Back to Part One

Back in early September, Brian Sabean anointed rookie Emmanuel Burriss as the Giants starting shortstop for 2009, telling reporters, “He’s come a long way… He plugs that position as far as I’m concerned.”  He went on to cite the prohibitive cost of filling such a prime position and finding a corner infielder as reasons why the team would not be pursuing a veteran free agent.  “You guys know the price of doing business in the market.  You’re not going to get a shortstop and solve your other needs, too,” Sabean said. 

Now barely three months later, Burriss time at short is already up, with his ten errors in 24 Arizona Fall League games giving Sabean cold feet.  “As things unfolded in the Fall League, it was obvious that we needed more experience at this position,” said Sabean.    

Burriss, who turns 24 in January, was a first-round draft pick in 2006 and batted .293 with a .368 on-base percentage in his final 81 games this past season.  He followed that up by batting .318 with a .370 OBP in the AFL.  But instead of parlaying that success into a sure 500+ at bats as the starting shortstop for a team looking to get younger, he’ll now have to move to second base and battle Kevin Frandsen for playing time. 

A .327 career minor league hitter, Frandsen batted .367 over his final 31 games in 2007 and was expected to compete with Ray Durham for the starting job last spring.  A ruptured Achilles tendon ended that competition prematurely, however, and he missed the entire 2008 season, save for one at bat on the final day of the year.   He confirmed that his rehab was complete by batting .331/.392/.421 with 17 RBI in 31 AFL contests and appeared ready to take on the starting job in 2009.  One could argue that with all he’s battled through to get to this point, he’s earned and deserves his shot. 

Frandsen, like Burriss, would greatly benefit from consistent playing time and at bats.  Renteria’s signing, though, all but guarantees that neither player will receive them.  It’s possible that Frandsen could also see time at third base, but the club still intends to acquire another corner infielder, with Pablo Sandoval playing first or third, depending on whom they get.  More likely, the 26-year old Frandsen is now ticketed for a utility role as long as he’s wearing a Giants uniform.  Potentially, the speedy sparkplug Burriss could wind up spending the year getting more “seasoning” down at Triple-A Fresno or even be traded away this winter.  Not an unreasonable decision for a contending team, but not very forward-thinking for a club that’s looking to rebuild while getting younger and more athletic. 

On its own merits, Burriss at second base isn’t a bad idea at all, as he was much better defensively in 2008 at the keystone position than at shortstop.  In 315 innings as a shortstop, he rated a -7 with a .772 revised zone rating while in 282 innings at second he was +5 with an .848 RZR.  Moving him to second is actually a pretty good idea, defensively speaking.  But Burriss and Frandsen both receiving 500+ at bats is an even better idea, yet one that, now, will not happen in 2009. 

Had the Giants acquired a younger, higher ceiling type player (such as Milwaukee’s 26-year old, power hitting shortstop, J.J. Hardy who would represent both the immediate and the foreseeable future of the position), then moving Burriss to second now would have made a lot more sense.  But Renteria is merely a stop gap signing.  Instead, his acquisition simply blocks the path of development for both Burriss and Frandsen. 

Rather than sign Renteria, I’d have liked to have seen Burriss gain more experience at short over the next two years while Frandsen got his chance to prove if he can hack it or not at second.  The Giants have a lot of talent in the lower levels of the minor leagues, and if they stay committed, they will start churning it out over the next couple of years.  As it is, they may need to move Burriss (if he hasn’t been traded) back to short when Renteria leaves in order to make room for Nick Noonan, a 19-year old prospect who represents the Giants' future at second base.  Noonan may very well be ready to go by 2011, while the best of the rest of the Giants shortstop prospects are less likely to be ready that quickly.  On the other hand, Sabean may sign some 34-year old second baseman to a 3-year deal next winter to block Noonan’s path, anyway. 

It’s true that the NL West has been a weak division the last few years, but to rely on that as a reason to expect that you could be competitive is highly flawed.  Realistically, the Giants were not a player or two away from being a team capable of competing next year and aren’t likely to find enough pieces this winter to get there.  A long range plan needs commitment.  Hopes were raised when 23 different rookies played for San Francisco this past season that their commitment to development was sincere.  With these two moves, though, doubts creeps back in.  The winter is not over, but my skepticism has been renewed. 

It was my hope next season to see Burriss, Frandsen, Sandoval and Nate Schierholtz all reach the 500 at bat plateau in 2009.  As it stands, Sandoval is the only player with any real shot of attaining that goal, with Schierholtz’ path still being blocked, essentially, by last winter's acquisition of Rowand.   

The Giants are attempting a delicate balancing act: on the one hand committing to developing youth while on the other hand committing financial resources to satisfy a demanding fan base by winning now.  In doing so, however, they are in the long run, doing both themselves and their fans a disservice. 

Burriss and Frandsen would have represented a far less expensive alternative to a past-his-prime shortstop that isn’t any more likely to push the Giants over the top than Rowand was last year, and everyone would likely have benefited from the experience they’d have gained.  This in turn would have given the team more money to go after Sabathia if they had wanted, which in turn would have given them the flexibility they needed to become active in the trade market.  At the very least, it would have left more to spend on a corner infielder, something they still need to acquire. 

Sabean’s first off-season move this winter was to sign 29-year old left-hander Jeremy Affeldt to a two-year, $8 million deal.  That move was applauded as both a good addition of talent as well as for being cost effective/low risk.  Signing a player under 30 years of age, for a change, gave hope to the notion that Sabean had indeed decided to take the team in a new direction. 

Instead, Giants fans just got more of the same ‘ol, same ‘ol.  Here we go again.