2024 Rosterbation

[sf1giantfan]

Anyone think we should trade for the Pads SS Ha-Swing Kim and his 2024 $8 Million contract ?
He did win the 2023 gold glove and is best buddies with our new and soon to be 2024 batting champion star outfielder.

 

[tzill]

Anyone think we should trade for the Pads SS Ha-Swing Kim and his 2024 $8 Million contract ?
He did win the 2023 gold glove and is best buddies with our new and soon to be 2024 batting champion star outfielder.

Depends upon cost, as always.

It's his walk year, he's just entering his prime. He appears to be a solid, but not all-star, player.

Can't imagine the Pads would be looking to deal him, especially within the division.

 

[calsnowskier]

No way the Pads trade him within the division. He is way too high profile.

 

[calsnowskier]

Cooper Hummel Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Rookie Status & More | Baseball-Reference.com

Check out the latest Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Rookie Status & More of Cooper Hummel. Get info about his position, age, height, weight, draft status, bats, throws, school and more on Baseball-reference.com

www.baseball-reference.com

Why?

He didnt cost us anything, but it does require us to DFA someone…

 

[Stokes1931]

Cooper Hummel Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Rookie Status & More | Baseball-Reference.com

Check out the latest Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Rookie Status & More of Cooper Hummel. Get info about his position, age, height, weight, draft status, bats, throws, school and more on Baseball-reference.com

www.baseball-reference.com

Why?

He didnt cost us anything, but it does require us to DFA someone…

To everything (churn, churn, churn)
There is a season (churn, churn, churn)
And a time to every purpose under heaven

 

[LHG]

Cooper Hummel Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Rookie Status & More | Baseball-Reference.com

Check out the latest Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Rookie Status & More of Cooper Hummel. Get info about his position, age, height, weight, draft status, bats, throws, school and more on Baseball-reference.com

www.baseball-reference.com

Why?

He didnt cost us anything, but it does require us to DFA someone…

I've got two letters for you: FZ

 

[sf1giantfan]

Depends upon cost, as always.

It's his walk year, he's just entering his prime. He appears to be a solid, but not all-star, player.

Can't imagine the Pads would be looking to deal him, especially within the division.

Rumors are they are looking to trade him in his walk year and they are looking for pitching. But yes true they probably won’t trade him in the division. But who knows?

 

[tzill]

For a back-end spot on the 40-man roster, Cooper Hummel makes some sense for the Giants. Switch-hitting catcher, experience in the OF, optionable, average speed, huge walk rates, former Mariner.

 

[stanford the manford]

For a back-end spot on the 40-man roster, Cooper Hummel makes some sense for the Giants. Switch-hitting catcher, experience in the OF, optionable, average speed, huge walk rates, former Mariner.

J/C... does he offer anything more than Blake Sabol other than switch hitting?

 

[tzill]

J/C... does he offer anything more than Blake Sabol other than switch hitting?

guess we'll find out...

 

[tzill]

Heliot Ramos is a guy Farhan Zaidi has kinda gone out of his way to compliment a couple of times this offseason. He didn't get a long look in the OF last year despite the team getting below-average production from LF. Feels like there is a chance he does in 2024, especially considering how left-handed the projected starting 3 (Conforto, Lee, Yaz) are. Austin Slater will serve as the 4th OF but there are at-bats out there for another right-handed bat like Ramos or Luis Matos.

 

[calsnowskier]

Heliot Ramos is a guy Farhan Zaidi has kinda gone out of his way to compliment a couple of times this offseason. He didn't get a long look in the OF last year despite the team getting below-average production from LF. Feels like there is a chance he does in 2024, especially considering how left-handed the projected starting 3 (Conforto, Lee, Yaz) are. Austin Slater will serve as the 4th OF but there are at-bats out there for another right-handed bat like Ramos or Luis Matos.

I am OK with Matos starting the season in Sacto. Give him more playing time, let him mature a bit and have him focus on reading the ball off the bat defensively. His defensive raw skills are there, but his instincts need some work.

 

[tzill]

Devin Sweet, who had been on the Giants' 40-man roster, was placed on waivers to make room for the Jordan Hicks signing. He was claimed by the Tigers.

 

[LHG]

Your Trade Rumors Front Office subscription includes weekly MLB analysis. Here's the latest from Steve Adams...


Heading into the 2023-24 offseason, one of the most prominent narratives around the game was that the Giants were going to be big-game hunters. In dire need of starpower after missing the playoffs in four of five seasons under the current front office regime, the Giants were going to be intimately involved in the bidding for top stars and reshape the look of their team. President of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi fueled some of that narrative himself, conceding a need to "think about things differently" before going on to add: "...it's not just a matter of what strategies we employ in games but also how the roster is constituted."


