly content and even if they don’t, their pitching might still fail them in the end.

3. The Cubs will make a run in the second half.
Two things led to the Cubs’ lackluster first half: Injuries and a lack of offense – and one may have had an effect on the other. Losing Aramis Ramirez for a huge chunk of the first half due to a shoulder injury took a significant bat out of Chicago’s lineup. But now that he’s back and guys like Kosuke Fukudome and Alfonso Soriano are starting to heat up again, the Cubs should see a rise in run production. Derrek Lee has also been solid and young players like Jake Fox have contributed as well. If Geovany Soto (DL) can get his act together, the Cubs could put pressure on the Cardinals in the NL Central. I’m not saying that Chicago will win their division and make the postseason, but considering that their starting pitching was a major strength in the first half, I wouldn’t count this club out. Of course, the back end of the bullpen is still a serious question mark and Fukudome and Soriano could start slumping again at a moment’s notice, but keep an eye on this team.

4. Billy Beane will have to accept a lesser package to move Holliday.
Let’s call it like it is: Trading for Holliday last winter has proved to be a dud for the A’s. Not only has he not contributed much to Oakland’s offense, but the A’s are also currently 14 games back of the Angels in AL West and now GM Billy Beane has to find a trade suitor for the left fielder, who becomes a free agent at the end of the year. Holliday isn’t going to re-up with the A’s after the season and considering he’s hitting below .280 with only nine home runs, Beane probably won’t get the haul he normally does in trades. If Beane wants to move Holliday (and his contract) before the deadline, then he’s probably going to have to accept a deal that won’t net him a top prospect in return. Granted, the GM isn’t going to just give Holliday away, but if he thinks that he’s going to get two top prospects (and a couple of promising mid-round prospects) for the struggling left fielder, then he’s probably in for a wake up call.

5. The Cardinals will find their protection for Pujols…in Ryan Ludwick.
Many pundits feel as though St. Louis will eventually make a move for Matt Holliday to ensure that Albert Pujols gets the protection he deserves in the lineup. But if they wind up standing pat around the trade deadline, don’t look too far for who could eventually fill the role batting behind the phenomenal Pujols. Ryan Ludwick is only hitting .265 as of this writing, but he’s starting to heat up after slumping since coming off the DL with a hamstring injury in mid May. He hit two home runs on the last day of the first half (he now has 15 dingers on the year) and is hitting .409 (18 for 44) in his last 44 at bats. Acquiring Holliday would be great, but don’t discount Ludwick’s potential to bat cleanup for the Cardinals either.

6. Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez aren’t going anywhere.
The Indians have been one of the most disappointing teams in baseball this year, freefalling into last place in the AL Central despite many pundits predicting in spring training that they could win the division. But just because they’re 13.5 games back of the Tigers in the Central, it doesn’t mean that GM Mark Shapiro is going to have a fire sale as some have suggested. Ace Cliff Lee has a very manageable salary ($5.75 this season, $8 million club option with $1 mil buyout) through next season, as does catcher Victor Martinez ($5.7 million in ’09, $7 million club option with $250,000 buyout in 2010). So there’s no reason for Shapiro to feel as though he has to trade either player to acquire more talent. The fact is that Cleveland has talent, at least offensively. It’s their pitching that has been horrendous since trading CC Sabathia at the deadline last year. If Shapiro can get through this season and hang onto his core on offense, then maybe he can add an arm or two in the offseason in order to get the Tribe back into contention next year.

7. Pitching will sink the Rangers in the end.
Look, I’m all about the Rangers’ postseason run this year. I think they’re a fun team to watch and they certainly have the lineup to contend. But their pitching staff overachieved a bit in the first half and I just don’t trust Scott Feldman, Vicente Padilla or any of the other arms after Kevin Millwood. I think this club will hang with the Halos for a little while, but at some point they’re going to start slowly sliding out of contention because they just don’t have the horses in the starting rotation to match what they bring to the field offensively.

8. The Giants will stand (somewhat) pat at the trade deadline.
The Giants have some of the best pitching in the NL, but it’s no secret that their offense is incredibly suspect. That said, don’t expect GM Brian Sabean to make a huge move at the trade deadline. San Fran has a couple of budding minor league stars in pitchers Madison Bumgarner and Tim Alderson, as well as position players like Buster Posey and Angel Villalona. They’re set up for the future so don’t assume that just because the Giants are in contention this season, that they’re going to cough up any of their top prospects in order to get a bat. That means no Matt Holliday, no Jermaine Dye and probably no Freddy Sanchez, either. If they make a move, think more Scott Rolen than a big name, because Sabean will be more inclined to trust that Randy Winn and Bengie Molina will heat up in the second half than he would be to giving up a significant piece (or two) for Holliday, Dye or Sanchez. If he can get a big bat and not give up Bumgarner, Alderson, Posey or Villalona, then all bets are off. But it’s doubtful that he would be able to make move without throwing in one of his top prospects.

