Kuzul

There’s been a lot of buzz going around that the San Francisco Giants overpaid when they extended Hunter Pence via a five-year, $90 million deal.

Dave Cameron of FanGraphs sums up that argument by writing:

But, if both sides are willing to stipulate that the Giants could have spent $90 million on other baseball players this winter if they hadn’t signed Hunter Pence, then I think there’s a pretty strong case to be made that they could have done better going in another direction…Pence’s new deal won’t stop the Giants from winning, so long as they surround him with quality players on undervalue deals…That’s not the easiest thing in the world to do, though, and now that they’re committed to paying Pence $18 million per year for the next five years, their margin of error just got a little smaller. This isn’t the Ryan Howard contract, or even the Barry Zito contract, but for a team without unlimited resources, spending too many of them on a good-not-great player on the wrong side of 30 could end up looking like a mistake.

While Cameron makes some interesting points, the reality is that the San Francisco Giants had to keep Pence, regardless of the cost.

The cost was going to be somewhere in the range of Nick Swisher’s four-year, $56 million deal and Andre Ethier‘s five-year, $85 million deal. Swisher, Ethier and Pence are comparable players. Thus,  Pence’s market price was going to be somewhere on that spectrum.

The Swisher contract would have been a better deal for the Giants, but they could not afford to let Pence get away. He wasn’t willing to settle for that contract, so San Francisco had to up their offer to keep him.

They went into the winter already needing to drastically upgrade in left field. If they had let Pence hit the open market, they would have potentially needed a new right fielder as well.

There just isn’t enough talent on the free-agent market to realistically expect the Giants to be able to replace Pence and find a left fielder in the same winter.

Carlos Beltran, Jacoby Ellsbury, Shin-Soo Choo, Curtis Granderson and Nelson Cruz are the only impact bats on the free-agent outfield market.

The Giants could have let Pence walk and tried to sign two of those players to play right and left field. However, there’s no guarantee that they could have signed any of those guys. By re-signing Pence before he could hit the market, the Giants have avoided creating another hole on a roster that already has plenty.

The starting rotation finished with the game’s seventh-worst ERA despite the spaciousness of AT&T Park. The offense finished 21st in runs scored. The club finished just 20th in defensive efficiency. This team clearly needs to improve in every facet of the game.

The Giants could have held firm and told Pence to take the Swisher deal or leave it. However, the deal they gave Pence amounts to one extra year and four extra million dollars per season over what Swisher received last winter. For a big-market team like the Giants who sell out every game, holding the line for that amount of money just isn’t necessary.

In 2013, Pence led the Giants in home runs, RBI, slugging percentage, extra-base hits and stolen bases. If the Giants had lost Pence, a bad offensive team would have been without one of its best hitters going forward. They could have tried to replace him, but there’s no guarantee they would have been able to do so.

The other point against Cameron’s argument is that Pence was worth 5.4 wins above replacement in 2013. According to FanGraphs, that means he was worth $27.2 million to the Giants.

This was the best season of Pence’s career, so he isn’t like to be a five-win player going forward. However, he has been a three-to-four win player throughout his career, and that makes him worth close to the $18 million San Francisco will be paying him.

The Giants could have waited things out for Pence and risked losing him. They could have told him what they believed his market price to be and waited for him to capitulate. However, the risk in that scenario would be to lose Pence in free agency and then be unable to replace him with a player of equal value on a lesser deal.

The Giants received a league-worst five home runs and .651 OPS from their left fielders in 2013. They need to improve that spot this winter, but there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to sign an upgrade or trade for one. Had they lost Pence, they’d be in big trouble in two important offensive spots.

The bottom line is that there just isn’t enough offensive talent to go around. Offense is down around the sport, and the best players are continually signing long-term extensions before they hit free agency.

The Giants farm system is extremely light on positional talent. They had no in-house option ready to take over for Pence, and they would have been hard-pressed to find a replacement this winter.

Did the Giants overpay for Hunter Pence? Based on his performance in 2013 and the Ethier contract it looks like a fair deal. However, even if they did overpay by a few million dollars per season, they absolutely had to keep Pence.

All statistics in this article are courtesy of ESPN. All contractual data is from Cot’s Baseball Contracts.

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In the midst of an awful season, the San Francisco Giants made a preemptive strike to secure their future place in the NL West standings by agreeing to re-sign right fielder Hunter Pence to a five-year, $90 million contract on Saturday.

