Read More: mlb free agents 2011, Carlos Beltran (RF – SFG), San Francisco Giants, St. Louis Cardinals

With Albert Pujols departing the St. Louis Cardinals for the San Francisco Giants, the Cardinals needed to replenish the bats this season. So Carlos Beltran became a natural target. He was a free agent with a history of knocking the baseball out of the park, and he was represented by the same agent as Pujols, so the connections became obvious.

The Cardinals eventually agreed on a two-year deal worth $26 million, which is a pretty good deal given the hitting power that Beltran can still produce at 35 years old. Although it’ll be impossible to replace Pujols’s hitting power, Beltran can definitely come in and play at multiple positions and provide another additional bat to make the Cardinals potent.

The Giants on the other hand, are left scratching their heads. They’ve now essentially given up a pretty solid prospect in Zack Wheeler for a few months of Beltran, which resulted in no playoff berth. San Francisco is down to only Pablo Sandoval as a great hitter in their lineup, since no one really knows how well Buster Posey or Freddy Sanchez will recover from injury. It’s puzzling San Francisco didn’t even bother to pursue Beltran, and we’ll see if they rue that decision in the months to come.

To discuss Beltran to the Cardinals, head to Viva El Birdos. To discuss Beltran leaving the Giants, go to McCovey Chronicles.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The San Francisco Giants signed backup catcher Eli Whiteside to a one-year deal Saturday after declining to offer him a contract Monday, avoiding arbitration and making him a free agent.

Whiteside will receive $600,000 if he is on the major league roster and $175,000 if in the minors. He provided key innings for the 2010 World Series champions this past season after reigning NL Rookie of the Year Buster Posey went down with a season-ending leg injury in a May 25 home-plate collision with Florida’s Scott Cousins.

The 32-year-old Whiteside batted .197 with four homers and 17 RBIs in 82 games. It’s unclear where he will fit in considering San Francisco also has capable catchers Chris Stewart and Hector Sanchez on the roster.

Giants general manager Brian Sabean has now retained much of the roster from a team that finished second to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL West last season. He is committed to winning with a talented pitching staff again.

The club has agreed to terms with reliever Guillermo Mota on a one-year, $1 million contract to bring him back for a third season, pending a physical.

In late October, San Francisco gave left-handed reliever Javier Lopez an $8.5 million, two-year contract and also picked up the $5 million contract option for fellow lefty reliever Jeremy Affeldt.

On Monday night, the Giants tendered contracts to two-time NL Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum, fellow starting pitcher Ryan Vogelsong and relievers Sergio Romo and Santiago Casilla.

Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Giants signed backup catcher Eli Whiteside to a one-year deal Saturday after declining to offer him a contract Monday, avoiding arbitration and making him a free agent.

Whiteside will receive $600,000 if he is on the major league roster and $175,000 if in the minors. He provided key innings for the 2010 World Series champions this past season after reigning NL Rookie of the Year Buster Posey went down with a season-ending leg injury in a May 25 home-plate collision with Florida’s Scott Cousins.

The 32-year-old Whiteside batted .197 with four homers and 17 RBIs in 82 games. It’s unclear where he will fit in considering San Francisco also has capable catchers Chris Stewart and Hector Sanchez on the roster.

Giants general manager Brian Sabean has now retained much of the roster from a team that finished second to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL West last season. He is committed to winning with a talented pitching staff again.

The club has agreed to terms with reliever Guillermo Mota on a $1 million, one-year contract to bring him back for a third season, pending a physical.

In late October, San Francisco gave left-handed reliever Javier Lopez an $8.5 million, two-year contract and also picked up the $5 million contract option for fellow lefty reliever Jeremy Affeldt.

On Monday night, the Giants tendered contracts to two-time NL Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum, fellow starting pitcher Ryan Vogelsong and relievers Sergio Romo and Santiago Casilla.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)—The San Francisco Giants signed backup catcher Eli
Whiteside to a one-year deal Saturday after declining to offer him a contract
Monday, avoiding arbitration and making him a free agent.

