With the 2011 MLB Winter Meetings finishing up in Dallas, Texas, the San Francisco Giants re-signed an important player of the team’s bullpen at a very affordable price. As reported by Ken Rosenthal of FOXSports.com, relief pitcher Guillermo Mota has re-signed with the Giants for a one-year, $1 million contract.

San Francisco Giants RP Guillermo Mota
Wikimedia Commons

Mota, a 13-year major league veteran, has been a member of the Giants for the past two seasons. In two years with the team, Mota has put up very respectable numbers as the team’s primary long-reliever. Last season, Mota had a 2-2 record, 3.81 ERA, and 77 strikeouts in 52 games.

Although Mota typically entered the game when a starter left the game early or when the score was already out of hand, he played a crucial role in the Giants’ bullpen. While guys like Brian Wilson, Sergio Romo, Jeremy Affeldt, Santiago Casilla, and Javier Lopez handled the more pressure-packed situations during the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings in close games, Mota was the reliable arm in the bullpen that was responsible for multiple-inning appearances and gave some of the more valuable pitchers in the bullpen rest when needed. In Mota’s 52 appearances last season, he pitched two or more innings in 18 of those games.

The Giants are very fortunate to re-sign Mota at this price. Over the past two seasons, Mota has signed a minor league contract with the club, later making it on the team out of spring training. Seeking a major league contract this season, the 38-year-old certainly deserves it after his contributions with the Giants. This most recent contract with the Giants will keep Mota with the team he has had the most success with since his days serving as a setup man in his first stint with the Los Angeles Dodgers from 2002-2004.

For the Giants, retaining Mota is a small but very helpful move for the cost-conscious ballclub. With so much money already devoted to players on the roster, this move adds an affordable piece to a Giants bullpen that general manager Brian Sabean has already put so much money in. Currently the oldest and most-experienced player on the Giants roster, Mota is one veteran player that the team doesn’t mind re-signing at this low cost.

Sources:

Giants re-sign Guillermo Mota to one-year, $1 million deal, HardballTalk, NBC Sports

Guillermo Mota Profile, Yahoo! Sports

Guillermo Mota Game Log, Yahoo! Sports

Guillermo Mota Career Stats, Yahoo! Sports

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Austin Chang is a lifelong San Francisco Bay Area native, baseball fan, and supporter of the San Francisco Giants. Follow him on Twitter @_austinchang.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP)—Brian Sabean’s office is connected to the San Francisco
Giants’ clubhouse, only a matter of feet from where manager Bruce Bochy prepares
for games. The close proximity makes for regular planning meetings, before first
pitch and often well into the night after the final out.

CEO Larry Baer is committed to maintaining that continuity with his club,
and took a step Tuesday by giving both the general manager and manager contract
extensions taking them through the 2013 season with club options for 2014.

“They work exceptionally well together. That’s a key relationship,” Baer
said. “I strongly believe Brian and Bruce are the best at their craft in the
game, and their track record shows that.”

The 55-year-old Sabean is the longest-tenured GM in baseball and has said he
would like to stay put in San Francisco for the rest of his career. He became
the Giants’ GM in 1996 after three years in player personnel. He was in the
Yankees organization from 1985-92 as a scout, scouting director and player
development director.

Sabean has a busy stretch ahead before spring training begins in February.
On Wednesday, his wife, Amanda, is scheduled to give birth to the couple’s
second son—the sixth son for Sabean. Then, baseball’s winter meetings begin
next week in Dallas.

The top priority is upgrading the offense while leaving enough payroll
flexibility to lock up star pitchers Tim Lincecum(notes) and Matt Cain(notes) for what Sabean
hopes is the long haul.

“Anything we’re going to do has to fit into a certain price point and give
us enough flexibility to do other things,” Sabean said. “Pitching is our gold
standard and we’ll do all that we can to take care of that commodity first.”

Bobby Evans, the team’s vice president of baseball operations and Sabean’s
right-hand man, said there have been preliminary conversations with the
pitchers’ representatives that he categorized as “an exchange of ideas and
numbers.” Evans said he expects Lincecum, the two-time NL Cy Young Award
winner, to be open to a long-term deal beyond two years.

“I don’t know how productive it is to get into specifics,” Evans said. “I
don’t thinks he’s closed off to anything short or long, per se. I think he’s
very comfortable with short, but don’t think he’s closed off to anything long. I
think he’s still open to that.”

Sabean hired the 56-year-old Bochy away from the rival San Diego Padres in
2007 to replace Felipe Alou.

“I think we have a mutual respect. We listen to each other, Brian for me is
always available,” Bochy said. “We communicate so much during the course of
the season. We stay in the same building. There’s never any kind of distance or
separation.”

Yet there wasn’t immediate success when Bochy arrived, and both men received
harsh criticism along the way for moves they made and those they didn’t.

That all changed when they led the club to an improbable World Series
championship in 2010 with a band of “castoffs and misfits” as Bochy called
them.

Baer had expected to get deals done during the offseason to keep both men
around for the near future. Sabean and Bochy were instrumental in the team’s
World Series title, the first for the franchise since moving West in 1958.