The deal, reported by CSN Bay Area’s Andrew Baggarly, rewards Pence for an outstanding 2013 in which he’s played in every game and hit the to the tune of a .282/.339/.481 slash line. That production is good enough for a 136 OPS+ when factoring in the run-suppressing environment in San Francisco.  

Of course, what Pence has done is not necessarily a great indicator of what he will do over the next five seasons in the middle of the San Francisco order. For the Giants to get optimum value out of their commitment to Pence over the next five seasons, he’ll have to stave off regression and continue to average over 3 WAR per season, if not his 4.2 mark of 2013, per Baseball-Reference.com.

At first glance, the deal seems to be an egregious overpay, but when looking at some recent contracts for corner outfielders, the deal simply becomes a risk for San Francisco. Unless Pence totally breaks down or reverts into a league average player in the very near future, the contract shouldn’t cripple the Giants franchise.

As the following chart shows, Pence posted the fifth-highest adjusted OPS in the three years prior to signing the lucrative deal, yet only received the eighth-largest commitment. While it’s easy to think that Pence wasn’t worth $34-44 million more than the two players, Jason Bay and Nick Swisher, that he out-earned, his deal does not come across as an instant albatross either. 

That look at the most recent lucrative deals to corner outfielders does come with caveats, though. As the 2013 season comes to a close, Pence is completing his age-30 season. His three years leading up to the massive payday occurred during his 28-, 29- and 30-year-old seasons, leaving San Francisco responsible for paying him through his early and mid-30s. 

In retrospect, major commitments to Vernon Wells and Matt Kemp by Toronto and Los Angeles, respectively, may have been mistakes, but those players were just entering their primes at the time of inking the deals in excess of $100 million. In theory, their clubs could have been predicting even better production before decline hit.

With Pence, 2013 is likely the baseline for his best. As a player who has never walked 100 times in a season or rated as a good defender (-3.1 dWAR for his career), age isn’t likely to be as kind to him as a player like, say, Jayson Werth. When the Nationals gave Werth a $126 million deal after the 2010 season, eyebrows were raised, but the then-31-year-old arrived in D.C. as an excellent defender capable of playing center field as well as a corner, and had the plate discipline to thrive with age even if his physical skills eroded.

Many times, the success or failure of commitments like the new deal for Pence is measured in absolutes. While deals for Crawford, Soriano, Hamilton and Bay have been characterized as disasters and Holliday and Werth look to be successes, Pence’s deal is likely to fall somewhere in the middle.

If the Giants expect a 4.2 WAR or better every season for the next five years, they’ve made a grave mistake. On the other hand, Pence is too solid and too durable to project as a player that will go in the tank early in the life of the contract.

Speaking of durability, Pence’s ability to take the field on an everyday basis should give the Giants a reason to believe he’ll provide value and production during this deal. Since his call-up in 2007, Pence has averaged 151 games per season. When looking at the entire league since 2008 (Pence’s first full year in Houston), it’s clear how durable Pence has been. 

The Giants didn’t commit $90 million to a player on the verge of a breakout or with the ability to carry a team. Instead, they committed to a player who they can count on to play 150-plus games per season, bat in the middle of the order and hit 20-25 home runs. 

Hunter Pence never struck me as a $90 million player, but when looking at the recent history of corner outfielders and the steadying presence of this two-time All-Star, the Giants stand a better chance to get bang for their buck than many franchises have lately when signing over a check this large.

Is Hunter Pence worth $90 million?

Comment below, follow me on Twitter or “like” my Facebook page to talk all things baseball.

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Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Friday that the San Francisco Giants have started negotiations with impending free-agent right fielder Hunter Pence.

Pence, 30, isn’t going to be cheap to retain. Pence is making $13.8 million in his final season of arbitration eligibility this year.

If the Giants don’t reach a long-term deal with Pence before free agency begins, they’ll likely extend him the one-year qualifying offer. If Pence were to accept—which seems unlikely—he’d be back on another one-year deal for close to $14 million. If he were to reject it and sign elsewhere, the signing team would forfeit its first-round draft choice unless it finished in the bottom 10 in the overall standings.

However, with both sides open to a long-term deal, it’s more likely that Pence will seek a multi-year deal from the Giants. The best, most recent comparison for what Pence’s next contract will look like is Nick Swisher’s four-year, $56 million deal with the Cleveland Indians.

Swisher’s leverage on the free-agent market was hurt by the draft-pick compensation attached to him from the qualifying offer extended by the New York Yankees. When Swisher hit the market last winter, he was a lifetime .256/.361/.467 hitter. His on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) was .828. His OPS+, which adjusts for park factors, was 118.

