Randy Winn, $24 million man
Dave · February 28, 2006 at 5:59 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Randy Winn signed a 3 year contract extension with the Giants today, covering the 2007-2009 seasons, worth $23.5 million. He’s under contract for $5 million this season.
So, for the next four seasons, the Giants are committed to paying Randy Winn $28.5 million. $7 million per season. Randy Winn, folks. Somewhere, Jon Wells is gasping for breath.
I’m sorry, but those who still believe that a player is worth whatever a team will pay him simply don’t understand the economic realities of baseball.
What a brutal contract.
Comments
47 Responses to “Randy Winn, $24 million man”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
well, maybe the combo of being at home and in the NL will keep the Randinator in the ‘everyone who leaves here does better’ column. Or not.
Well, unless he randomly continues to be the player he was after he was traded to San Francisco (.359/.391/.690 with 14 HR, 22 2B, 5 3B, and 7 SB in 231 ABs). Unlikely, but yeah.
This contract is karma paying me back for making fun of the Jarrod Washburn deal 🙁
So basically, an overpaid Jason Ellison/David Ortmeier’ is blocking spaces for Schierholz (whose Dad, Vai, is a good customer of my father, so I’m rooting hard for him), Linden, or Esteve-Martinez?
Yikes. Winn is a nice supporting player, but that’s it.
I hope he earns it, he seems like a good guy who got dicked by Seattle. I also hope he gets extra playing time becasue Bonds has some kind of aneyrism or something else that prevents him from ever playing again.
It’s amazing what a solid second half can do for you.
Schierholz has yet to even reach AA (starts it this season), Linden looks like a AAA sugger and EME doesn’t play enough defense or have the arm strength to play outfield. You can find fault in this deal;however, Winn blocking a prospectg is not really one of them.
When Sabean leaves, that organization is going to be one barren, overaged landscape, that’s for sure.
Winn won’t lose playing time to Bonds–Finley will. you should be rooting for Bonds to be playing, because then Winn will be scoring a hell of alot more runs.
Oh, and on a side note, the general consensus is that Esteve-Martinez, while a very solid hitter, is absolutely abysmal in the field and will lkely have to be traded to an AL team as a DH at some point.
I say we get him. A young power DH with OBP who can’t field named Edgar Esteve-Martinez for the M’s!
Re:10 yeah, because the M’s are replete with trading chips
I’m sure the Giants would take anyone on the grounds that they were born after 1929.
Though it wouldn’t matter much. My theory is that Felipe Alou is some sort of undead that literally drains years off others’ lives to keep himself going. You just watch… Felipe will have a bit more color in his hair next year and Randy Winn will suddenly be listed as 46 years old.
7. How would a weak arm keep him from replacing Randy Winn? I swear I could kick a baseball farther and faster than he can throw it.
9. I’m rooting against Bonds because I hate him with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns, not for any rational reason.
It’s amazing what a solid second half can do for you.
Somewhere Willie Bloomquist nods his head subtly in approval.
From the Giants SB Nation blog, someone likes his defense:
“I think Winn is a substantially better offensive player than Jones. Last season he put up a 268 EQA in a pitchers park; whereas Jones put up a 254 in minnesota. I think they are fairly comparable defensively (Winn ranks as one of the best defensive left fielders in baseball and Jones one of the best rightfielders in baseball)”
(It came from kenshin1… same kenshin that posts here?)
Ahhh, at least Sabean’s not our GM. Our guy may make nonsensical ML moves, but he knows how to build a farm system. The rational thing to do would have been to let Winn walk after this year, and take the draft picks from his type A status and start buiding your system for the inevitable Bonds departure so that you don’t become the Royals for the next ten years. Wait, that’s the same thing we should have done with Ibanez. f**k. Dammit Bill! What the hell were you thinking? How can you sign Washburn to avoid giving up picks and then re-up Ibanez? It makes NO sense. NONE Bill. What the hell!?!?!
Good for Winn. That said, I’m glad it wasn’t Seattle that paid him.
What’s even more amazing… despite this large salary over 3 seasons, A-Rod will make more in 1 season.
