Article:SF Giants: No Arbitration Offered to Free Agents

After a few weeks of silence, their is finally some real Giants news to talk about. Earlier this week, Brian Sabean and the Giants front office decided not to offer arbitration to the teams' free agents, meaning the Giants cannot receive any compensation for their players signing elsewhere.

Now, there aren't many free agents coming off of this team that I would have liked to see offered arbitration anyway. The only guy who did make some sense though, was Bengie Molina. Molina's agent has supposedly been in serious contract talks with the New York Mets, discussing a 2 year contract for the 35 year-old backstop. I think that it's pretty safe to say, that in this free agent market (extremely thin in the catching department) Molina's a commodity, and I think it would have been smart on the Giants' part to have offered it to him. If worse came to worst, then you have Bengie Molina back for another year to help Buster Posey along in his development, and I don't think anyone around the Bay Area would be too upset with that scenario. Best case, he signs with the Mets or someone else and lands the Giants a fat compensation pick at the top of the 2010 amateur draft. The other prominent Giant over the past few years who also didn't receive arbitration is Randy Winn. Winn has been a Giants since the middle of the 2005 season, and although he was a solid Giants throughout his stay, he never did match that ladder half of the '05 season he had with San Francisco (.359, 14 hr, 22 2B, 231 ab's, 1.071 OPS), the half that really got him his big contract that just expired.

One Giants' free agent that I'd like to see return, and really the only one besides Juan Uribe and possibly Molina on a 1 year deal, is Brad Penny. And after seeing his season, and to a lesser extent his career, revived in San Francisco, I'm sure he's got some interest in doing so as well. In his one month stint in San Fran, he was legit, going 4-1 over 6 starts, with a 2.59 era, and a 0.96 WHIP. Granted, it was only 41+ innings pitched, I think he proved that he's a well above average pitcher here in the NL, and especially in the NL West. I'm just really curious as to what kind of deal he and his agent are looking for. I'm not sure the strong finish with the Giants was enough to get him a big multi-year deal, and I don't think many AL teams will come calling, so I really don't know what kind of market there will be for him. Some wealthy NL team with a need in their rotation may be able to offer him a more lucrative deal (Cubs, Mets?), but you gotta like the Giants' chances if they're serious about bringing him back. The Giants interest in Penny will ultimately come down to what they do with Jonathan Sanchez, and whether or not they're planning on using Madison Bumgarner for the majority of the 2010.

Trevor Cole The Giants Baseball Blog- A San Francisco Giants Blog and Fan Website