Thank you Panda for your great contributions to the Giants dynasty. You were one of the ‘Core Eight’ players for the 2010, 2012, and 2014 championship teams.
The Core 8 SF Giants #28 C Buster Posey #48 IF Pablo Sandoval
#55 RHP Tim Lincecum #40 LHP Madison Bumgarner
#49 LHP Javier Lopez #54 RHP Sergio Romo #41 LHP Jeremy Affeldt #46 RHP Santiago Casilla
The last four are known as the Core 4 relievers that formed the foundation of that great pitching staff.
Pablo Sandoval is one of only four players ever to hit 3 HRs in a single World Series game. It has been done 5 times; Babe Ruth did it twice:
2012 game 1, Pablo Sandoval: SFG 8 - DET 3
2011 game 3, Albert Pujols: STL 16 - TXR 7
1977 game 6, Reggie Jackson, “Mr. October”: NYY 8 - LAD 4 (bless you, Reggie, for doing it against the Dodgers :D)
1928 game 4, Babe Ruth: NYY 7 - STL 3
1926 game 4, Babe Ruth: NYY 10 - STL 5
Of these, Sandoval is the only one to homer in his first three at-bats of the game.
Thank you, Pablo Sandoval. San Francisco is always grateful for what you did here.
I never understood that signing. The Red Sox have had a very shrewd front office for quite awhile, and most of their trades and free agent signings have reflected that. But if there was one guy everyone predicted wouldn’t age well, it was Sandoval.
I couldn’t agree with you more. Maybe there’s a similarity with when and how the Giants signed Barry Zito (not about the not aging well – that’s solely a Sandoval concern; and Sandoval is only 30). But at least Zito finally redeemed himself in 2012.
Hopefully the Red Sox will not be dumb enough to trade Devers for a short-term fix (like Mike Moustakas).
I’m surprised that this analysis of the Sandoval disaster (which referenced other horribly bad baseball contracts) failed to mention Bobby Bonilla’s deal with the Mets. They’ll be hearing about that one until 2035, when his last $1.2 million annual payout finally comes to an end.
Allen Craig, too, released just a couple of weeks ago. No idea why they’re hanging on to Castillo, the other prominent Cherington FA blunder (Hanley hasn’t worked out like anyone would have hoped, either, but he still adds value).
Dammit, the Sandoval signing should have worked. He has it in him, as he certainly showed in SF, and he’s still only 30. I wouldn’t bet on him making it back, somewhere somehow, but it’s still possible.
Rusney is actually having a decent year in Pawtucket - .823 OPS with 10 HRs and 13 SBs. He still makes way too many boneheaded plays though - over three games in recent weeks I saw him get picked off, get doubled up on a fly ball, and throw to the wrong base.
But unlike Sandoval and Craig, Castillo is at least showing enough at AAA to have a chance at being a viable major league player - albeit way overpaid, and not good enough to replace any of the current Boston outfielders. I guess they figure that as long as they are paying him, they may as well keep him in Pawtucket as an insurance policy.
Bonilla actually had some good years for the Mets.
What’s $1.2 million to the Mets? I’d rather pay a guy $1.2 million in 20 years than $1.2 million now. It seems weird only because it’s unique. Paying over time is actually kind of smart.
Bonilla is easily the worst contract in history. Not for Bonilla of course. The Mets owners thought it was more prudent to give the money to their great investment guy and pay Bonilla later.
To answer that question, you have to look at the amount they promised Bonilla, and also at the possible return they could get on the $5.9 million if they invested it at the time of the deal.
As this article points out, the decision actually made financial sense from the point of view of the Mets’ owners. The only thing that queered the deal for them was that their investments turned out to be shady and unsustainable.
The Wilpons had no reason to believe, at the time, that their Madoff investment returns were built on a massive fraud. They made a pretty sound actuarial decision based on what they knew about their returns; it just turned out that the returns were bogus.
As I noted in the July MLB thread, the Bonilla contract is probably not even as bad as their contract with Darryl Strawberry, which is paying him $1.4M a year on what was $700k in 1990.