Whiteside will receive $600,000 if he is on the major league roster and
$175,000 if in the minors. He provided key innings for the 2010 World Series
champions this past season after reigning NL Rookie of the Year Buster Posey
went down with a season-ending leg injury in a May 25 home-plate collision with
Florida’s Scott Cousins.

The 32-year-old Whiteside batted .197 with four homers and 17 RBIs in 82
games. It’s unclear where he will fit in considering San Francisco also has
capable catchers Chris Stewart and Hector Sanchez on the roster.

Giants general manager Brian Sabean has now retained much of the roster from
a team that finished second to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL West last
season. He is committed to winning with a talented pitching staff again.

The club has agreed to terms with reliever Guillermo Mota on a $1 million,
one-year contract to bring him back for a third season, pending a physical.

In late October, San Francisco gave left-handed reliever Javier Lopez an
$8.5 million, two-year contract and also picked up the $5 million contract
option for fellow lefty reliever Jeremy Affeldt.

On Monday night, the Giants tendered contracts to two-time NL Cy Young Award
winner Tim Lincecum, fellow starting pitcher Ryan Vogelsong and relievers Sergio
Romo and Santiago Casilla.

abaggarly@mercurynews.com Buster Posey will put on his customary helmet, shinguards and chest protector when he gets behind the plate in a few months. But he won’t get any additional safeguards in the rule book.

Although Giants officials remain in favor of a rule change that would protect catchers from being targeted in home-plate collisions, the matter didn’t come up officially at the winter meetings last week in Dallas. It didn’t get past Joe Torre, Major League Baseball’s vice president for on-field operations.

Torre heard out Giants manager Bruce Bochy in several phone calls over the summer but declined to recommend that the rules committee take up the matter.

“Well, listen, I knew it was more emotional than anything else,” Torre said last week. “None of us like to see that. But I really haven’t heard anything that would encourage me to change anything or recommend a change. Being a catcher for a lot of years, I knew what the consequences were.”

Bochy isn’t giving up. He spoke informally with several managers at the winter meetings in an attempt to build consensus; he said at least four or five agreed that a change was warranted. Tony La Russa, who retired after leading the St. Louis Cardinals to the World Series, was among those on board, Bochy said.

Giants vice president Bobby Evans started his own grass-roots campaign with officials from other clubs at the General

Manager’s meetings in Milwaukee in November, Bochy said.

“I’ll continue to push for it,” said Bochy, who plans to raise the issue with Torre again this spring. “Sure, I’m disappointed. But it’s going to take other managers also getting involved, and some of them believe it does need to be changed. It’s something I’ll still pursue.”

The Posey play was a perfect storm in the 12th inning of a tie game on May 25 against the Florida Marlins. Rookie baserunner Scott Cousins tried to tag up on a fly ball that Nate Schierholtz caught in medium right field. Knowing that Schierholtz has a strong arm, Cousins said he knew the ball would beat him to the plate and he’d have to break up the play.

But the throw short-hopped in front of Posey and he wasn’t able to make a clean stop. As Posey turned toward the plate, still in fair territory, Cousins clearly went inside the baseline while leading with his right shoulder. Posey had dropped to one knee and his left ankle was pinned underneath him as the force of the blow toppled him over. His fibula sustained a fracture and he tore three ankle ligaments, which required two surgical procedures to repair. Posey couldn’t walk for three months.

Although his Giants teammates called it a clean play, Posey and club officials pointed out that Cousins had a clear lane to the plate. He chose to take out Posey instead of slide.

Bochy has lobbied for a rule that would award a catcher “a safe area, a neutral zone, whatever you want to call it, where he’s protected — particularly if he’s taking a throw from right field and is vulnerable”

Torre said he couldn’t get behind that idea.

