Giantsblog

Cody Ross and Pat Burrell won’t have a choice in testing the free agent market because the Giants declined to offer either of them arbitration. The down side for the Giants is that now the team won’t get compensation, but on a good note, they won’t be stuck with either player at a potentially inflated value.  This was pretty much expected and it now frees up some money to go up and shore up an offense that was one of the worst in baseball.

The Giants have a few other people testing the waters as well.  Carlos Beltran, Orlando Cabrera, Guillermo Mota and Mark De Rosa are all also free agents.  There’s also twelve younger players eligible for arbitration so the front office is going to be busy this offseason.

The Giants made their first big deal of the season by trading one time pitching prospect Jonathan Sanchez to the Royals for the speedy outfielder Melky Cabrera.  Cabrera is coming off a career year in which he hit .305 and scored 102 runs.  The nice thing about Cabrera is that he can play all three outfield spots so the Giants can make their moves and adjust if need be to fill in all of their holes.

One knock on Cabrera was that his one stint in the National League didn’t go well.  He spent 2010 with the Braves and he was eventually released.  That left the door open for him to go to Kansas City where he had the best year of his career.

Sanchez had the no-hitter and then the big post season win but other then that, he’s been hit or miss.  Plus we have plenty of arms so I like the move.