Man, you people have a lot of questions about the Giants.
However, I’m very excited to answer questions about the Giants! It gets the brain juices flowing, and not a moment too soon. Pitchers and catchers have reported, and spring is about to sproing. As a professional shill for the front office, I’m more excited about this season than most, but it’s also the weirdest start to the Cactus League that I can remember. If the Giants want to sign the literal Cy Young Award winner from last year, they still can. That’s weird, right? Seems weird.
Yesterday, we answered a few. Today, we’ll answer some more. On to the questions!
This Giants team is in DESPERATE need of high-end talent. The lineup is comprised of mostly 6-7-8 type hitters, who are solid but possess nothing close to greatness. The rotation outside of Logan Webb is young guys and lottery tickets. Why don’t the Giants simply pay the sticker price on Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery, Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman, or J.D. Martinez when they are there for the taking? They reportedly have the space to add and not go over the luxury tax. I just can’t fathom why with this roster they can’t see the easy opportunity to add talent now when they aren’t competing against the Yankees or Dodgers for the remaining guys. Please make this make sense. — Mark S.
Sixth-place hitters had a .244/.311/.402 slash line last year. The Giants, as a team, hit .235/.312/.383. They wish they had the collective power of a sixth-place hitter.
You know that I’m a staunch believer in the “It’s not my money” philosophy. If I had unimaginable, generational wealth, I would spend it on things like a baseball team. Then, once I owned that team, I would spend my money on players like Jordan Montgomery. I would do a lot of things with that money. I’d have a cabin in Tahoe, a condo across the street from Oracle Park and a funky apartment in Ashland, Ore., that’s a block away from the Elizabethan Theatre. I’d get guacamole every time I ate at a taqueria, and not just as a condiment. I’m talking a tub of the stuff. Maybe even a half pint.
However, while it’s clear that the world would be better if I were rich, the actual owners of the Giants operate on a budget. It would be cooler if they didn’t, but they do. They’re willing to spend premium prices on premium players, like Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and a Carlos Correa without termites in his ankles. My guess is that they’re already thinking of ways to finish second for Juan Soto and Roki Sasaki. But when it comes to players like Jordan Montgomery, whom FanGraphs projects to have an ERA that’s not much lower than Keaton Winn, they’re not going to pay Scott Boras prices. The only players you mentioned who have actual star potential are Blake Snell and Cody Bellinger, and nobody would be surprised if they were absolute albatrosses a third of the way into their deals.
The best way to explain it is with a link to something Dennis Lin just wrote about the possibility of a Ha-Seong Kim trade. Why would the Padres trade Kim, who is young, talented and a potential building block? For the same reasons they traded Juan Soto. They gave silly money to Xander Bogaerts and Yu Darvish and Manny Machado and, goodness, they’re still paying Eric Hosmer $13 million for the next two seasons. They went over the luxury tax and regretted it, and now they’re hosed when it comes to signing their own excellent players to reasonable extensions.
The Giants won’t do that. It would be fun if they did, to be sure. They’re not cursed like the Padres, so it might even work! But they’re not going to find themselves in the same spot they were in 2018, with a bunch of creaky players on bad, immovable contracts. Besides, it’s not like you or anyone else is putting a season-ticket deposit down because of Blake Snell, much less Montgomery.
A huge difference with the Giants compared to the Padres is that they don’t have a Kim or a Soto to extend. They’ve already locked up Webb, so who’s the next big extension decision? Camilo Doval? Kyle Harrison? They can afford to screw up at least one deal to a player you mentioned. My guess is they’ll get one of those players, and that it’ll be Matt Chapman.
2019 top pick Hunter Bishop’s career has been stymied by injuries. (Norm Hall / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
If you review and consider over the past five years: the top several draft picks of the Giants each year, the top international signings, the more substantive trades, the signed (and unsigned) free agents and the number of players from our farm system significantly contributing to our major league roster, etc., can you figure out what our plan is to become a competitive NL West contending MLB team again? I’m not a Farhan Zaidi nor an ownership basher, I just cannot figure out “the Giants plan.” As a Giants fan that is frustrating. I’d love your perspective because it looks like chaos to me. — Steve O.
The plan is the same as it’s been since the first day Farhan Zaidi took the job: Get a conveyor belt of young, underpaid players to contribute every season. Have them subsidize more expensive free agents, who are selected to fill the holes that the farm can’t. Until then, fill the gaps with trades and free agents who will take their money.
People hate to hear it, but look at the farm system rankings when Zaidi came in. Of the players in that top 10, one of them is a perennial Cy Young Award candidate, one of them is projected to be the starting shortstop, one of them was traded for the starting first baseman and one of them was traded for an All-Star during a pennant chase. Considering that only one of those prospects was in the top 100, that’s … pretty good? Giving Gregory Santos away isn’t looking great, but the Giants have already gotten more value from the farm than anyone should have expected back then.
It’s gotta keep going, though. There needs to be another Logan Webb. There needs to be two or three. There needs to be a new wave of Brandons. The teenagers from those 2019 rankings are now adults, and they need to start baseballing the heck out of the place. That’s the plan, same as it ever was. Teams can’t live and die in free agency. If the Giants spent $1.37 billion on the top 10 free agents from 2019, they’d have a great 1-2 in the rotation, a DH who’s a little better than Jorge Soler and a whole bunch of regret.
