That rest-of-year projection looks pretty good for a 20 year old. How above-average is Alderson's fastball?

Alderson's fastball has some great movement and control, relatively unimpressive velocity. He'll have some great seasons if he has a strong infield defense behind him.

I really thought that the Giants should have tried to sign Hudson or Lopez last winter and was quite unhappy that they both wound up with division rivals. It should have been clear to Sabean that Burriss and Frandsen were inadequate. Had Sabean spent $3.5M to address an obvious weakness, then they would not have given 390 PA to 2B who combined for a 62 OPS+ over the first 100 games of the seasons, they would still have one of their better prospects, and they would probably have a better player.

Sanchez is an upgrade, but he's not a difference-maker. The Giants lineup is still among the worst in all of baseball and Sanchez does nothing to address their need for power. If Alderson turns out to be another Jason Grilli, then it won't be that painful a loss. But I think that there's a real chance that he turns out to be something special, in which case the Giants just traded away a half dozen years of cheap pitching for a mediocre, aging 2B.

You have a generous definition of special. I think there's a good chance that Alderson has a good major league career, but I doubt he'll ever do anything notable enough to make the casual fan regret his loss (not to say they he won't rack up enough value to make this trade look bad, just that I think he'll do so in a slow and unspectacular fashion). That's the reason that I'm having trouble building up ire against this trade, I'd already considered Alderson to be overrated and good candidate to sell high. I'm not at all angry that the Giants moved him, I'd just hoped that Sabean would get more for him.

Of course, what little I've heard from other team's scouts pretty much echoed my opinion, so maybe I was being too optimistic.

[3] IIRC, Keith Law wrote that Alderson's stuff has degraded quite a bit recently.

Alderson's K rate has dropped off the table as the season's gone on - I hope he's not hurt.

According to KLaw, Alderson has lost several MPH on his fastball going from 90-92 or greater to 87-90 now. That could explain the drop in the K rate.

KLaw was not high on Alderson at all in his chat today.

I wonder what Keith Law thinks about Alderson.

One thing abut this deal that I haven't seen discussed much is that the Giants only had to send one prospect away in the deal. Obviously, if you think they overspent that's not much consolation, but by only sending over one player they were able to hang onto to the two or three fringe guys you usually see tossed in a deal like this. Saving those guys by using a piece with as much value as Alderson has, is much like getting a couple of those guys by dumping a mediocre veteran. It's particularly sound if Alderson is, in fact, overrated at this point.

That doesn't change the equation much, but it is a different approach then the one we usually see and it's also a bit unusual coming from a guy who had the reputation of throwing around prospects like they were valueless.

Keith Law Keith Law Keith Law!

People (especially the dude at Fangraphs) are seriously underselling Sanchez. Here are his recent WAR values, per Fangraphs:


3.2
4.8
3.8
0.4
3.5 (09 pace)

Depending on how you account for the shoulder injury he had in 08, he projects to be a 2.5 to 3.5 win player going forward. You don't get a player that good, for a year and a half on a reasonable contract, without giving up a good prospect. And Alderson is a young pitcher with some recent concerns about his stuff. And as a pitcher, he's something the Giants have a lot of, so they can afford to deal him. We also shouldn't forget that after Freddy's 2010 option year, the Giants can offer him arbitration, to get him for another reasonably priced year or get picks.

This is a perfectly reasonable trade for the Giants, even a good one, considering their current place in the standings.

What an odd choice for a couple of days for TO to take off.

Washburn? Grabow? Sherrill?

There's no site I'd rather see check in on these than this one.

Sammy: go here.

Thanks, Vlad! That's what I get for not visiting the front page.

Alderson is overrated and probably will not translate into a good MLB pitcher. His stuff is average and because of his motion, fans like him ... but most baseball people think he is a back of the rotation guy, at best. Sanchez was a great add for a team that needed a heart, a bat and some life ... Sanchez could push this team into the wildcard and the playoffs.

Question for the group: when minor league stats are regressed to the mean for the purpose of projections, are they regressed to the league average of the league that the player was playing in?