9. The NL Wild Card race will be the most exciting storyline of the second half.
The Giants, Rockies, Cubs, Brewers, Braves, Astros and Marlins are all within five games of each other in the NL Wild Card chase and each team brings a little something different to the party. San Fran has outstanding pitching, Colorado has played some of the best baseball in the league over the past two months, Chicago is getting healthy and Milwaukee has a potent lineup and will probably make a move at the trade deadline. I could see Atlanta, Houston and Florida eventually fading, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if they hung in there for the entire second half. The bottom line is that no team is going to run away with the NL Wild Card this season and I could see this race not being decided until the final couple days of the season.

10. The Phillies will play the Angels in the World Series.
Hey, what would a prediction piece be without a projected World Series finish? Philadelphia is starting to have that World Series glow about them again and even though their starting pitching is suspect, don’t forget that I’m also predicting that they’ll acquire Roy Halladay. Nobody seems to be talking about the Halos this season, which is exactly why I like them to upset whomever they play in the postseason. Right now, their pitching isn’t that great, but it could certainly be one of the better rotations in all of baseball once healthy. I wouldn’t count them out for making a move at the deadline either.

Oh yeah: Halos in 6.

If you were to have gotten Giants general manager Brian Sabean all liquored up in a private setting (I know you’re probably weirded out by the start of this sentence, but stay with me here) and asked him which players he wouldn’t mind giving up in a trade to acquire a bat, he almost certainly would have uttered this name: Jonathan Sanchez.

Hell, there’s a great chance he would have uttered that name first. But that was before Sanchez’s no-hitter against the Padres on Friday night, when he struck out 11 batters and was a Juan Uribe-error away from throwing a perfect game.

The Giants had been waiting for that kind of performance all season out of Sanchez. Granted, they weren’t expecting that good of a performance, but they did have high expectations for him coming into the 2009 season.

He did show flashes of brilliance earlier this season, most notably in a two-hit, 2-0 win over the Diamondbacks on April 17. But ’09 has mostly been a season of massive frustration for not only Sanchez, but also a Giants organization that had hoped the 26-year-old lefty would be the third leg of a tripod that also featured pitching sensations Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain.

Sanchez has always been a strikeout pitcher, but for much of this season he struggled mightily with his control and he seemed to be racking up K’s only because he was wildly effective. And when he would start to struggle during games, he appeared to be a mental midget on the mound and could never recover.

At the end of June, Sanchez was demoted to the bullpen and the only reason he got the opportunity to start on Friday night against San Diego was because Randy Johnson suffered a shoulder injury swinging a bat in his last outing. But as Sanchez noted after his no-hitter, the move to the pen allowed pitching coach Dave Righetti to work with him on his lower half, getting the lefty to slow down and cock his leg back more upon his delivery. This also slowed his arm action down and it allotted Sanchez more control of all his pitches.

And he was certainly in control last night, striking out 11 batters with a barrage of fastballs, sliders and breaking balls that befuddled a weak San Diego lineup. His performance wasn’t a fluke; Sanchez was just that good last night and maybe the young man is finally turning the corner.

That said, the Giants need to hang onto Sanchez now. Even for as bad as he’s looked this year, maybe Friday’s performance will serve as a steppingstone for Sanchez to become the pitcher San Fran had always envisioned him becoming. With Johnson expected to miss at least another week or so, Sanchez will get another start or two and if he’s lights out again, Sabean can’t trade this kid with the Giants leading the Wild Card race.

San Fran’s offense is bad, but it might not be as bad as everyone initially thought. “Kung Fu Panda” Pablo Sandoval has ignited this team with his bat, Aaron Rowand has been revived in the leadoff spot and even young players like Nate Schierholtz and Travis Ishikawa are starting to come around. If role players like Uribe, Randy Winn and Edgar Renteria can help fill in the gaps, the Giants might not have to part with an arm like Sanchez in order to get a bat on the trade market.

Plus, with Lincecum and Cain, the Giants already had one of the best pitching rotations in the NL – if not the best. If Sanchez has finally turned the corner, the Giants could potentially have the best starting rotation in the entire league (don’t forget about Johnson and Barry Zito, the latter of which has pitched well this season). San Fran would be incredibly tough to beat in the postseason with that rotation, even with a weak lineup.

Now, I know what some are thinking: Sanchez has had more bad outings this season than good and one no-hitter doesn’t mean he’s Cy Young-bound now. But Sanchez isn’t some journeyman that came out of nowhere; the Giants loved his potential coming into the season. And if he has finally turned the corner, SF should reap the benefits of developing his talent.

Plus, with minor leaguers Buster Posey and Angel Villalona on there way to the big leagues soon, maybe the offense is on its way and the Giants don’t have to go outside of the organization in order to acquire bats.

