Giants Dilemma in 2009 - Trade Alderson or Bumgarner for Freddy Sanchez

There was a time when the fortunes of two baseball franchises could have been altered considerably based on one pivotal trade.

The Giants wanted and needed Freddie Sanchez's bat in their lineup. The Pirates needed a young, top-tier pitching talent. The Giants had two at the time, who were both pretty evenly rated, in some circles maybe the RHP was more highly regarded. RHP Tim Alderson and LHP Madison Bumgarner.
Bumgarner was actually drafted AFTER Alderson by the Giants, so he started out as the more highly regarded prospect by that measure. Some of the other particulars from back in the day are listed below.

Can you imagine the difference in baseball history if the Pirates had insisted that a young LHP named Madison Bumgarner had been included in the deal instead of RHP Tim Alderson? The paths of the two franchises might have diverged as much as the career paths of the two prospects, indeed they did!!

Alderson has struggled to make a name for himself at any level higher than AA and Madison Bumgarrner grew up to be....well Madison Bumgarner.

I shudder to think where the Giants would be had the Pirates insisted and the Giants had acquiesced in trading the prospect with the funny name, the questionable mechanics and the volatile demeanor.

from wikipedia.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilemma

A dilemma (Greek: δίλημμα "double proposition") is a problem offering two ... In formal logic, the definition of a dilemma differs markedly from everyday usage.

from post-gazette.com

http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/pirates/2009/07/10/Pirates-Notebook-Sanchez-trade-not-imminent/stories/200907100157

Pirates Notebook: Sanchez trade not imminent

July 10, 2009 4:00 AM

According to one National League executive, the Pirates are pushing to trade all-star second baseman Freddy Sanchez.                                                          

San Francisco and Colorado are two teams with which the Pirates have spoken, the source said, but there are as many as four or five more.

The Giants apparently would be willing to move left-handed starter Jonathan Sanchez, currently a reliever. He alone could not complete a deal for Freddy Sanchez, but the Giants' system has plenty of pitching prospects.

from espn.com
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4364832

Sanchez to Giants for Alderson 8/1/2009

The San Francisco Giants, taking another step to upgrade the National League's 15th-ranked offense, acquired three-time All-Star Freddy Sanchez from Pittsburgh on Wednesday for pitching prospect Tim Alderson.

Sanchez, 31, won the National League batting title in 2006. He's hitting .296 this year and ranks fifth in the major leagues in doubles. He helps upgrade a San Francisco offense that ranks 15th in the National League in runs scored.

The Giants, 54-46 and tied with Colorado for first in the NL wild-card race, have remade the right side of their infield leading up to Friday's trade deadline. They acquired first baseman Ryan Garko in a trade with Cleveland on Monday, and will now plug in Sanchez at second base.

from thebaseballcube.com http://www.thebaseballcube.com/prospects/byTeam.asp?T=25

	2009 San Francisco Giants Prospects
Rank	Player	mlbRank	Position	High Level	Current Team
1	Madison Bumgarner	9	P	MLB	San Francisco Giants
2	Buster Posey	14	C	MLB	San Francisco Giants
3	Angel Villalona	44	1B	AA	Richmond (AA) >> San Francisco Giants
4	Tim Alderson	45	P	AAA	Harrisburg (AA) >> Washington Nationals
5	Nick Noonan		2B	MLB	Scranton/Wilkes-Barre (AAA) >> New York Yankees
6	Ehire Adrianza		SS	MLB	Sacramento (AAA) >> San Francisco Giants
7	Conor Gillaspie		3B	MLB	Chicago White Sox
8	Rafael Rodriguez		P	MLB	-
9	Scott Barnes		P	MLB	New Hampshire (AA) >> Toronto Blue Jays
10	Sergio Romo		P	MLB	San Francisco Giants
	2008 San Francisco Giants Prospects
Rank	Player	mlbRank	Position	High Level	Current Team
1	Angel Villalona	33	1B	AA	Richmond (AA) >> San Francisco Giants
2	Tim Alderson	84	P	AAA	Harrisburg (AA) >> Washington Nationals
3	Madison Bumgarner		P	MLB	San Francisco Giants
4	Nate Schierholtz		RF	MLB
5	Henry Sosa		P	MLB
6	Nick Noonan		2B	MLB	Scranton/Wilkes-Barre (AAA) >> New York Yankees
7	Eugenio Velez		2B-OF	MLB	Durham (AAA) >> Tampa Bay Rays
8	Wendell Fairley		RF-LF	AA
9	John Bowker		LF	MLB	Sacramento (AAA) >> San Francisco Giants
10	Emmanuel Burriss		SS	MLB

