San Francisco Giants Sign Denard Span to Three-Year Contract

This one is a puzzler to me.  The Giants have signed former Washington National Denard Span to a three-year agreement (pending a physical), according to CBSSports.com (their source is their former correspondent Jon Heyman, via Twitter).

Span's a very good player, but he'll be 32 by the time next season starts.  He had a pile of injuries last year, missing 101 games overall.  He's a good leadoff hitter (lifetime .352 on-base percentage), but doesn't have a ton of power.  And he has good speed, having stolen 152 bases in 193 tries.  A few Met fans may be upset about this - the hope was they'd grab Span for a one-year deal, but they wound up settling for Alejandro De Aza instead.  I don't think anyone thought Denard Span would get a contract this large.

Basically, this reminds me a lot of the Michael Bourn signing of three years ago.  Michael Bourn was an up-and-down outfielder with the Phillies, Astros, and Braves who had a pretty good year in 2012, the option year of his contract.  He hit the free agent market, and for a long time the Mets were debating signing him, but held off because he would apparently cost them a draft choice.  So Cleveland signed him to a four-year, $48 million dollar deal -- and Mets fans and sportswriters went nuts ("We lost Michael Bourn!  How could this happen?")

The subject hasn't been discussed much in the last few years, however, because once Michael Bourn put on the Indians uniform, he instantly became an old man, becoming slower and more injury prone.  He was finally dealt back to the Braves this past season (along with Nick Swisher, another free agent disappointment from the same year); the Indians are on the hook for $5 million of the $14 million he'll make next year.  It's possible he'll play every day for Atlanta next year, but having hit .238 with a .592 OPS in 2015, it's more likely he'll be a very expensive pinch runner and defensive replacement.

This tends to happen to guys whose primary values are their speed and defense -- those are the first things to go as they age.  (In fact, Span's defensive metrics have dropped significantly in the last three years, to the point where he's almost a liability in center -- but if he can't play there, he'll be a liability in left or right field because he's not productive enough.)  I'll be interested to see how things turn out.