And it’s official! Marco Scutaro will rejoin the Giants on a three-year, $20 million pact that may or may not include some sort of traveling clause for his pet snake Nagini, Warning: should Nagini perish, Scutaro’s performance will drop off markedly. We discussed Scutaro’s merits and faults at length earlier today in a post concerning him perhaps becoming a Cardinal, but we might as well go over the broader points for those of you who are coming here solely to read about this particular transaction.
Just shy of $7 million per season is probably a fair price for Scutaro in terms of average annual value; he’s mostly proven himself as an above-average offensive player for a middle infielder, he can play just about anywhere the Giants will need him to (Bochy hates Brandon Belt so much there’s always the chance Scutaro subs in at first here and there), and he can run the bases without many gaffes. I’m not necessarily thinking the Giants did anything stupid in terms of the amount of money per season, but what about the length of the deal?
Scutaro is already 37 years old, which is like 100 in baseball player years. It’s doubtful something won’t go wrong in the near future. Having already nearly been terminally frightened by an especially aggressive Matt Holliday slide, Scutaro is surely more prone to injury and decline than ever before. Okay, so the injuries and decline are probably more related to his age than anything our beloved bald superhero did, but you get the point. I don’t see why the Giants had to go three years on Scutaro, and I don’t think it was a wise move to make that sort of commitment. He’s a solid enough player who relied on a great deal of luck to hit like .500 after becoming a Giant; there’s no need to go overboard and pretend he’s more. Between this and the Angel Pagan deal, the Giants seem intent on locking up the guys who helped them to a championship in 2012 and puking all over their status as under-the-radar finds in the process.
Tagged: Marco Scutaro, MLB free agent signings, MLB hot stove, MLB winter meetings, San Francisco Giants, The Stanpede!