Another Giants offseason has come and gone, and stop me if you have heard this before, but the team once again refrained from making a splash in the free-agent hitter market, much to the chagrin of Giants fans. Finishing second in a free agency bidding war is a prizeless endeavor, and yet such an exercise has become as ingrained in Giants fans as garlic fries and bobbleheads.
Now to say this Giants offseason lacked any pizzaz or excitement is not totally accurate. Carlos Rodon is a fine addition, and you will find no qualms here about the addition of Joc Pederson. Sometimes it pays to shop at a Safeway or Grocery Outlet. The food is still edible, and you can still maintain a healthy diet with regular trips to those supermarkets. You do not HAVE to always shop at Whole Foods.
But at the same time, one cannot be faulted for looking at Farhan Zaidi and the Giants and echoing the famous words of Mark Willard and Dan Dibley, screaming to the heavens, “What are you doing!?!” It is not a silly question. What exactly are the Giants doing? Obviously, they are trying to construct a roster that will win baseball games, preferably more baseball games than any of the other National League teams in Southern California. But also, how? And why? And what? How does any of this make sense?
We are now entering Year 4 of the Zaidi regime here in San Francisco, and we are starting to get a clearer and clearer picture of how Farhan operates as President of Baseball Operations. Based on what we saw in the last few weeks, as well as the brief free agent splurge before the Winter of Darkness, here is what we can think about the mind of Farhan Zaidi.
1. Trusting Farhan is Your Best Option
It is not the sexiest option available if you are a Giants fan. No fan wants the most important person in the organization to be a guy who spends his gamedays in a luxury suite thinking about which players BABIP is good enough to warrant a promotion from Sacramento tomorrow. But for the time being, no big-name hitters are walking through that door. There will be no resigning of Kris Bryant. Seiya Suzuki is not going to magically appear in the Giants lineup, ready to hit dinger after dinger. Carlos Correa is not going to team up with Brandon Crawford to create an iron wall of defense on the left side of the infield.
But after winning 107 games and losing your team leader in Buster Posey and your staff ace in Kevin Gausman, you are not crazy to want Farhan to go out and throw a major deal at a Nick Castellanos to keep up with the Los Angeles Death Stars, I mean Dodgers, and keep that NL West Division Title Streak going for a second year.
There are two possibilities that would explain why Farhan made the moves he did this winter and didn’t make the moves he didn’t make: After a year in which the Giants used a decades worth of magic fairy dust on the 2021 roster, Farhan somehow raided the world stockpile of magic fairy dust to use again this year, or, he simply knows something us mortals sitting here on the outside do not. It is not a fun feeling, and it creates zero buzz, but perhaps that is the point. Farhan is not in the buzz making business. His job is to build teams that win baseball games. And all it takes is looking at his track record for about three minutes for it to scream at you, “This man knows what he is doing you goofy goober! You just worry about your garlic fries and enjoy your free bobblehead.”
2. There Will Be No Long-Term Deals Any Time Soon
The day the Giants signed Wilmer Flores was a big day for this new regime. It had nothing to do with the .741 OPS he was bringing to the Giants, but because he was the first player that Farhan Zaidi bestowed a multi-year deal on. The next year, Tommy La Stella convinced Farhan to take things to the next level, inking the first three-year deal of the Zaidi era. Anthony DeSclafani then tied LaStella for the longest contract Farhan had ever given to a Giants player when he signed his own three-year deal just before baseball vanished from existence for 99 agonizing days.
If there was ever a time to see Farhan hand out a long-term deal, it was in the last few weeks. Alas, one year of Pederson and two years of Rodon will have to suffice, and it now becomes very clear: Farhan’s M.O. might not include long-term deals, at least right now. That seems to be even more evident after it was revealed that one of the reasons that talks broke down between the Giants and Kris Bryant was length of contract.
And this could be the trend for the next couple of years too. The 2023 class of free agents currently does not have a lot of names that scream “Give him all the years and moneys now!” Trea Turner will be on the market for a new club, along with Joey Gallo and Archie Bradley. But none of those players are locks to hit free agency, or even draw the Giants interest if they do. Even if the Giants are interested, they still have to give the Giants the proverbial rose to come here. The 2024 class has some promise, but not as much as this winter's class did.
