Giants’ offseason plans uncertain, could move slowly
There’s no rush for the Giants to fill out their 2021 roster. More than ever, exercising patience figures to be an industrywide strategy.
Remember the freeagent market of 201819 that was so slow that the top two hitters, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, didn’t sign until spring training?
It could be more of the same this offseason for reasons far more drastic than any circumstances from two years ago.
“The freeagent market in the last few years has actually moved relatively slowly,” Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said. “We saw a lot of big signings come after the new year.
“Last year was a little bit of an aberration with some guys signing earlier. We might just revert back to the trend of the last few years, and maybe last year will turn out to be the anomaly.”
While waiting for top prospects Joey Bart, Heliot Ramos, Marco Luciano and others to develop, the Giants aren’t expected to pursue elite free agents, especially after a pandemic shortened season in which they received no ticket revenue and Major League Baseball claimed teams lost
out on revenue of $ 3.1 billion.
The Giants need starting pitchers beyond Kevin Gausman, who accepted an $ 18.9 million qualifying offer, along with an experienced reliever or two, a catcher to complement Buster Posey ( it might be determined Bart needs more minorleague seasoning) and a lefty hitting infielder who can play third and second — it might or might not be recently signed Jason Vosler.
There are enough freeagent starters, including those coming off down years or injuries — in the mold of Gausman and Drew Smyly, who were Zaidi’s top two rotation signings last winter — to make it feasible for the Giants to slowplay the roster building.
The market will be flooded with more free agents after the Dec. 2 deadline to tender contracts to arbitrationeligible players. Non-tendering players will be convenient for teams looking to slash payroll — those players will join the open market, likely creating far greater supply than demand and driving down their price.
Schedules are out for 2021, but no one knows if fans will be allowed into ballparks. Restrictions and protocols vary from region to region, and it would seem odd if the Rangers and Astros permit fans, vaccine or no vaccine, and the Giants and A’s do not.
The uncertainty is a reason Zaidi, who has proclaimed a goal for 2021 is making the playoffs, said, “It’s hard to pontificate on the market broadly.” Until further notice, the Giants are moving forward into the great unknown with a payroll that Zaidi says officially hasn’t been set.
“We had a pretty consistent mandate from ownership to make pretty smart baseball decisions in my two years here, and that continues to be the message,” Zaidi said. “Obviously, they signed off on us extending a qualifying offer to Gausman, which puts us in a really good situation going into the rest of the offseason since starting pitching was such a need of ours.
“To have the qualifying offer framework, to be able to get a shortterm deal done that he’s happy with, that we’re happy with, is something we couldn’t have done without ownership’s support. We don’t take that support lightly.
“It also means that we’re going to continue to make decisions that make sense for the longterm success of the organization. We’ll continue to evaluate those opportunities on a casebycase basis.
“But there’s no payroll target or limit. As we know, smart baseball decisions can come in many different forms and not strictly financially driven, so that’s going to continue to be how we operate.”
Some teams are expected to be allin on free agency including the Mets ( new owner Steve Cohen promises to spend big), Dodgers ( coming off their first World Series title since 1988) and White Sox ( owner Jerry Reinsdorf hired Tony La Russa and desperately
“A lot of players are going to be looking to do shortterm, make good deals.” Farhan Zaidi, Giants president of baseball operations
wants a championship).
Top free agents Trevor Bauer, J. T. Realmuto and George Springer are expected to get the usual top dollar, but the secondand thirdtier free agents could feel the financial crunch. Those are the pools the Giants and many other teams will be monitoring.
“When you look at the freeagent market for starting pitchers,” Zaidi said, “there are a number of guys who have pretty significant pedigree who are coming off injuries or down seasons for whatever reasons.
“It’s going to be a market where a lot of players are going to be looking to do shortterm, make good deals to reenter the market. For us, the cases of the guys we signed last year and the pitching infrastructure we’ve built up the last couple of years will be a strong selling point for us for those kinds of targets.”