“People have pointed out, ‘He was given a piece of the plate to slide to.’ And that’s true, he was,” Torre said. “But once (Posey) catches the ball, as a runner, you know that piece is gone. He’s going to block it. That play was not Buster’s fault. He’s trying to receive the ball, retain it, and here comes the runner. … He had committed to break up the play.”

Bochy said GMs in November discussed instituting a no-collision rule in exhibition games, but there’s no chance any meaningful protection wouldn’t come before opening day. Bochy acknowledged the argument that runners could get hurt if they were forced to slide, but said there are ways to tweak the rules that would make the game safer for everyone.

“You’ll have collisions at home plate. You can’t take that away,” Bochy said. “But it’s protecting the catcher when he’s vulnerable. It shouldn’t take something really terrible to happen before something gets done. We need to change this. These runners are getting bigger, stronger and faster.”

The collision is further incentive for the Giants, and other teams with offensively gifted catchers, to think harder about moving their young stars out of harm’s way.

Torre said he hasn’t closed the book on the issue, even if he doesn’t see himself reconsidering.

“We’ll continue to listen,” Torre said. “I’ll listen to anything that makes sense, and you know if it comes from people like them (Bochy and GM Brian Sabean), they always make a lot of sense. So I’ll listen.”

If a change ever does come, Bochy would make one more request.

“I don’t want to see this referred to as a “Buster Posey rule,’” Bochy said. “This has happened before. It’s time to make a change for the good of the game.”

For more on the Giants, see Andrew Baggarly’s Extra Baggs blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/extrabaggs.

In all likelihood, the San Francisco Giants are going to pay the arbitration-eligible Ramon Ramirez(notes) around $2 million for the 2012 season. He is a great reliever with a lot of talent, and that should not change this coming season. It remains to be seen whether he is on the trading block or not though. In any case, I think he will put up another strong campaign. Here are some predictions.

1. He will be the first bullpen arm to go in a trade.

In reality, the Giants have invested more in their bullpen than most other teams, and it is not cheap to keep everyone from year-to-year thanks to arbitration. Ramirez would likely be the first reliever to go when it comes to a trade with another team. He is worth a lot for any team that needs help with relief pitching. Plus, the team is unlikely to be able to dump Jeremy Affeldt(notes) and his $5 million contract. That means Ramirez is the first guy to go.

2. He will post a sub-3.00 earned run average without a problem.

This should be no problem for him to accomplish. He has done exactly that for the last four seasons and counting. Without a doubt, he knows what he is doing on the mound and does not allow many runs to score. He does not strike out a ton of batters though, so he relies more on command and control to get the job done. There is nothing wrong with that though, and any team would be happy to have him on the mound.

3. Ramirez will pitch at least 65 innings during 2012 too.

Of course, he has also done this four seasons in a row and five of his six total seasons in the Majors. He is a fairly durable reliever that will get into games on a regular basis because he can be trusted to keep runners from scoring. Any reliever that can come close to 70 innings pitched in a season is doing something right. With that in mind, Ramirez is going to get that done once again and without any problems. Sure, an injury could stop him, but I think he will be just fine.

4. His strikeout-to-walk ratio will continue to hover around his career average of 2:1.

Throughout his career, Ramirez has usually walked about half as many batters as he has struck out. That is not all that spectacular, but it works for him. Obviously, you do not need to be a power pitcher to find success. I expect him to continue along his career norms and maybe possibly improve upon his strikeout-to-walk ratio. It does not really matter as long as he keeps games close and gives the Giants a chance to win though.

In reality, Ramon Ramirez is likely to continue doing what he has done for the past few seasons and that is pitch successfully. He is a great reliever no matter how you look at him. I am not saying that he is truly elite though. Fortunately, he is not too expensive for the team and gets the job done. That might not stop the San Francisco Giants from trading him to save some money, but he is going to be a solid reliever no matter what team he pitches for.

For more information, visit The San Francisco Giants Site .

Derrick Williams is a fan of the San Francisco Giants and lived in the Bay Area for nearly three years.

More From Yahoo! Sports:

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Five Predictions For Buster Posey in 2012

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