And, somewhere, David Wells is gasping for breath. But it has nothing to do with contracts. The entrance to the bar had 3 steps. Damn!
Didn’t anyone see the contract given to Jack Wilson? Now that is just straight up charity.
Unless you put stock in his amazing defensive value and once in awhile goo bat. It sure as hell makes way more sense than O-Cab’s contract.
Hmmm… Giants fans better hope he keeps on going bananas.
How long until we see someone score from 2nd on a fly ball deeeeeep in the R-CF gap at Enron? I’m guessing sooner rather than later with Winn out there.
Nice player, nice guy, but yeeesh!
The real question:
Which would you rather have Ibanez’s contract or Winn’s?
Ibanez, hands down. One less year, less money, about the same value.
Well, considering you really have to twist the FO’s arm to get a player DFAed (exhibit A: Scott Spiezio) If I were a M’s fan, I’d take Winn just because there are better odds he’ll survive his deal. But, yes, I see where you’re going.
Spiezio is a bad example. Look at all the other players who’ve gotten axed by this FO. Boone, Olerud, Aurilia, Everett (whoops, little wishful thinking there), etc. Plus Ibanez will get to DH at least occaisonally in 06 and likely more and more often later on.
I’m not sure how Sandfrog is a bad example. It took them until August(???) to DFA him even though it was apparent he was worthless in April. Ditto for the man he succeeded too.
I meant I consider him an outlier considering how long he hung around whereas Olerud, Boone and Aurilia were axed in a (for baseball) timely fashion.
#26
They have gotten better at this, but we also have an instance of Kevin Jarvis actually *making* the team in hopes of salvaging his contract.
I wonder how long it’ll them them to DFA Moyer once he implodes…
You can trash Sabean, but no GM can build a perennial contendor. While he may haveleft the future bleak…
“Since Sabean assumed the GM reins, the Giants have won a National League pennant (2002), three NL West Division flags (1997, 2000 and 2003), been a Wild Card entry (2002) and forced a Wild Card tie-breaker game with Chicago in 1998, while posting a 738-557 mark during that eight-year span. The Giants have finished in either first- or second-place in the division each of his eight seasons, marking the first time that’s occurred since the nine-year span of 1917-25. In fact, his teams have only played 11 contests since the beginning of the 1997 season that have not had any post season implications (final nine games in 1999 and last two in 2001). No San Francisco team has won more games over an eight-year period than his current Giants group, with only the 1962-69 clubs also winning 738 contests.”
That’s a little outdated, but still…
Though I expect a bit of that record had to do with a healthy Mr. Bonds more than Sabean.
I dunno, dude. He’s a switch-hitting relatively speedy guy with good defense in the outfield even if his arm sucks. Johnny Damon’s getting paid twice as much for the same speed and sucky arm, isn’t he? Winn’s also a “local boy” to the Bay Area. I don’t know if the Giants go for that sort of thing too, but they’re going to need someone to keep attracting fans once Barry explodes. And it’s not like Winn’s 35 now; he’ll be 35 when the contract ends. It could be much, much worse.
I always liked Randy Winn, even if he did have the Napoleon Dynamite DVD in his basket during the Mariners Care auction. So, I agree with “really happy for him; also glad we’re not the ones paying it”.
“Though I expect a bit of that record had to do with a healthy Mr. Bonds more than Sabean.”
DING DING DING
No question Sabean has done an adequate job building a team to win around Bonds. He’s much like a Gillick-type GM. The problem is, once Bonds leaves, that team is just going to implode with age problems (see 2004 Mariners), and they have NO farm system to offer any hope for awhile.
I’ll take the guy that can stock his minor leagues everytime over the Gillick GM in the hopes that when the minor league talent pans out, he stops making stupid decisions on free agents and just keeps his homegrown players around. I have little hope in the converse.
WOW Congratulations to “Winnie”. Maybe he will get one of those Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame bronze plaque thingies they have at SFO, like for Jim Plunkett. He should get some kind of an award for landing a contract like that. Golden Asparagus Arm award, or something. I am awestruck by his good fortune, really.
Re #10, et al: a) it’s Martinez-Esteve, or at least b) it was when we drafted him; after drafting and not signing him, it would be rather weird to trade for him.