More than two months since free agency has opened, however, the Giants’ offseason has a familiar feel to it. San Francisco bid heavily on both Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto but was not just spurned in each case – but spurned in favor of the archrival Dodgers. Zaidi candidly stated after the fact that the Giants had been willing to make the same deal Ohtani accepted with the Dodgers.


That was surely intended to illustrate the extent to which the Giants tried to lure Ohtani, though it struck an opposite chord with many (myself included). If any free agent were to be presented with identical offers from two teams, why wouldn’t he choose the team with a recent history of winning and with two perennial MVP candidates, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, already on the roster? If the Giants were going to be prime players for Ohtani, being prepared to go well beyond the top offers presented by other parties – the Dodgers in particular – should have been a prerequisite.


To be clear, the Giants’ offseason A) is not over and B) is not a failure simply because they came up short in their efforts to land two of the market’s top stars – arguably the top two stars. The Giants have also succeeded in luring star KBO outfielder Jung Hoo Lee to San Francisco on a six-year deal, and Friday they came to terms on a four-year, $44MM deal with flamethrowing reliever Jordan Hicks.


Some were taken aback by Hicks’ $44MM guarantee, given his frequent injuries and the corresponding limited workload in his career. Hicks has pitched just 243 ⅓ innings at the MLB level. He’s had Tommy John surgery, missed time with inflammation in that same elbow post-surgery, and been out with a flexor strain.


On the surface, the deal seemed to me like a fine risk for a deep-pocketed team to make. Hicks undeniably has overpowering stuff. The Giants have had good success in taking names like Kevin Gausman, Carlos Rodon, Drew Pomeranz, Drew Smyly, Anthony DeSclafani (on his first contract, anyhow) and many others and helping them to become the best versions of themselves. Taking Hicks and plugging him into a bullpen with Camilo Doval, Luke Jackson and the Rogers twins seemed like a worthwhile risk that carried the potential of combining for an elite relief corps.


Except the Giants plan to put Hicks into the rotation.


The idea of putting Hicks into the rotation isn’t a new one. He was a starter in the minors. The Cardinals briefly tried him in the rotation early in the 2022 season but quickly moved him back to the bullpen after some rocky results. Hicks tossed 24 ⅔ innings as a starter but was tagged for 18 runs on 19 hits and 18 walks before being dropped back to a more familiar relief role.


A successful transition to the rotation seems like a long shot for Hicks, given his lengthy injury history and lack of innings. The upside of taking an arm with that type of talent and doubling or even tripling the number of innings he contributes in a given year is tantalizing, so the thought process behind the move is easy enough to see.


However, the Giants don’t seem like the team to be taking this kind of gamble.


San Francisco’s 2024 rotation will consist of Cy Young runner-up and MLB innings leader Logan Webb. Beyond him, there’s … well, not much. Swingman Ross Stripling had more success out of the ‘pen than in the rotation last year, but he’s still the closest thing the Giants have to an experienced No. 2 starter. Top prospect Kyle Harrison will get a long look after a decent MLB debut, but he’s pitched just 100 ⅓ innings above Double-A. Right-hander Keaton Winn logged a 4.68 ERA with plus walk and grounder rates but a below-average strikeout rate in last year’s MLB debut (42 ⅓ innings).


The Giants will have some reinforcements coming into play as the season progresses. Alex Cobb will open the year on the injured list following October hip surgery but should return sometime in the first half. Former AL Cy Young winner Robbie Ray, acquired earlier this month from the Mariners, could be back in the season’s second half.


Ray and Cobb are question marks for different reasons than the group of Stripling, Harrison and Winn, but they’re question marks all the same. Hicks becomes yet another uncertain addition to a staff that came into the winter badly needing certainty. It’s fun for Giants fans to dream on a scenario where he makes a half season of starts before moving to the bullpen in the second half once Ray returns. Then, in 2025, a rotation of Webb, Ray, Hicks, Harrison and a to-be-determined fifth starter (Cobb will be a free agent post-’24) could be exciting.


Plans rarely work out in such idealistic fashion, however. That’s a perfect scenario that’ll likely never unfold. The year-to-year volatility of pitcher health and performance makes it foolhardy to bank too heavily on any specific set of circumstances playing out – let alone one that’s contingent on a 32-year-old rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, a top prospect, and a reliever who’s converting to a starting pitcher.