So, who will be the player to break Farhan and convince him to dole out a commitment of four years or more? That player, surprisingly enough, could already be on the Giants roster. Perhaps it will be Logan Webb, who hits his first year of arbitration eligibility after this season. The same goes for Tyler Rogers. And you cannot totally rule out Pederson signing on for the long term either. Further down the road, Joey Bart is arbitration eligible in 2025. Heliot Ramos and Sean Hjelle will hit eligibility for arbitration in 2024. Of course, just because they are arbitration eligible does not guarantee a long-term deal right away. My point is maybe don’t hold your breath that a four-year or more deal will be coming before the next Summer Olympics.
3. The Giants Are Not Going to be Reckless
Quick, off the top of your head, how many players do the Giants have on their 2026 roster? Would it help if I set the over/ under at, say, 10.5? I hope you took the under, because the answer is three, including Joey Bart and Camilio Doval. That does not inspire a lot for the outfield defense. Granted, a lot of those 2026 roster spots will be filled by players in the minor leagues right now. And do not forget the seven-year deal Logan Webb signed at the conclusion of the Paris Summer Olympics in 2024. Other than that, the Giants have basically no commitments in 2026. No payroll crunch whatsoever. If there was ever a time to back up a line of Brinks trucks to a free agent’s house, it was this winter.
The $17 million annually that would have been owed to Suzuki would not cripple the Giants’ ability to spend in 2026. Neither would the $20 million annually Nick Castellanos would have been owed. Trevor Story’s $20 million annually could have also fit in nicely on that 2026 roster, even if Suzuki and Castellanos were already on board to begin with. And yet, the Giants refrained from any of that. It is quite obvious that just because the Giants have money to spend, they will not spend it just to spend it and make fans like you and I happy.
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It is frustrating for sure, but also part of the reason why Farhan was hired in the first place. You do not hire someone to be a “next-gen baseball mind” just to have them make the same moves the previous-gen baseball mind made. The Giants moved on from Brian Sabean and Bobby Evans because they saw the world in 720p, and the Giants wanted someone like Farhan who saw the world in 1080p.
Restraint is not fun from a fans perspective. But as someone who can’t even make it through the supermarket checkout stand without buying a Milky Way bar I definitely do not need, I can at least respect the restraint.
4. The Ballpark Might Still be an Issue
On Friday, news broke that the Red Sox and Giants (and two other teams who were not named for whatever reason) were the finalists for the services of Trevor Story. Like any normal and sane human being, the first thing I did was look up Story’s splits at Oracle Park. The second thing I did was prepare myself for the Giants to once again finish in second place for a free agent hitter. Story’s Oracle Park numbers are, uh, not that great, and he decided that playing in the bandbox by comparison that is Fenway Park was a better way to collect $120 million for six years.
Apparently, it does not matter that the Giants set a franchise record for home runs last year, and did so without a 30-home run hitter and playing half their games at Oracle Park. No one really seems to pay attention to the fact that the Giants hit better at home (.254) than on the road last year as well (.244). Oracle Park still has the stink of swallowing up hitters not named Barry Bonds and spitting them right back out. That stink may have chased off Bryce Harper in 2019 and Giancarlo Stanton in 2018. That stink has acted as hitter repellant for years, and is a reason why the Giants have not signed a hitter to a deal of four or more years since Aaron Rowand decided to come to the Giants and throw the ball halfway up the third baseline for five years before the 2008 season (if you will recall he didn’t even finish that deal on the Giants).
New dimensions, new methods of hitting, new juiced baseballs, none of it matters. Once a ballpark is deemed terrible for hitters, that becomes a hard stereotype to shake.
5. The Trade Market is Your New Favorite Place to Shop
The main reason we have free agency in baseball is so players can have a say in where they play. In the before times, players had no such freedom. They were stuck with their clubs for eternity, or until their team decided they would better off playing for another team in exchange for another player. If the Giants are to secure a big bat in the future, it might have to be on the trade market, where such player will not have the luxury of being able to say no, provided they do not have a no-trade clause of course.
This fits the Farhan plan too if you take a look at his overall track record. With Bryant last year, to Manny Machado with the Dodgers, the best bats Farhan has acquired have come not through intense negotiations during the winter, but at the MLB Trade Deadline in July. You can even throw Yu Darvish in there as well. And that could once again be the salvo Giants fans are forced to hold out hope for this summer. Until further notice, trades are going to be how this club gets significantly better overnight.
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