Sabean didn’t trade for Winn to let him walk. I’m only surprised that it took this long to ink the deal, but maybe Randy held out for a thir-year guaranteed, not an option.
Sabean has mad some _strange_ signings in the last several years, but while this one is a tad spendy the player actually has some real value . . . until his legs start to go.
Makes the Ibanez deal look better.
In any defense, Winn is a better NL player than AL player. Speedy, not a defensive liability (other than that chicken-wing arm), makes good contact. Seems he could do more little-ball things than the station-to-stationish M’s ever asked him to. He should put up good numbers hitting in front of Bonds, but I’d never want Winn hitting 3rd in my major league franchise, that’s for sure.
Unless of course he does what he did with SF last year.
35. I’m gonna brush that off due to small sample size, a hot streak of a few months, but it’s true he wasn’t the player in Seattle that he was in Tampa.
Why isn’t anybody the player in Seattle that they were elsewhere? With the exception of Sexson, nobody else seems to get it done.
Actually, I stand mistaken. The more I look at it, Winn was pretty much the same player he was in Tampa, I thought he hit for more power back then.
But still, horrible contact that will be masked by a year of Bonds protectionism.
Actually Matthew, the Giants have a solid farm system. You should do a little research before you make blanket statements.
I have done research. I’ve looked at the minor league numbers for the Giants prospects, so I’d appreciate it if instead of just assuming I hadn’t done so, you would provide some reasons why you think they have a solid farm system. Because I don’t see it. I’ll grant you Matt Cain as a decent pitching prospect (but no more than that until he proves he can strike people out at the big leagues and maybe get a groundball or two once in awhile), but who else is there? Most of their BA top 10 hasn’t graduated A ball and most of them have repeated that level. At best, they’re mediocre.
Here is Sickel’s analysis of the Giants system: http://www.minorleagueball.com/story/2006/2/10/133848/481 You directly stated in a previous post that “The Giants have NO farm system”. Your comment obviously is hyperbolic and probably is a reflection of lack of baseball understanding.
Personal insult aside, I’ll direct you to actually investigate those players instead of just making John Sickels’ opinion your own. Seriously, go look up their stats at baseball cube, look up where they’re ranked at BA, look up what their PECOTA’s are. It’s really a much more fun way of forming opinions than trusting a guy who has to do those rankings for all 30 teams.
Tooooooooooone check.
It’s possible to disagree about the state of a team’s farm system reasonably.
So some of the good minor leaguers are at A ball … last time I checked, a prospect has to start somewhere. Not saying its the best system in existence, but the system isn’t as bad off as it has been in past years.
Sorry DMZ…. I’m overworked and cranky.
#5 I hope he earns it, he seems like a good guy who got dicked by Seattle.
um, because when the team went into the dumpster (after they traded for him, played him, re-signed him to a three year deal) they traded him home to a team that had a chance to make the post-season?
Good for Randy Winn, who always got somewhat of a bum rap here, but e-gads what are the Giants thinking. He’s a great player to have at $3M/year and not bad at the $5M they’re paying him this year. But $8M/year to an OF who’s simply OK and is on the wrong side of 30 is crazy. That’s likely to be almost double what he’s worth, based on a quick glance at Pecota and my sense of where his career is heading at age 32.
Even reasonably paid, he presents the same dilemma he did in Seattle. He’s not so great defensively in CF and you’d like a bigger bat in LF.
I like Winn, as a player and personality.
He got a lot of money? Good for him; I hope he uses it well.
I really couldn’t care any less about discussing the wisdom of contracts, though. I’m interested in the way the players play the game, and the running tale titled “baseball,” and the interesting methods some very clever, creative people have developed for enjoying it more (Ring Lardner, Bill James, Pete Palmer, Red Barber, Vin Scully, maybe even 8-10 sportswriters).
Talking, bitching really, about someone else’s money? This is some relatively recent, American, web-borne disease, like the weird stat analysts who are determined to prove that you shouldn’t enjoy this player or that.
Good luck, Randy! You aren’t a HoFer, but you play hard and pretty darn well.