Putting Hicks into the rotation is a sensible gamble in a vacuum, but things don’t operate in a vacuum. I’d have been all for a team like the Pirates, Rays, Reds or Royals making such a move. Those are perennial low-payroll clubs that will never be able to play for top-of-the-market starting pitchers because of ownership’s payroll limitations, so rolling the dice on a high-octane arm in hopes of landing a top starter at a rate well below market value would’ve made sense.


But the Giants don’t need to take risks of this nature to play for top-end pitchers or top-tier free agents in general. That they’re doing so in an offseason that was rife with quality starting pitchers at a time when their rotation is a collection of shrug emojis is all the more confounding.


The Giants’ habitual refusal to spend long-term on pitching is part of the reason they’re in this position in the first place; if they’d been willing to sign Kevin Gausman for five years during his last trip to free agency, they’d have him and Webb atop their rotation and the need for stability would be far less glaring. Instead, they have a rotation hodgepodge of their own creation but to this point have chosen not to spend at the necessary levels to help rectify the situation. Their distaste for long-term deals has certainly paid off at times as well – hello, Carlos Rodon – but wholesale aversion to this type of risk renders one of the organization’s inherent competitive advantages (market size, payroll capacity) largely moot.


Signing Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery could go a long way toward improving things, and there’s time yet for the Giants to acquire a Dylan Cease or Shane Bieber to further solidify the outlook. But given everything we’ve seen from the team under Zaidi, it’s hard to imagine the Giants suddenly meeting a $200MM+ asking price on Snell. (And it's far from certain that meeting that price would be wise anyhow.) Perhaps Montgomery, who’ll probably fall more into the $140-160MM range, would be a more plausible alternative, but that’d still mark a seismic departure from standard operating procedure of the current front office. As it stands, Hicks’ $44MM deal is tied with Rodon’s two-year, $44MM deal for the largest guarantee given to a pitcher from outside the organization. Signing either Snell or Montgomery would require a commitment anywhere from three to five times larger.


If you’d told Giants fans at the onset of free agency that as of mid-January, the team would have $165MM in free-agent spending plus a trade for a former Cy Young winner completed, I have to think many fans would’ve been ecstatic … at least until it became clear that said Cy Young winner was rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and the free-agent spending was going to a backup catcher (Tom Murphy), an outfielder who’s never set foot in MLB (Lee) and a reliever they’re converting into a starter after sitting out most of a free agent market that was uncharacteristically deep in starters.


Perhaps the Giants still have some more concrete moves up their sleeve. Signing Montgomery and/or trading for another established starter would radically change the feel of their offseason. If that happens, I’ll be the first to change my tune on the manner in which their winter has unfolded.


For now, however, the Giants took a roster stuffed to the brim with uncertainty and have only complemented that group with additional (and at times relatively expensive) “maybes.” Even if they were always going to miss on Ohtani and were wary of making a Bellinger-sized splash into the outfield market, the Giants felt like a club that was an obvious fit for some dependable innings (e.g. Montgomery, Lucas Giolito, Sonny Gray, Eduardo Rodriguez).


Instead, they’ve shuffled some money around to bring in a series of volatile players who bring little in the way of dependable production. It’s another offseason that seems headed for a big-market, deep-pocketed team that’s trotted out a $200MM payroll in the past operating around the margins and trying to find diamonds in the rough when they could just flex some financial muscle. Maybe they’ve deemed that more prudent than spending long-term now that the Dodgers are evoking the “Evil Empire”-era Yankees and signing/acquiring every top talent the market has to bear, but this offseason feels quite similar to the last several offseasons – all of which have combined to put the Giants in this unenviable limbo in the first place.

 

[LHG]

Your Trade Rumors Front Office subscription includes weekly MLB analysis. Here's the latest from Steve Adams...


Heading into the 2023-24 offseason, one of the most prominent narratives around the game was that the Giants were going to be big-game hunters. In dire need of starpower after missing the playoffs in four of five seasons under the current front office regime, the Giants were going to be intimately involved in the bidding for top stars and reshape the look of their team. President of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi fueled some of that narrative himself, conceding a need to "think about things differently" before going on to add: "...it's not just a matter of what strategies we employ in games but also how the roster is constituted."


More than two months since free agency has opened, however, the Giants’ offseason has a familiar feel to it. San Francisco bid heavily on both Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto but was not just spurned in each case – but spurned in favor of the archrival Dodgers. Zaidi candidly stated after the fact that the Giants had been willing to make the same deal Ohtani accepted with the Dodgers.


That was surely intended to illustrate the extent to which the Giants tried to lure Ohtani, though it struck an opposite chord with many (myself included). If any free agent were to be presented with identical offers from two teams, why wouldn’t he choose the team with a recent history of winning and with two perennial MVP candidates, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, already on the roster? If the Giants were going to be prime players for Ohtani, being prepared to go well beyond the top offers presented by other parties – the Dodgers in particular – should have been a prerequisite.