It was hard to tell on Draft Day 2007 who was the better prospect. They were both ranked as potential high 1st rounders, not much difference between the two guys. 

from milb.com

http://www.milb.com/milb/events/draft_report/y2007/index.jsp?mc=alderson

Biographical Data
Player Name:	Tim Alderson
Position:	Starting Pitcher
School:	Horizon High School, Scottsdale, AZ
School Type:	High school
Academic Class:	Senior
Birthdate:	11/03/88
Height:	6'7"
Weight:	210 lbs.
Bats:	Right
Throws:	Right
Report Date(s):	03/26/07
Game(s):	Bishop Gorman

Focus Area	Comments
Fastball:	Alderson's fastball sits in the 89-93 mph range and grades out as a solid-average to a tick above-average pitch.
Curve:	Alderson's curve has the chance to be a plus pitch in the future.
Changeup:	Alderson has a decent changeup, but doesn't need to use it much in high school.
Control:	Alderson has plus, plus command. He issued his first walk of the season in this start while striking out 13. Dating back to last year, he's walked nine and struck out 173.
Poise:	Alderson has excellent mound presence and poise, competing extremely well against a top-ranked opponent in Bishop Gorman.
Physical Description:	Alderson is a tall right-hander with an unorthodox delivery. He's athletic and coordinated on the mound and seems to handle his delivery fine.
Medical Update:	Healthy.
Strengths:	Chance to be three-pitch pitcher; a strike-throwing machine with a lot of deception in his delivery.
Weaknesses:	That delivery and arm action may scare some people off. He pitches exclusively from the stretch, something they start pitchers with in their freshman and sophomore seasons. Alderson stayed with it and made it work for him.
Summary:	With a unique delivery, pitching out of the stretch and unorthodox arm action, some teams may be wary. But Alderson has the chance to have three above-average pitches with outstanding command in a big, athletic package.

from milb.com

http://www.milb.com/milb/events/draft_report/y2007/tracker.jsp?mc=bumgarner

Biographical Data
Player Name:	Madison Bumgarner
Position:	Starting Pitcher
School:	South Caldwell H.S., Hudson, NC
School Type:	High School
Academic Class:	Senior
Birthdate:	08/01/89
Height:	6'5"
Weight:	220 lbs.
Bats:	Right
Throws:	Left
Report Date(s):	02/28/07
Game(s):	St. Stephens

Focus Area	Comments
Fastball:	Bumgarner's fastball has been clocked anywhere from 89-95 mph.
FB Movement:	Not surprisingly for a lefty, Bumgarner's fastball does have late life with some natural tail. When he's able to keep it down in the zone, it's got some sink and can routinely miss bats with it.
Curve/Slider:	Bumgarner only started throwing breaking stuff a year ago (kudos to dad), so these offerings lag behind the fastball. He throws a curve at around 70-73 mph and has a slider-like pitch at 75-79 mph. They are slurvy offerings with very lazy bite that is often too flat.
Changeup:	He doesn't throw it much because he doesn't need to, but he's shown a pretty good feel and command of the change at times, throwing it in the 79-82 mph range. He sometimes will leave the changeup in warmups and not throw it.
Control:	He's got pretty good command, especially for a hard-throwing high-schooler and was able to throw his fastball for strikes down in the zone.
Poise:	Bumgarner has good poise and mound presence.
Physical Description:	Bumgarner is a big, strong-bodied pitcher with a large, athletic frame from a Mark Mulder or Andy Pettitte mold.
Medical Update:	Healthy.
Strengths:	Plenty of fastball. He touched 95 and there's probably room for more there, with perhaps a ceiling of 97-98 mph possible.
Weaknesses:	The breaking stuff. The curve is well below-average but with more time and experience and his athletic ability, he should be able to develop it as a pro.
Summary:	Bumgarner certainly looks the part, with the body type and fastball of a professional pitcher. Lefties from the high school ranks with plus velocity like that don't come around very often. Any team who takes him will have to keep him from changing his arm angle on his breaking stuff, but chances are there will be many teams willing to give that a shot.

