What's his defensive rating at his 5 positions?

I agree that DeRosa's a fairly large risk at this stage in his career and could become not useful fast. But ...

the Giants have most of a lineup of a suitable stopgaps.

Grammatical mish-mashes aside, he can be quite valuable in that context. All of those stopgaps need backups and, generally, if your starter are stopgaps, your backups are replacement level. If DeRosa steals 150 PA from a crappy corner OF and 150 PA from a crappy backup 2B/3B and 150 PA as a platoon 1B and 50-100 standard issue somebody stubbed their toe and needs 3 days off PAs, then that's a lot of OKness in place of a lot of awfulness and he's probably saving you .5 to 1 roster spots -- meaning if you do have any decent 4th OF or platoon 1B options, you can carry them on your roster. Also, if any of those starting stopgaps go over the cliff before DeRosa, you've got an average to meh Plan B.

That is, if Velez, Burriss, Schierholz and ??? are your Plan Bs, DeRosa is clearly a Plan A-. Surely ever 10 PAs Burriss doesn't get is worth a win. :-)

Why do I get the feeling that the sum salary of all the Giants' off season signings is going to add up to enough money to have covered Holliday and whichever of the glut of decent free agent second basemen is still desperate and teamless in two months?

Kelly Johnson reportedly signed in Arizona for 1 year and less than $2.5 million. That's over $9 million, 1 year, and 1 Tim Alderson less than the Giants gave up for Freddy Sanchez. That's a little embarrassing.

The Giants already solved their cleanup hitter problem earlier this offseason when they announced that KFP was moving from third to fourth in the batting order.

Kelly Johnson reportedly signed in Arizona for 1 year and less than $2.5 million. That's over $9 million, 1 year, and 1 Tim Alderson less than the Giants gave up for Freddy Sanchez. That's a little embarrassing.

KJ can hit. And he will hit next year for the 'Backs.

Why do I get the feeling that the sum salary of all the Giants' off season signings is going to add up to enough money to have covered Holliday and whichever of the glut of decent free agent second basemen is still desperate and teamless in two months?

Rumor has it that the Giants did approach Bay and Holliday, but those players weren't interested in playing in SF. So what can they do? De Rosa might have been the best option left. As for 2B, they have already decided to go with Sanchez (signed him to an extension), and De Rosa can fill in at 2B as a backup, so why would they want to save money to sign a "decent free agent" to play 2B? They already have a decent starting 2B and now they have a decent backup as well. What they really need is a slugging left fielder or first baseman, and apparently they tried and couldn't find one who was interested. In the past Sabean has done things like "sign five mediocre players instead of Vladimir Guerrero" but that does not appear to be the case this year.

Why do I get the feeling that the sum salary of all the Giants' off season signings is going to add up to enough money to have covered Holliday and whichever of the glut of decent free agent second basemen is still desperate and teamless in two months?

Q: Did you ever make an offer for Vladimir Guerrero?

Sabean: In a word: No. If we had signed Guerrero or [Gary] Sheffield, we would have been without [Jim] Brower, [Scott] Eyre, [Matt] Herges, [Dustin] Hermanson, [Brett] Tomko, [A.J.] Pierzynski, [Pedro] Feliz, [J.T.] Snow, [Jeffrey] Hammonds, [Dustan] Mohr and [Michael] Tucker--obviously not being able to field a competitive team, especially from an experience standpoint, given our level of spending.

However, I agree with #6 above that this doesn't seem to be the case this year.

De Rosa might have been the best option left. As for 2B, they have already decided to go with Sanchez (signed him to an extension), and De Rosa can fill in at 2B as a backup, so why would they want to save money to sign a "decent free agent" to play 2B

I'm including Sanchez in the list of players they signed this offseason, so he wouldn't be on the team.

Really? Adrian Beltre is still a FA. Its funny, the Giants probably need Beltre as much anybody they signed over the last few years, but they can't since they spent all the money on guys like Aaron Rowand, Dave Roberts, and Edgar Renteria.

And now the Giants just signed Juan Uribe. What the hell is the point of this?