Maybe Sabean is thinking he can turn Sanchez’s no-hitter into trade gold. Maybe Sabean can now get the bat the Giants have needed all season long. Or maybe Sabean keeps Sanchez and builds a starting rotation that resembles the Braves of the mid-90s or the A’s of earlier this decade. After all Lincecum, Cain and Sanchez look like one hell of a trio right now and the sick part is, the Giants still have two more studs in the waiting in minor league arms Madison Bumgarner and Tim Alderson.

Sabean might be sitting on a pitching gold mind here. Now isn’t the time to trade one of those pieces.

One of the more intriguing names on the trade market is Pirates second baseman Freddy Sanchez, who is currently batting .316 with six dingers and 33 RBI. And as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is reporting, the Bucs are pushing hard to deal him before the trade deadline.

Two teams that covet the second baseman are the Giants and Rockies, each of whom are battling it out behind the Dodgers in the NL West and are in the thick of things for the NL Wild Card. Sanchez would be a nice catch for either team, although something for both clubs to consider is his salary. The All-Star makes $6.1 million this year and will make $8 million in 2010 if he picks up another 271 plate appearances before the end of the season.

Colorado might hold an edge over San Fran in the Sanchez sweepstakes because Pittsburgh is reportedly gaga over Rockies’ minor leaguer Eric Young. The 24-year-old has 23 extra base hits, 37 walks and a whopping 47 steals so far in the minors and if the Rox are willing to part with him, they could have Sanchez in uniform sooner rather than later.

That said, the Giants always have an abundance of pitching, but whether or not they’re willing to give any of it up remains to be scene. Madison Bumgarner and Tim Alderson are certainly out of the question, but GM Brian Sabean could still put a decent package together with the likes of Jonathan Sanchez or Kevin Pucetas, coupled with a couple of offensive prospects. (Sabean would probably be willing to throw Fred Lewis into the mix as well, although who knows if the Bucs would even want the struggling 28-year-old outfielder.)

It’ll be interesting to see which team eventually winds up making a move for Sanchez. Either way, it appears that his days in Pittsburgh are numbered.

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Offseason Movement: The G-Men added a solid piece to their starting rotation in former Cy Young-winner Randy Johnson. The club also signed free agent Edgar Renteria to play shortstop, and added Jeremy Affeldt and Bob Howry in hopes to strengthen their bullpen. Rich Aurilia and Josh Phelps were given minor league contracts, although Phelps was already reassigned to minor league camp.

Top Prospect: Madison Bumgarner, LHP
Who would have thought that the farm system that produced Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Brian Wilson and Jonathan Sanchez would have a pitcher as its top prospect? While catcher Buster Posey, corner infielder Angel Villalona and starter Tim Alderson deserve mention here, Bumgarner earns the Giants’ top prospect tag for his “ace” potential. While he isn’t expected to take Lincecum’s No. 1 spot any time soon, Bumgarner could turn out to be a San Fran’s No. 2 in the next couple seasons. He dominated his first full year in the minors after being selected in the first round out of high school, posting a 1.46 ERA in A-ball. He has a fastball that reaches 97 mph and once he develops his secondary pitches, Bumgarner should make his first big league appearance in no time.

The Big Question: Will this team score any runs?
Out of all the teams in baseball last year, only the Padres (637) scored fewer runs than the Giants (640). And all San Fran did to reshape their roster was give youngsters Pablo Sandoval and Travis Ishikawa full-time roles. While Sandoval has a ton of potential, he is largely unproven and along with Bengie Molina and Fred Lewis, he comprises one of the weakest 3-4-5 middle-of-the-orders in baseball. From top to bottom, the Giants once again have one of the worst offenses in the league and unless they can add a big bat at the trade deadline, they’ll likely play in a ton of low scoring ballgames this year.

Outlook: This team actually has scattered potential, but they’re just not there yet. 2008 Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum is already one of the most dominating pitchers in baseball and it seems like his popularity has grown overnight. Randy Johnson, Matt Cain, Barry Zito and Jonathan Sanchez join Lincecum to form one of the better young rotations in the National League. Unfortunately, they’ll once again have little to no run support because GM Brian Sabean has ignored drafting top position players for years. Instead, he has chosen to overpay for guys like Aaron Rowand, and therefore must hope that youngsters Pablo Sandoval, Fred Lewis, Travis Ishikawa and Kevin Frandsen have breakout years. Randy Winn, Edgar Renteria and Bengie Molina are fine role players, but they’re being counted on as the core of the Giants’ lineup, which limits this club’s potential. The starting pitching will once again be solid and the bullpen actually looks decent with closer Brian Wilson leading the way, followed by free agent addition Jeremy Afeldt and promising youngsters Alex Hinshaw and Sergio Romo. But the lineup will once again hold the Giants back this year and unless Sabean has a trick up his sleeve at the trade deadline, San Fran will have to wait another year or two before they’re competitive again.

Projection: 3rd NL West