Pence is currently a lifetime .286/.339/.476 hitter with an .814 OPS. His OPS+ is nearly identical to Swisher’s at 119.

Thus, while Swisher and Pence are different players, their overall production has been very similar. According to FanGraphs, Swisher was worth 25.2 wins above replacement (WAR) before signing with Cleveland, while Pence has been worth 24 WAR thus far in his career.

Pence hits for a higher average and slightly more power, but Swisher gets on base more often because he has better plate discipline. Swisher’s career walk rate is 13.2 percent compared to just 7.3 percent for Pence.

However, other than patience, Pence has better tools than Swisher. Pence is 21-for-23 on stolen base attempts this year while Swisher has only 13 career stolen bases. Pence also has some of the best raw power in the game.

While his career slugging percentage is only nine points higher than Swisher’s was when he became a free agent, Pence leads the league in average home run distance this year. Thus, Pence may have a better chance to maintain his power as he ages. Also, Pence is a year younger than Swisher, so a four-year deal for Pence would carry a little less risk.

Because of his raw power, athletic ability, durability (he’s started every game this year) and youth, Pence may be able to do better than Swisher’s four-year, $56 million deal on the open market. Given that he’s only 30 years old and clearly in great shape, he may command a five-year deal.

While every free-agent contract carries tremendous risk, the Giants absolutely need to retain Pence. He leads the offensively challenged Giants in home runs, doubles, triples and slugging percentage.

San Francisco left fielders have combined for the game’s worst OPS and the fewest home runs at the position this season. It’s pivotal that the club upgrades at that spot. However, they first must retain Pence in right field.

The Giants need to find an upgrade on Gregor Blanco in left field over the winter. If they fail to retain Pence, they’ll need to find a new right fielder as well.

With few alternatives in the outfield on the free-agent market, the Giants would have an extremely hard time replacing Pence while also upgrading in left field. Thus, they need to re-sign Pence and then improve the left field situation. 

Pence should at least match Swisher’s $56 million contract because the two right fielders had nearly identical production before hitting free agency. However, Pence’s youth, speed and power might earn him a longer, more lucrative contract than Swisher’s.

Andrew Baggarly of CSN Bay Area recently summed up Pence’s overall value to the Giants. Baggarly wrote:

More than speed or power, though, Pence’s most valuable commodity is his energy. In an era when players can’t pop greenies or spike the coffee pot to get up for a game, Pence brings his hyperactivity every day. He’s played all but 13 of the Giants’ innings in right field this season. And he’s poised to become the first Giant in the San Francisco era to start every regular-season game in a season…’It shows you he comes to play every day,’ Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. ‘It’s the intensity he plays with every day. Here he is in September and he has a game like that. It says a lot about the shape he’s in.’

Pence has been one of the few bright spots in 2013 for the last-place Giants. Re-signing him to a long-term deal will come with risk, but it’s a move the Giants need to make. Pence won’t come cheaply, but the Giants need his power, speed, durability and leadership going forward.

All statistics in this article are courtesy of ESPN and Baseball-Reference.

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Hunter Pence channeled his inner Hulk to blast the longest home run of the 2013 MLB season.

As Pence’s San Francisco Giants took on the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday night, Pence stepped up to the plate in the first inning with a runner on first and two outs.

On the third pitch of the at-bat, Pence took Chad Bettis deep to left field, completely clearing the stands and hitting a brick wall.

At 476 feet, Pence’s two-run shot is now the longest of the 2013 season.

Hunter Pence’s 1st inning HR was calculated at 476 feet, the longest HR in MLB this season.

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) August 28, 2013

It’s hard to gauge the crowd’s reaction in the video, but I think we can safely assume it was something like this:

Pence saw Bettis throw a belt-high fastball on the inside half of the plate and he knew what to do with it. He turned on the pitch and launched the ball a staggering 476 feet.

We knew it was only a matter of time before Pence blasted another deep ball. He is tied for the second-longest average distance on home run balls this season at 419.0 feet, according to the ESPN Home Run Tracker.

Pence has always had a powerful swing, and he got all of Bettis’ pitch on Tuesday night.

Needless to say, fans were pretty stoked.

Hunter Pence just hit one over all the seats in left field. All of them.

— Alex Pavlovic (@AlexPavlovic) August 28, 2013

After that home run he hit in Miami, tonight’s 476-foot blast against the Rockies seems like pretty good proof that Hunter Pence is zonin’.

— Matthew Snyder (@schnides14) August 28, 2013

How can you not love @hunterpence? I mean, he’s just brings a lot of passion to the team.

