I for one am thrilled to have Aubrey Huff returning to our WORLD CHAMPION SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS (I love saying that, so I did it in caps).
As you've probably already read, it is a 2 year deal for a guaranteed $22MM complete with a club option for a third year. There is a $2MM buyout for the 2013 year, so it is essentially a 2yr/$22MM deal that could be worth as much as $30MM (3yr/$30MM).
So, back to reality here... 11 mil, huh? Ooooh... I don't know about that.
Look, we all love Aubrey Huff to death. He's all that's right about the game of baseball and humanity. He doesn't bring a single negative to the table. He hits, he plays multiple positions well, his teammates love him, and his love for the game is infectious. His contributions to the 2010 World Series team will never be forgotten, and I hope one day his unwashed rally thong sits behind a plexiglass case in Cooperstown.
That being said, this contract is not a good one for the Giants. Despite the fact that they won it all, they cannot and will not have deep enough pockets to put a $120MM team on the field.
With an $8MM per year raise to Huff, this basically wipes out all the money freed up by the end of Edgar Renteria's deal. Which is fine and good, but don't you think it would be nice to maybe use a little bit of that to kick over to Juan Uribe, or another free agent?
With arbitration raises due to guys like Jonathan Sanchez, Andres Torres, Cody Ross, etc., Huff's contract essentially eats up much of the money available to possibly add an everyday hitter to play LF or 3B. Because... even if the Giants were able to swing some sort of trade for a player, most or all the players available in that situation would likely constitute a salary increase over whomever was traded.
Huff, was one of the only significant available 1B's on the market (Adam Dunn and Adam LaRoche being the other two), and had himself a fine season in 2010:
.290 AVG., .385 OBP%, .506 SLG%, 100 runs, 26 HR, 86 RBI, 35 2B, 5 3B. On top of that, he made only 3 errors all season! His 12.4 BB% and 16.0 K% were excellent.
I don't buy into a lot of what Fangraphs and Saberjerks have to say, but I always enjoy the little "Value" stat they put together to say what a player was worth monetarily in a given season. It makes no sense and it has no bearing on the real world, but for what it's worth, it put Huff's 2010 value at $22.8MM.
Interesting... haha.
And I still don't know what the hell WAR is, but Huff's stands at +5.7, good for 17th in all of baseball. FYI, Andres Torres's was +6.0, good enough for 14th overall.
The only reason I bring up these stats is because for once, there's a player out there that both nerds AND real fans can agree on as being valuable on the stat page, in the clubhouse, and on the field.
Glad to have Huff back, but I hope this contract doesn't restrict our ability to defend our World Series crown.