To be clear, the Giants’ offseason A) is not over and B) is not a failure simply because they came up short in their efforts to land two of the market’s top stars – arguably the top two stars. The Giants have also succeeded in luring star KBO outfielder Jung Hoo Lee to San Francisco on a six-year deal, and Friday they came to terms on a four-year, $44MM deal with flamethrowing reliever Jordan Hicks.


Some were taken aback by Hicks’ $44MM guarantee, given his frequent injuries and the corresponding limited workload in his career. Hicks has pitched just 243 ⅓ innings at the MLB level. He’s had Tommy John surgery, missed time with inflammation in that same elbow post-surgery, and been out with a flexor strain.


On the surface, the deal seemed to me like a fine risk for a deep-pocketed team to make. Hicks undeniably has overpowering stuff. The Giants have had good success in taking names like Kevin Gausman, Carlos Rodon, Drew Pomeranz, Drew Smyly, Anthony DeSclafani (on his first contract, anyhow) and many others and helping them to become the best versions of themselves. Taking Hicks and plugging him into a bullpen with Camilo Doval, Luke Jackson and the Rogers twins seemed like a worthwhile risk that carried the potential of combining for an elite relief corps.


Except the Giants plan to put Hicks into the rotation.


The idea of putting Hicks into the rotation isn’t a new one. He was a starter in the minors. The Cardinals briefly tried him in the rotation early in the 2022 season but quickly moved him back to the bullpen after some rocky results. Hicks tossed 24 ⅔ innings as a starter but was tagged for 18 runs on 19 hits and 18 walks before being dropped back to a more familiar relief role.


A successful transition to the rotation seems like a long shot for Hicks, given his lengthy injury history and lack of innings. The upside of taking an arm with that type of talent and doubling or even tripling the number of innings he contributes in a given year is tantalizing, so the thought process behind the move is easy enough to see.


However, the Giants don’t seem like the team to be taking this kind of gamble.


San Francisco’s 2024 rotation will consist of Cy Young runner-up and MLB innings leader Logan Webb. Beyond him, there’s … well, not much. Swingman Ross Stripling had more success out of the ‘pen than in the rotation last year, but he’s still the closest thing the Giants have to an experienced No. 2 starter. Top prospect Kyle Harrison will get a long look after a decent MLB debut, but he’s pitched just 100 ⅓ innings above Double-A. Right-hander Keaton Winn logged a 4.68 ERA with plus walk and grounder rates but a below-average strikeout rate in last year’s MLB debut (42 ⅓ innings).


The Giants will have some reinforcements coming into play as the season progresses. Alex Cobb will open the year on the injured list following October hip surgery but should return sometime in the first half. Former AL Cy Young winner Robbie Ray, acquired earlier this month from the Mariners, could be back in the season’s second half.


Ray and Cobb are question marks for different reasons than the group of Stripling, Harrison and Winn, but they’re question marks all the same. Hicks becomes yet another uncertain addition to a staff that came into the winter badly needing certainty. It’s fun for Giants fans to dream on a scenario where he makes a half season of starts before moving to the bullpen in the second half once Ray returns. Then, in 2025, a rotation of Webb, Ray, Hicks, Harrison and a to-be-determined fifth starter (Cobb will be a free agent post-’24) could be exciting.


Plans rarely work out in such idealistic fashion, however. That’s a perfect scenario that’ll likely never unfold. The year-to-year volatility of pitcher health and performance makes it foolhardy to bank too heavily on any specific set of circumstances playing out – let alone one that’s contingent on a 32-year-old rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, a top prospect, and a reliever who’s converting to a starting pitcher.


Putting Hicks into the rotation is a sensible gamble in a vacuum, but things don’t operate in a vacuum. I’d have been all for a team like the Pirates, Rays, Reds or Royals making such a move. Those are perennial low-payroll clubs that will never be able to play for top-of-the-market starting pitchers because of ownership’s payroll limitations, so rolling the dice on a high-octane arm in hopes of landing a top starter at a rate well below market value would’ve made sense.


But the Giants don’t need to take risks of this nature to play for top-end pitchers or top-tier free agents in general. That they’re doing so in an offseason that was rife with quality starting pitchers at a time when their rotation is a collection of shrug emojis is all the more confounding.