— Noelle (@noelle_starr) August 28, 2013

You go hunter pence

— …amanda… (@heythereamandaa) August 28, 2013

Surprisingly, Pence’s home run only beat out the previous mark this season by a single foot. Even more surprising is that two players hit 475-foot bombs this year and were tied for the longest of the season before Pence surpassed them.

Anthony Rizzo of the Chicago Cubs blasted his 475-foot home run on April 18 against the Texas Rangers, nearly hitting the ball out of Wrigley field.

Mark Trumbo of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim also reached the 475-foot mark, doing so against the Oakland Athletics on April 29.

Pence’s 16th home run of the season was the longest yet, and his mark could hold up for the rest of the year. 

Follow @JoshSchoch

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There are a lot of players worthy of being selected to the 2013 MLB All-Star Game, but not all of them will make it.

Thirty-three players make the AL All-Star team, and 33 players make the NL All-Star team. That means that a mere 66 players make the initial team, which is extremely tiny when you consider that 750 players are currently on active MLB rosters.

Because less than 9 percent of the league’s players end up on one of the initial teams, some deserving players miss the team. However, because players and managers vote for most of the All-Stars, some players who don’t get any attention from the national media are recognized.

This year, there are more players who have done well but have flown under the radar. Here are five of those players.

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Hunter Pence might need some help on the proper use of sunglasses. 

The Dodgers and Giants opened play on a sun-drenched Monday afternoon in Los Angeles. It was the kind of day that mandated some sun-shielding eye wear if you were ever going to skirt any amount of pop-fly disaster. 

Well, Pence flew too close to the sun and got burned, dropping a routine fly ball in the sixth inning, producing one of the first bloopers of the season. 

In case you missed it, @gidget (h/t Larry Brown Sports) provided this GIF of Pence using his hands to shield a bright sun when the sunglasses on his head may have proved far more useful. 

As Larry Brown Sports points out, MLB Memes was quick to the trigger in making light of Pence fighting a futile battle against the sun. 

Of course, this is just a silly moment from game one of 162. The San Francisco Giants will soon get their World Series rings and Pence will again hold his head high. 

Still, Giants fans are crossing their fingers that Pence can somehow bounce back from the time he spent with the team last season. 

In 59 games with the eventual champs, the outfielder hit .219, striking out 60 times in 219 at bats. His two errors in that time helped him produce a -0.6 defensive WAR, according to ESPN. 

The Giants proved they are stacked enough to win a title with Pence struggling. However, I have to think they might ask him if he wouldn’t mind actually wearing his sunglasses. 

I mean, they look great sitting atop his hat, but they work wonders at shielding the eyes from the sun. Or so I have heard. 

Hit me up on Twitter for more MLB madness. 

Follow @gabezal

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Every year, in sports, there are underrated players who break onto the scene with great performances.

And, every year, people try to predict who those players will be. And this year, I have some ideas.

Despite successful 2012 campaigns, these players aren’t getting much attention for a variety of reasons. However, in 2013, they will be getting attention, for some good performances, in fantasy and real life. And then, they’ll be shining in the bright lights of October.

But who will those players be? Well, why don’t you find out.

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Brought in to solidify the middle of the San Francisco Giants‘ lineup, Hunter Pence has actually made it worse during his short tenure as a Giant.

The right fielder has gone just 6-for-43 for San Francisco in 10 games. He’s struck out 11 times and walked just once. Overall he’s hitting .140, with an OPS of .365.

These 10 games absolutely represent a small sample size, so he can’t be judged on his performance as a Giant alone. But Pence is very obviously pressing. He’s diving at pitches, trying to prove himself to his teammates and Giant fans with every wild swing. He’s always been antsy at the plate, with his body in constant motion. But he’s looked more than antsy so far; he’s looked anxious, in a teeth-gritting, silently desperate sort of way.

There’s no way Pence is actually this bad. He’s clearly hurting himself by simply trying to do too much. In fact, he’s hit a couple of balls hard that have unluckily turned into outs.

There is reason to be concerned, though.

First of all, Pence’s last month in Philadelphia was absolutely awful. In July, he hit .217 with just one homer in 22 games. He, again, rarely walked, leading to an OBP of .278 and an OPS of .531. That was for an entire month. Add that up to his first 10 games in August and something looks seriously wrong.

The fact that Pence was so bad in July makes it harder to argue that his poor performance as a Giant is due solely to the fact that he’s pressing.

There’s probably not an easy fix for what Pence is going through. The more he struggles, the harder he presses—which gives this whole thing a scary, downward spiral-type of feel.

