Giants - Acquired Garko

San Francisco Giants - Acquired 1B Ryan Garko from the Cleveland Indians for P Scott Barnes.

Garko has established himself as your basic run-of-the-mill league-average 1B.  He’s not going to hit 30 home runs or slug .550 or steal you 7 or 8 runs a year with the glove, but you can stick him in your lineup, set it and forget it.  I’m not sure he’s a great fit for the Giants however because while he is an offensive upgrade over San Fran’s annual 320/400 1B du jour, he’s not a great glove man and Ishikawa is pretty good.  A little bit more offense could make the Giants much more dangerous than one would think thanks to Link and Cain, but this isn’t a huge upgrade if you can’t trust Garko at a corner outfield spot, which I feel is the case.

Barnes is a decent pickup for the Indians.  They weren’t going to get Bumgarner or Alderson for Gonnie, but they need the organizational depth.  You know your rotation is a problem when you can look wistfully at the Orioles and wish you had signed Mark Hendrickson.

Marte’s interesting in that this is the first time he’s hit since 2005.  He’s still just 25 and while it’s easy to simply categorize him as a disappointment, now that he’s actually playing well again, it’s worth giving him a shot.  I feel it’s a good organizational practice - a minority of players in a farm system at any given time are considered prospects, but you should always try to give shots to people who simply play good baseball, so long as it’s consistent with the team’s short and long term interests.  It poisons the atmosphere when minor-league players feel as they’re simply placeholders that could hit .400 and the team wouldn’t care.  I’m including Marte’s RoS ZiPS as well.

2009 ZIPS Projection - Ryan Garko
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                AB    R    H  2B  3B  HR  RBI   BB   SO  SB   BA  OBP  SLG
——————————————————————————————————————

Year-to-Date   243   29   68  10   0  11   39   20   40   0 .280 .356 .457

Rest-of-Year   184   22   50   9   0   6   27   15   32   0 .274 .349 .433
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Total          427   51  118  19   0  17   66   35   72   0 .277 .353 .447

2009 ZIPS Projection - Andy Marte
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                AB    R    H  2B  3B  HR  RBI   BB   SO  SB   BA  OBP  SLG
——————————————————————————————————————

Year-to-Date   304   39   90  19   1  13   50   20   53   3 .296 .337 .493

Rest-of-Year   157   17   41   8   0   6   23    9   29   1 .261 .303 .426
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Year-to-date totals include minor-league translations, if applicable.