San Francisco Giants Feeling Confident In Retaining Angel Pagan

Oct 22, 2012; San Francisco, CA, USA; San Francisco Giants center fielder Angel Pagan (16) celebrates after defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 9-0 in game seven of the 2012 NLCS to advance to the world series at AT&T Park

When Angel Pagan entered free agency after a solid 2012 campaign, he probably didn’t expect Tampa Bay’s B.J. Upton to steal his free agency glory, but at least right now – that appears to be the case.

Many viewed Pagan as the third, maybe even second best available outfielder on the market behind Texas’ Josh Hamilton and Atlanta’s Michael Bourn, but the 28 year old outfielder has drawn heavy interest from many of the teams that have coveted Pagan, some speculating due to Pagan’s high asking price.

The interest in Upton from teams like Atlanta and Philadelphia has given the Giants hope that they’ll be able to retain Pagan’s services as CSN’s Andrew Baggarly reported recently:

"The Giants remain focused on re-signing Pagan, and even though the expectation was that Pagan would let the market play out as Carlos Beltran did a year ago, I’m told that there is greater optimism that a deal can be reached between the two parties. Giants manager Bruce Bochy talked to Pagan on Thursday, and planned to touch base with second baseman Marco Scutaro in the coming days."

There’s no doubt Pagan’s going to cash in, be it in San Francisco or elsewhere – but as long as the Giants can keep the contract in the three year range, they’ll be hard pressed to make a mistake in bringing back Angel.