Giants stay the course, re-sign Jake Peavy to two-year deal - Yahoo Sports

(Getty Images)

Another good move for the Giants. A good move, maybe not a great, splashy move like the Lester signing would have been. But the Giants don't specialize in splashy anymore. And maybe that's a good thing. Let the Dodgers specialize in splash, flash and spending wads of cash. The Giants can keep specializing in winning.

from Yahoo Sports:
Giants stay the course, re-sign Jake Peavy to two-year deal | Big League Stew - Yahoo Sports:

The latest late night/early morning deal is brought to us by Fox Sports Ken Rosenthal, who reports the San Francisco Giants and GM Brian Sabean have reached an agreement to bring back veteran right-hander Jake Peavy on a two-year deal. ESPN's Jerry Crasnick later confirmed the overnight agreement and the financials, which come in at $24 million guaranteed.

'via Blog this'

This buys the Giants some time to rebuild the starting rotation. Tim Hudson leaves after 2015 and perhaps Lincecum as well. Peavy will be gone after 2016.

In the prospect pipeline, for starting pitchers you might expect the following reinforcements to arrive:

2015
Ty Blach
Chris Stratton

2016
Kendry Flores

2017
Kyle Crick
Clayton Blackburn
Adalberto Mejia
Keurry Mella
Tyler Beede

If any of them arrive ahead of schedule, either due to injury or a sudden bump in development, so much the better. And there is some hope for that, especially with Kyle Crick.

I was listening to MLB radio on Sirius and one of the commentators made a similar comparison to my Madison Bumgarner - Tim Alderson career path divergence and the ramifications with the Dodgers Clayton Kershaw and Chad Billinglsey. Not as elegant as the Giants example in that they started their careers at different times, but what I noticed in the comps is that Kershaw struggled mightily with his control at the AA level in 2007 at Jacksonville,  posting a 6.12 BB/9 versus a 10.44 K/9. The next year in 2008 Kershaw repeated AA Jacksonville and posted 8.70 K/9 versus 2.80 BB/9 and the rest, as they say, is history.

Kershaw's K/BB rate went from 1.71 when he was a 10+ K/9 to 3.11 when his K's went down to 8.66 per 9IP. Kershaw's K level held at the level when he reached the bigs, although his BB level wen up to 4.35 and 4.79 his first two years. Since then his BB/9 in  the bigs has decreased almost every year dropping from 3.57/2.08/2.49/1.98/1.41 from 2010 to 2014. Strangely enough, Kershaw's K/9 is now back over 10+ in 2014 @ 10.85, while his BB/9 is an absurd 1.41!!

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/profile.asp?P=clayton-kershaw

Crick was 11.1 K/9 and 6.1 BB/9 which is about his minor league career line in those two metrics. He needs the light to go on in a similar way that it appeared to for Kershaw. Kershaw sacrificed the gaudy 10+ K/9 to lower his BB/9 rate to an acceptable level, which  increased his overall pitching efficiency.

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/profile.asp?P=kyle-crick

If Crick can take a similar career U-turn, the Giants could see the Matt Cain 2.0 comparisons for Crick come true. That would bolster the Giants starting rotation for years to come.

When the Giants come to and leave town...the life of a big-time, big-league prospect

This must have been a really good team. This card shows how difficult it can be to project young minor league talent.

Nick Noonan was beginning to take the career path of Conor Gillaspie. Good LH bat, solid enough defensively, but little opportunity to crack the big club. Sliding down and off prospect lists left and right on the way towards earning a one-way to Palooka-ville ( or Chicago in the case of Gillaspie ).

from When the Giants come to town blog:
When the Giants Come to Town...:

The Valdez move leaves Nick Noonan in the driver's seat for the last IF roster spot, although the Giants will undoubtedly be looking intently at waiver wires as spring training winds down.

The Giants also released minor league OF Wendell Fairley who was part of the 2007 draft class.  The current scorecard on the 6 first and supplemental first round picks from that draft:

Madison Bumgarner- Currently Giants #2 starter and quickly becoming a star in the major leagues.

Tim Alderson- traded in 2009 for Freddy Sanchez who did not help the Giants in 2009, but came with an option that helped the Giants re-sign him.  He was an important member of the 2010 World Series Championship squad.

'via Blog this'


Tim Alderson made an appearance this spring with the Pirates, evoking memories of the days when there did not seem to be a clear consensus as to who would be more successful in the professional ranks. The events of the past couple of years seem to indicate that Bumgarner was the man all along. But I'm not sure it was so clear 4-5 years ago.

The same thing with Wendell Fairley. It shows how quickly "can't miss" can go to "whatever happened to?"

His five-tool potential never really translated into actual performance on the field. Some big hits and big misses, that's for sure.