Zaidi gets down to business at meetings
CARLSBAD, San Diego County — As Farhan Zaidi tried to hurry across the hotel grounds at the general managers’ meetings Thursday, two young men approached asking him to sign baseballs.
“Can you write ‘Go Giants’ on there?” one asked.
The other asked if there was a key factor in Zaidi’s decision to leave Los Angeles to become the Giants’ president of baseball operations, and Zaidi quipped, “Getting to sign ‘Go Giants’ on there instead of ‘Go Dodgers.’ ”
Zaidi flew to Southern California after his introductory news conference at AT&T Park on Wednesday and arrived at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa at 11:30 p.m., in time to hang out with a few GMs.
On Thursday, he got down to business and reacquainted himself with other teams’ bosses. He was to drive to his Los Angeles home late Thursday and return next week to the Bay Area, where he’ll usher in a new era of Giants leadership in the wake of the Brian Sabean and Bobby Evans administrations.
In an interview with The Chronicle, Zaidi said it was important to attend the meetings to knock out some early conversations — “People gave me grief for just making a cameo here” — and catch up with the Giants’ three executives in attendance: Jeremy Shelley, Yeshayah Goldfarb and Paul Bien.
“Just being around here, whenever everyone’s together, there’s value even it was just at the back end of the meetings,” Zaidi said.
There wasn’t time to meet with representatives for free agents, but Zaidi said those communications could come in phone calls or texts. He wouldn’t address particular players, including Bryce Harper, whose agent, Scott Boras, said the marquee outfielder is “a perfect fit in a lot of cities, and San Francisco would be one of them.”
Harper is expected to break the record for the biggest contract, which belongs to Giancarlo Stanton ($325 million). In Zaidi’s four years as Dodgers’ GM, they didn’t give out a contract of $100 million or more, but Zaidi said that wasn’t necessarily a mandate, and the same would hold in San Francisco.
“I don’t think there are any restrictions,” Zaidi said. “We’re not going to cut off any portion of the market. If there’s a free agent that would make sense in a baseball context, we’ll pursue him. There are no limitations.”
One of Zaidi’s first orders of business is hiring a GM — with his departure from Los Angeles, both the Dodgers and Giants have vacancies — and confirmed former A’s colleague Billy Owens would be considered, making him the first known candidate.
Owens, a Bellarmine graduate, has been in the A’s organization for 20 years and is an assistant GM and director of player personnel.
“He’s definitely a consideration for us,” Zaidi said. “I imagine we’re going to talk more specifics about him. He’s a terrific guy and terrific with what he does. I imagine we’ll talk more in the coming week.”
The Giants also need a farm director to replace David Bell, now the Reds’ manager.
“There’s a little bit of urgency with those positions as we get later into the offseason,” Zaidi said. “We’re going to make sure we have the right candidates. If we have to play that out a little longer to make sure we get the right guy, we’re going to do that.”
Though Zaidi is more familiar with some teams’ executives than others, enhancing relationships with representatives from all clubs is part of the process.
“In L.A., Andrew (Friedman) was really good about sharing the load and letting me handle enough of the trade conversations where I at least had conversations with everybody in that room at some point,” Zaidi said, “so that’s not a concern.”
At Wednesday’s news conference, Zaidi called pitcher Madison Bumgarner a “seminal pillar of this franchise” but said everything is “on the table” and wouldn’t say he would or wouldn’t trade the lefty, who’s one year from free agency.
“That’s my answer,” Zaidi said Thursday. “Look, where we are as a franchise, yeah, everything’s on the table.” John Shea is The San Francisco Chronicle’s national baseball writer. Email: jshea@sfchronicle. com Twitter: @JohnSheaHey