The Giants’ habitual refusal to spend long-term on pitching is part of the reason they’re in this position in the first place; if they’d been willing to sign Kevin Gausman for five years during his last trip to free agency, they’d have him and Webb atop their rotation and the need for stability would be far less glaring. Instead, they have a rotation hodgepodge of their own creation but to this point have chosen not to spend at the necessary levels to help rectify the situation. Their distaste for long-term deals has certainly paid off at times as well – hello, Carlos Rodon – but wholesale aversion to this type of risk renders one of the organization’s inherent competitive advantages (market size, payroll capacity) largely moot.


Signing Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery could go a long way toward improving things, and there’s time yet for the Giants to acquire a Dylan Cease or Shane Bieber to further solidify the outlook. But given everything we’ve seen from the team under Zaidi, it’s hard to imagine the Giants suddenly meeting a $200MM+ asking price on Snell. (And it's far from certain that meeting that price would be wise anyhow.) Perhaps Montgomery, who’ll probably fall more into the $140-160MM range, would be a more plausible alternative, but that’d still mark a seismic departure from standard operating procedure of the current front office. As it stands, Hicks’ $44MM deal is tied with Rodon’s two-year, $44MM deal for the largest guarantee given to a pitcher from outside the organization. Signing either Snell or Montgomery would require a commitment anywhere from three to five times larger.


If you’d told Giants fans at the onset of free agency that as of mid-January, the team would have $165MM in free-agent spending plus a trade for a former Cy Young winner completed, I have to think many fans would’ve been ecstatic … at least until it became clear that said Cy Young winner was rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and the free-agent spending was going to a backup catcher (Tom Murphy), an outfielder who’s never set foot in MLB (Lee) and a reliever they’re converting into a starter after sitting out most of a free agent market that was uncharacteristically deep in starters.


Perhaps the Giants still have some more concrete moves up their sleeve. Signing Montgomery and/or trading for another established starter would radically change the feel of their offseason. If that happens, I’ll be the first to change my tune on the manner in which their winter has unfolded.


For now, however, the Giants took a roster stuffed to the brim with uncertainty and have only complemented that group with additional (and at times relatively expensive) “maybes.” Even if they were always going to miss on Ohtani and were wary of making a Bellinger-sized splash into the outfield market, the Giants felt like a club that was an obvious fit for some dependable innings (e.g. Montgomery, Lucas Giolito, Sonny Gray, Eduardo Rodriguez).


Instead, they’ve shuffled some money around to bring in a series of volatile players who bring little in the way of dependable production. It’s another offseason that seems headed for a big-market, deep-pocketed team that’s trotted out a $200MM payroll in the past operating around the margins and trying to find diamonds in the rough when they could just flex some financial muscle. Maybe they’ve deemed that more prudent than spending long-term now that the Dodgers are evoking the “Evil Empire”-era Yankees and signing/acquiring every top talent the market has to bear, but this offseason feels quite similar to the last several offseasons – all of which have combined to put the Giants in this unenviable limbo in the first place.

By the way, in case anyone missed the very top line of this post - this is not mine. I'm merely sharing what an actual professional writer said.

 

[calsnowskier]

By the way, in case anyone missed the very top line of this post - this is not mine. I'm merely sharing what an actual professional writer said.

In that case, new rating…

 

[Sandisfan]

By the way, in case anyone missed the very top line of this post - this is not mine. I'm merely sharing what an actual professional writer said.

As we now know, professional writers have some of the worst takes. Here and at other sports forums I find better analysis and opinions than those professionals. Often though those writers provide enough Info that sports forum members can come up with superior analysis and opinions that the "Pros" have.

P.S. That doesn't mean that they are always wrong, but I get better stuff here at SportsHoopla from this Giants forum and use the info here the keep track of what is and should be happening.

 

[SF11704]

As we now know, professional writers have some of the worst takes. Here and at other sports forums I find better analysis and opinions than those professionals. Often though those writers provide enough Info that sports forum members can come up with superior analysis and opinions that the "Pros" have.

P.S. That doesn't mean that they are always wrong, but I get better stuff here at SportsHoopla from this Giants forum and use the info here the keep track of what is and should be happening.

I agree 100% i also feel that this particular article could have been created by combining many of the comments that were previously written by our members. When i read through the article i recalled many comments from our own community. Sort of like a professional rehash of all we have talked about for the past few years ... just wish we weren't so damn accurate in our thoughts ...

 

[LHG]

In that case, new rating…

Gee, thanks.

 

[sf1giantfan]

I agree 100% i also feel that this particular article could have been created by combining many of the comments that were previously written by our members. When i read through the article i recalled many comments from our own community. Sort of like a professional rehash of all we have talked about for the past few years ... just wish we weren't so damn accurate in our thoughts ...

My thoughts for this season are the Giants are going to make the playoffs, we will have the NL batting champion, Cy Young contenders and overall improvement in all categories.