Juan Uribe’s three-year, $21 million contract with the Dodgers strikes me as a significant over-pay for a 31-year-old with a career on-base percentage of .300 who’s cracked a .750 OPS once since 2004, but according to Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times the Giants offered to match that deal in an unsuccessful last-minute effort to keep Uribe.
Uribe explained yesterday that the Dodgers expressing immediate and consistent interest in him following the World Series played a big part in his decision, saying that the courting process “made me very emotional” and “very proud.”
There have been some conflicting reports about the exact value of the Giants’ final offer to Uribe, but most sources seem to agree that San Francisco offered at least $20 million for three seasons and may have upped that to $21 million just before he signed with Los Angeles. Ultimately the Giants are probably better off for not re-signing Uribe at that price, although replacing him with Miguel Tejada for $6.5 million in 2011 may turn out to be a mistake in itself.
Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle writes that “the Giants will sacrifice some defense at shortstop for more offense” in turning to Tejada. That’s half true, because Tejada’s range at age 37 is severely lacking, but the “more offense” part is questionable at best. Tejada hit .269 with a .692 OPS in 156 games between the Orioles and Padres, which is actually even worse than Uribe’s modest career marks and significantly below the production Uribe provided in 2010.
More likely is that in signing Tejada the Giants are really sacrificing defense and offense for veteran-ness.