Giants - Sign Feliz, Aurilia, Durham, Roberts

San Francisco Giants - Signed 3B Pedro Feliz, IF Rich Aurilia, 2B Ray Durham and LF Dave Roberts.

3 of the 4 players here are good players, with the 4th not as wretched as he looks due to his defense.  Their task to enter the offseason was to somehow replace the 800 PA of Alou and Bonds and replace Jason Schmidt.  They haven’t done it and instead, have bought a few redundant players.  The Giants simply do not have enough money to fill all their holes, so they really need to do stuff like just be satisfied with Kevin Frandsen being an OK second baseman for a few years and letting Rich Aurilia, who signed cheaply, play 3rd and let Feliz go.  Aurilia’s unlikely to hit as well as he did in 2006 and he’s kind’ve wasted at first and the Giants aren’t getting very involved in any of the Japanese players.  This is looking like a 70-win team.

Even though as a whole, the signings aren’t great, they do look really nice in isolation.  Ray Durham’s contract of 2 years, $14ish million is a pretty good deal and he’s probably one of the most underrated middle infielders of his generation.  His fielding has been just adequate enough that its not a major concern, but any decline and he really becomes an out-of-position 1B who doesn’t hit as much as you’d like.  Feliz is getting a 1-year deal of $5-6 million, suggesting the market isn’t as robust as he’d like after throwing out some big numbers in rumors.  Aurilia gets a 2-year deal at a bargain $7 million and the merely 34 Dave Roberts sadly represents a youth movement, but at least he’ll be good defensively in left and a good leadoff hitter.

2007 ZiPS Projections  
———————————————————————————————————

Player        AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB    BA   OBP   SLG 
———————————————————————————————————

Aurilia     389   47  109  23  1  13  58  33  53   1  .280  .336  .445

Durham      451   70  122  26  4  16  64  51  60   5  .271  .348  .452      

Feliz       515   65  129  29  3  18  74  31  91   1  .250  .293  .423

Roberts     435   70  122  19  9   3  37  46  55  33  .280  .350  .386