Manager Bruce Bochy would certainly be justified in dropping Pence in the order in an effort to take some of the pressure off. Bochy has certainly done that before, most notably with Pablo Sandoval and Brandon Belt during some of their prolonged slumps.

Whatever the Giants do, they’re going to have to figure out how to get something out of Pence in a hurry. With only a few weeks remaining in the season, the Dodgers have pulled even with the Giants. If Pence can, at the very least, rediscover the above-average form he showed as a Phillie in May and June, the Giants’ offense will be better for it.

But if he keeps pressing, he’ll keep killing the Giants.

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When the San Francisco Giants acquired Hunter Pence just before this year’s trade deadline, they took the first step toward repeating a horrible mistake. The second step of that process is already looking likely: there’s talk of signing Pence to a long-term deal.

The mistake referred to is sitting on his couch somewhere, still collecting the balance of a $60 million contract he signed with the Giants in December of 2007. That’s right, I’m talking about Aaron Rowand.

The similarities between Rowand and Pence are striking, and the Giants don’t seem to recognize them. If they can’t see that they’ve got Rowand 2.0 in right field, they’re doomed to repeat the same egregious error they made by giving Rowand $12 million a year.

It’s not just because both Pence and Rowand are former Phillies. And it’s not just because Pence and Rowand each joined the Giants a year removed from their best seasons.

The problem is pretty simple: the Giants don’t seem to see Pence and Rowand are virtually the same player.

Looking at Pence’s four most recent seasons (including this one) before becoming a Giant, his average OPS is .810. That’s a pretty good figure, but keep in mind that it could be artificially inflated by playing in Houston and Philadelphia, both hitter’s parks.

Now look at Rowand’s last four full seasons before becoming a Giant. In those years (two with the White Sox and two with the Phillies), Rowand’s average OPS was .818—slightly better than Pence’s. Rowand’s OPS also benefited from playing in hitter-friendly environments in Chicago and Philadelphia.

In terms of walk and strikeout rates for the four-year periods we’re comparing, Pence and Rowand are again extremely similar. Rowand struck out about 17 percent of the time, which is also true for Pence. Pence walked about two percent more often than Rowand in that span.

Need more evidence? How about WAR? In the four seasons from 2004 to 2007, Rowand was worth 17.5 wins above replacement. Since 2009, including his projected WAR of just 1.7 this year, Pence will have been worth just 13.6.

And that’s where things get ugly. The comparison between Pence and Rowand is no longer one that shows they’re similar. Now, we can look at the simplest data and know that Pence’s four most recent pre-Giant years have actually been worse than Rowand’s.

So, why are the Giants enamored with Pence and have designs on rewarding him with what could be a deal worth $13-14 million annually? They realize that’s even more than the awful deal they gave Rowand in December of 2007, right?

To be fair to Pence, he’s a little younger than Rowand was when the Giants dropped $60 million on him. And Pence is a midseason acquisition who is absolutely an improvement over what the Giants had in the outfield before the deadline.

There’s no question Pence makes the Giants better this season. But locking him up like the Giants did with Rowand would be a catastrophe.

Pence, like Rowand was, is a gritty, talented, hard-nosed free-swinger who hustles and endears himself to fans. And as was the case with Rowand, the Giants have a grossly mistaken perception of how valuable those qualities are.

GM Brian Sabean, who signed Rowand to that awful deal, should know by now that guys like Rowand and Pence don’t age well. He should also be smart enough to recognize that when the Giants acquired Rowand, he was actually a better player than Pence is now.

Finally, he should know not to sign Pence to a deal like the one that blew up in his face with Rowand, because based on the comparison between Rowand and Pence, this one could turn out even worse.

The terrifying truth about Hunter Pence is that the Giants can’t seem to see who he truly is.

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Last year at the trade deadline, the Philadelphia Phillies were 68-39, six games up in the NL East. This season, the Phils are just 45-57, 16.5 games out in the NL East and 13 games out in the wild-card race.

Needless to say, with the payroll over $174 million, second to the New York Yankees in MLB, expectations were high.

They have not come close to meeting those expectations.

There were several rumors going around, including the potential trade of veteran starters Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels and Roy Halladay, but Ruben Amaro, Jr. held his cards, hoping to rebuild with his powerful rotation for the 2013 season.

With the deadline came a couple of major trades for Philadelphia. The club was able to acquire some talented young players to build around, while opening up the outfield for young players like Domonic Brown and John Mayberry, Jr.

Let’s take a look at how the Phillies fared on Tuesday.

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