Free agents are a scam … unless you have underpaid players to subsidize them. You should know so, so much more about how the plan is going after this season. It’s terrifying and exciting at the same time. Terrixicitifying.
The Giants and Matt Chapman have been inexorably linked since the beginning of the offseason. If the Giants sign Chapman what do you think happens to J.D. Davis and does Casey Schmitt become the backup infielder that the Giants have been looking for? — Casey R.
Davis would be traded, almost certainly. There would be too much overlap between him, Chapman and Wilmer Flores. Add in the right-handed bat of Soler as the primary DH, and it’s the only possible option. Davis would be popular on the trade market, although that doesn’t mean the Giants would get a haul for him. Just that he’d find a home quickly.
As for Schmitt, he would be much better served plying his trade every day in the minors. It feels like people forget just how lost he was last season. He was awful after his fast start. He improved somewhat after coming back from the minors, with a .695 OPS over the last few weeks, but his adjusted OPS for the season was 60. Do you know what Johnnie LeMaster’s career OPS+ was? It was 60. Schmitt’s rookie season was the average Johnnie LeMaster season. There will need to be improvements before he’s back on a major-league roster.
Does that mean he’s doomed? Of course not. The major leagues are hard, and some players need more adjustments than others. But it’s still hard to pencil Schmitt in for a job this year … or next. There’s a lot of work to do.
Hey Grant, long time long timer, first time long time. Who are some of your favorite standouts on the non-roster invitees list that dropped last week? – Benjamin L.
Ooh. A chance to nerd out.
Blayne Enlow had to be bought out of an LSU commitment for $2 million, and he was a top-10 prospect for the Twins for a couple of years. After Tommy John surgery in 2021, he was excellent in Double A last season, but he imploded after a promotion to Triple A. Still, with some Triple-A Sacramento success, he could be one of those pitchers who is suddenly on the roster before he has a Wikipedia page. He’s still just 24.
Cody Stashak had freaky strikeout-to-walk ratios for years in the Twins’ system — he struck out 74 and walked nine in 53 innings between Double A and Triple A in 2019 — and then he had a brief stint of major-league success in 2020. He’s pitched a combined 30 innings over the last three seasons, though, which is how he became an NRI.
Yusniel Díaz was one of the main prospects the Dodgers sent to the Orioles for Manny Machado, but his plate discipline absolutely tanked when he got there. He had a walk for every strikeout, give or take, with the Dodgers. He was a hacker supreme with the Orioles. He landed back with the Dodgers — who seem to be good at judging talent, if you haven’t noticed — before becoming a minor-league free agent. He’s still just 27, which is the same age that Max Muncy was when he came out of nowhere to become a stellar hitter in the majors. Feels like it’s time for the Giants to have one of those, especially at the Dodgers’ expense.
Does Wade Meckler have trade value? He seems to be the same player as Jung Hoo Lee, a contact first, light to minimal power, maybe CF maybe corner OF. I can’t see both of them in the same lineup, and Lee is the one with the $113 million contract. Can the Giants sell sort of high on Meckler as a prospect? — Kyle M.
Every other team in baseball sees the same thing you do: bat-to-ball skills, but not a lot of power and not a guarantee to be an average defensive center fielder. That’s a player you’re happy to employ and watch closely, but it’s not someone you’re trading for if another team is offering a toolsier prospect.
The 2024 Baseball Prospectus annual is the 29th edition, and I’ve read them all. While this makes me realize that I’m old and going to die soon, it also gives me a little authority when I make this claim: The blurbs/capsules in this year’s Giants section are the best I’ve ever read. Fantastically informative in every way. And the one for Meckler included this tidbit:
Meckler’s 36.7% line-drive rate was the second-best among the 542 MLB hitters with at least 50 plate appearances.
That’s really, really good. Don’t forget that he’s one of the faster players in baseball. Let’s say that he plays solid defense with a .780 OPS or so. Let’s say Jung Hoo Lee does the same. Maybe Luis Matos does, too. That’s a 10- or 12-win outfield. Get your dingers somewhere else and don’t look a gift outfield in the mouth.
Not exactly the likeliest scenario, but if you have good, productive players, don’t worry so much about their profiles overlapping. Terry Pendleton was second in homers for the 1987 Cardinals with 12, but that team won the pennant anyway. That’s because the 1987 Cardinals had a lot of players who didn’t hit for power but did everything else well and IT’S ALSO BECAUSE CANDY MALDONADO COULDN’T KEEP THE BALL IN FRONT OF HIM AND … sorry, sorry, but you get the point. If you have good players, you have good players. Don’t worry about if they’re good in ways that are too similar. Not until you have to.
Hi Grant. Please predict which album in your amazing record collection the 2024 Giants will be most similar to, metaphorically speaking. — Jay C.
Hot dang, do I love this question. Not just because I get to link to my Discogs page, but because I get to shine at what I’m best at: making overwrought and silly analogies.
OK, so what do we have? The Giants have promise, but they also might be boring. They certainly were with their last installment. They definitely aren’t a big-budget recording, but they’re on a major label. They have an incredible history. They’ve disappointed me in the recent past, but I can’t quit them.
They are Bob Dylan’s 1974 album “Planet Waves.” Underrated, hinting at more to come after an unfortunate mess. Levon Helm is Logan Webb. Robbie Robertson is Jung Hoo Lee. Maybe this isn’t the classic you’re hoping for, but it’s the next one that will really knock your socks off.
(Top photo of Wade Meckler: Robert Edwards / USA Today)
