Zaidi will soon have means to keep iants on top
the pandemic and looking to cut costs: Why can’t we do that?
The Giants’ president of baseball operations has the team in first place, looking every bit the part, and gearing up for a stunning drop in payroll obligations for next year. Without question, it sounded like a dubious formula. Back in spring training, it seemed the National League West powerhouses had corralled all the good lumber, leaving Zaidi to craft his foundation with twigs and scraps.
Behold one of the game’s most intriguing stories of recent years. It’s one thing to shock people over two or three weeks, but quite another to be baseball’s first team to 50 wins. The iants’ motto might as well be “This team is for real,” because that’s what they’re hearing from opposing players and managers.
Is it sustainable? For this season, absolutely. Injuries are the No. 1 threat throughout sports these days, and the Dodgers and Padres certainly have had their share, but at one point early this month, the iants had 1 players from the 0man roster on the injured list — with eight more on the active roster having been sidelined at some point. Now they’re forging ahead without Brandon Belt, Logan Webb, Aaron Sanchez, Evan Longoria and Tommy La Stella. With remarkable consistency, other players are stepping into the void to keep the machine humming.
The point isn’t that the iants are World Series-bound; that still seems a titanic stretch. But Zaidi, in his tireless search for undervalued talent, really struck gold over the past few months. The question is how long he can operate this way.
It seems almost miraculous that Zaidi surrounded Johnny Cueto with Kevin ausman, Anthony DeSclafani, Alex Wood and Sanchez in the rotation, but all five of them are potential free agents after this season. For the sake of argument, say they all depart× what are the odds of crafting an entirely new set of starters — one that can compete with the likes of Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw, Trevor Bauer, Julio Urias, Blake Snell, Joe Musgrove and =u Darvish in the division’s penthouse?
Remember that it’s been ages since the iants successfully developed a homegrown pitcher. When they dominated people over that magical run from 20101, it was all about the rotation core of Madison Bumgarner, Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum. But this is where @aidi could jump into the big boys’ game. He’s more than willing to do so, and among many options, there’s a potentially fascinating target in Washington’s Max Scherzer, eligible for free agency this winter.
Know this: The Nationals would be crazy to trade Scherzer. Even at 36, he’s one of the game’s fiercest competitors and a lightsout starter under the harshest glare. He has the right to veto any deal, and there’s bound to be widespread interest that includes St. Louis. (Scherzer grew up a Cardinals fan in Missouri.) It’s likely he’ll be pulled off the trade market if the Nationals make a push for October — but that doesn’t make it any less fun to talk about. Zaidi took big swings at Bryce Harper and iancarlo Stanton when they hit the freeagent market in recent years, and you know he’d like to break out of that “lowbudget only” mold.
Whatever the fates have in store for Belt, Longoria, Buster Posey and Brandon Crawford, those aging mainstays can’t be the pillars that sustain @aidi’s longterm plan beyond the next couple years, something that can keep the
Giants in contention without, say, using 6 players in a season (as they did in 2019). Once the rotation is set, the focus will turn to the outfield, where the iants haven’t developed an AllStar since Chili Davis in the 1980s.
The outfield prospects look bright for a change with Heliot Ramos, Hunter Bishop, Luis Matos and Alexander Canario all ranked among the club’s top 10 prospects by mlb.com. The first two names on that ranking are shortstop Marco Luciano and catcher Joey Bart, each looking sharp in the minor leagues. The outlook seems bright× in spring training, the iants’ farm system was ranked ninth overall by respected evaluator Keith Law ºfor The Athletic» and 11th by mlb.com.
The way it looks from here is that @aidi appears to be as capable as anyone at prowling the outskirts, signing castoffs and complete unknowns for fun and profit. But he’s seeing the bigger picture, a bit of caviar mixed into the smorgy, and he’ll have the means to do so. That should make the rest of the NL West quite uncomfortable.