“I don’t take anything for granted. I’m thankful for their renewed
commitment,” Bochy said.

The Giants went 86-76 for second place in the NL West and missed the
playoffs this year, when they dealt with devastating season-ending injuries to
2010 NL Rookie of the Year catcher Buster Posey(notes) and second baseman Freddy
Sanchez(notes).

Baer recently assumed top decision-making duties from outgoing managing
partner Bill Neukom, saying, “Brian has seen the operation through all sorts of
environments.”

That included the challenging days with home run king Barry Bonds and the
move from Candlestick Park to the waterfront spot at 12-year-old AT&T Park.

“I don’t take the extension lightly,” Sabean said. “Baseball’s a tough
game to succeed in. I’m really thankful that I’m one of the original employees
of the ownership group and as the ownership group changed or morphed, they
recognized our commitment and hard work.”

All-Star slugger Pablo Sandoval(notes) is still deciding whether to spend a short
stint in his native Venezuela, where Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos(notes) was abducted
earlier this month and then rescued. Sandoval is training for a second straight
offseason in Arizona after losing close to 40 pounds last winter.

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San Francisco Giants prospect Angel Villalona is expected to return to the team after having murder charges against him dismissed in the Dominican Republic, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Villalona, who was signed by the Giants as a 16-year-old in 2006 for a then-record $2.1 million dollars, was charged in the 2009 murder of a 25-year-old man at a nightclub in the Domincan Republic.

The case is a quite complicated one. After spending three months in jail, Villalona settled with the man’s family for a reported $139,000 dollars. The family then asked police to stop pressing charges, but the prosecutors refused to up until this summer, when the case was dropped due to a lack of evidence.

Villalona then sued the Giants, claiming that they owed him over $10,000 and asking for $5 million in damages.

Now, the 21-year-old has apparently reconciled with the team and it appears that he will rejoin the Giants organization once he reapplies for a visa to return to the United States.

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The San Francisco Giants have been flashing home run power over the last
five weeks. Seeing one baserunner cross the plate with each long drive, though,
is just fine with manager Bruce Bochy.

Looking to close out the first leg of their 10-game road trip with a series
win, the Giants meet the Florida Marlins on Sunday for the final time in 2011.

San Francisco evened this set with a 3-0 win Saturday night. Tim Lincecum(notes)
gave up two hits and fanned 10 over seven innings for his 11th victory, and Jeff
Keppinger(notes) had two hits, including a first-inning solo homer.

Keppinger’s blast extended San Francisco’s record for consecutive solo
homers to 21. No Giant has gone deep with runners on base since Nate
Schierholtz’s(notes) two-run shot in a 6-5, 14-inning win over San Diego on July 6.

“We’re going to set a record that can never be broken,” Bochy said with a
smile. “We’re on the relentless pursuit of solo home runs right now. But you
know what? I’ll take them.”

San Francisco (65-55) is 16-16 after beating the Padres, but has won just
four of 15 since last taking back-to-back games July 27 and 28, when they held a
four-game lead in the NL West over Arizona. The Giants now trail the
Diamondbacks by two games.

Florida’s Chris Volstad(notes) (5-8, 5.58 ERA) is back from the minors to make his
first start in three weeks. He’s surrendered 16 homers this year, but none in
his last three appearances.

The right-hander was 1-1 with an 8.50 ERA in four starts last month before
being optioned to Triple-A New Orleans on July 23. In three minor league
appearances, he went 1-1 with a 4.42 ERA. Last season, Volstad was demoted to
the minors in July but returned to go 8-1 in his final 13 starts.

Volstad is 1-1 with a 1.71 ERA in three career starts versus the Giants. He
failed to get a decision in a 7-6, 12-inning win on May 25 in San Francisco.

The Giants’ Ryan Vogelsong(notes) (9-2, 2.48) will try to avenge a loss to Florida
earlier this year while bouncing back from a defeat last week.

Vogelsong had been 3-0 in five starts before surrendering a run and eight
hits in eight innings of a 1-0 home loss to the Marlins on May 26. The
right-hander was 6-0 in 12 games before giving up five runs and a season-high
nine hits in five innings of Monday’s 5-0 loss to Pittsburgh at AT&T Park.

“He was off but still, you have to put runs on the board,” Bochy said.

In eight road starts, Vogelsong has been supported by an average of 6.31
runs per game while going 3-0 with a 3.65 ERA.

Following Saturday’s loss, the Marlins optioned outspoken left fielder Logan
Morrison(notes) to Triple-A New Orleans. After the resignation of manager Edwin
Rodriguez in June, Morrison was reprimanded by the team for comments he posted
on Twitter.

Morrison, who went 0 for 3 and is hitting .249, was second on the team with
17 homers and third with 60 RBIs.

“Heartbroken, man, disappointed,” Morrison said of his demotion. “I play
through injury and this is how you get treated. It doesn’t seem very fair to
me.”

Florida (56-63), which is at the bottom of the NL East, will try to avoid
losing for the ninth time in 10 games. The Marlins have taken four of five from
the Giants.

Gotta run!.