The Giants needed a back up SS?

Well considering this is the last year of Renteria's contract he might be their starting SS. But it's classic Giants, blowing all this money on seemingly useful guys instead of putting it all on an impact player.

I can't believe I'm defending Sabean, since I generally agree with the sentiments expressed by others here in regard to his typical practice, but in this case I just don't see how the criticism really fits. According to the article on Holliday, he is signing a huge, long term contract with the Cardinals. There is no way of knowing whether he would have wanted to come to San Fran instead if they offered more money, but do you really think it would be a good idea for the Giants to offer an outfielder who will turn 30 in January a 5-8 year, $100+ million contract (the general parameters of what the Holliday article suggests the Cards are offering)? And if so, do you really think DeRosa's signing really has anything to do with that? If they wanted to go after Holliday with that much money, this piddly DeRosa contract would not be what stood in the way. Another way of putting this is that if they thought they had a chance of signing Holliday, they probably wouldn't have offered DeRosa this contract. They obviously signed DeRosa after they decided they were out of the bidding for Bay and Holliday.

The other names that have been thrown around are Kelly Johnson and Adrian Beltre. Johnson was so horrible offensively last year that he was non-tendered by the Braves. Sure, he could bounce back, but he could also...um, not (Johnson turns 28 in February). And add in that Johnson is historically a terrible defender (last year he was average according to Fangraphs, but is it more likely that he really improved significantly in defense, or that it was a one-year bloop in his defensive stats?) Freddy Sanchez is a much better player than Kelly Johnson, and so is Mark DeRosa.

As for Beltre, he turns 31 in April and his OBP's for the past three years are .319, .327., .304. I don't see how that particular addition would really help a team who's biggest problem is lack of OBP. DeRosa has a much higher OBP than Beltre, so would Beltre necessarily be preferable? I'll grant that Beltre is probably a better overall player due to defense and more power, and is a couple years younger, but it doesn't seem to me that he really helps address the Giants' primary need which is for someone to get on base. And since he would have to play third full time, that moves Panda to first base, lessening his value. Since DeRosa can play multiple positions, he helps the Giants more in that they need someone to back up second and also play at third and left field.

Again, I generally agree that Sabean has no clue or long-term plan about constructing a roster, but this year's crop of free agents just didn't present many attractive options. The two big bats, Bay and Holliday, are getting long contracts for big money, and both entail a lot of risk. There really wasn't anyone especially useful the Giants could have signed if only they hadn't spent $6M on DeRosa.

The problem, Ginger Nut is that when your offense needs to pick up 50-60 runs, you cannot do this by upgrading 7 positions 8 runs each. It's impossible.

The only way for the Giants to get an adequate offense for 2010-11 with their current roster is to (or should I say, was to) get an impact bat.

I find it hard to believe that of the three best available hitters this off season (Holliday, Bay, Nick Johnson) they all REFUSED to come to SF for similar sized contracts to the ones they signed.

I find it more likely that ownership was not willing to spend the coin to get an impact FA.

I guess it's tough to be a mid-major market GM. You have to be perfect or lucky to develop a strong roster. You don't have the big money basket to cover errors (Rowand, Renteria, Zito) and the ownership/fan base won't let you really tear down the team a la Florida.

Victor Rojas, MLBN host, tried to tell me on Twitter that DeRosa would make a fine starting LF for the Yankees. I think we all agree that's wrong.

Anyway, the Giants are in desperate need of a bat. DeRosa's not that guy, and it seems to me if you can't get a bopper, go for defense. I dunno if DeRosa is that guy, either.

Anyway, the Giants are in desperate need of a bat. DeRosa's not that guy, and it seems to me if you can't get a bopper, go for defense. I dunno if DeRosa is that guy, either.

Why not get a little of each?

Can they afford to? And who is the solution? Adrian Beltre would've been an excellent solution at third, me thinks, but he wasn't coming cheap, and the Giants are about to shell out--rightfully so--to Tim Lincecum.

I agree with your idea, but I don't know how to do it.