by Micahel Duca

SAN FRANCISCO–You have to remember everything that happens in contract negotiations is behind closed doors such is the case of Giants third baseman Pablo Sadoval. Giants general manager Brian Sabean has said he has stopped taking Sandoval’s agent Gustavo Vasquez’ call. Everything that’s said is private and the rest is public posturing on both sides.

Nobody knows what really is going on in the Sadoval negotiations and it’s my understanding that both sides of the conversations had agreed that opening day would be sort of the cut off. I heard Giants VP of Operations Bobby Evans talking about this on opening day on Tuesday basically saying that Sandoval has the opportunity to go out and earn himself a big deal for his performance this year.

The basis of that thought process is the Giants have had five years of Sandoval and they had two years of extraordinary Pablo and three or ordinary Pablo. Evans said if you want five more years of Pablo all we can do is look back at the last five years and say which of these guys are we signing? The great two years or the mediocre three?

It’s because you pay for those things, the Giants would like to see Pablo get through an entire season maintaining the lower weight to see him go out and perform consistantly. If he can go out and approach the game mentally and he has the self discipline to maintain that weight their not going to have a problem paying him.

A’s hitter Josh Donaldson forgot the code of ethics: How many times have I said when you hit a long foul ball which Donaldson did against the Twins and Twins pitcher Glenn Perkins you can kind of watch it but you watch while your moving down the line. You don’t stand in the batters box and admire it before you take off.

I know if you hit it that far your either are going to cadillac around the bases or you don’t have to go anywhere. Nevertheless show some kind of respect for your opponents and that’s not the kind of player that Donaldson is and it kind of surprised me with the whole bat flipping and admiring a long foul ball thing he had going on Thursday.

Then Donaldson gets badly fooled on a breaking pitch and strikes out flips his bat and you might have got away with flipping the bat, you might have got away with admiring the long foul ball but your not going to get away with both admiring the foul ball and flipping the bat.

You put two of them together and now it looks more deliberate than thoughtless, it’s a matter of respect for the game. Donaldson admired a long ball he hit but he also has to show them how big you are when you fail like when Donaldson struck out.

Michael Duca does commentary on the Giants and A’s each week for Sportstalk radio