2025 Rosterbation

[calsnowskier]

I'm thinking roster spots are going to be at a premium, not sure they'd have room for both Eldridge and Goldy

Trades are a thing. If Goldy isn’t completely shitting the bed, then maybe Wade can be flipped for some usable assets. Or injuries, or…

And Eldy shouldn’t be called up and not used, so that means hopefully he is contributing or not on the roster.

 

[msgkings322]

I'm thinking roster spots are going to be at a premium, not sure they'd have room for both Eldridge and Goldy

It's extremely wishful thinking to believe Eldridge will be on the opening day roster next season

 

[tzill]

It's extremely wishful thinking to believe Eldridge will be on the opening day roster next season

I don't think he'll be on the roster in april, but I'd expect he'll be up mid season.

 

[LHG]

Apparently, old friend Bobby Evans is a candidate for the GM position.

Latest On Giants' General Manager Search

The Giants are remaking their front office, looking to hire a new general manager and maybe other executives as well. …

www.mlbtraderumors.com

 

[tzill]

Some Giants R5-eligible prospects this winter
Position players:
C Onil Perez
IF Brett Auerbach
IF Christian KossI
F Will Wilson
IF Luis Toribio
IF Aeverson Arteaga
OF Victor Bericoto
OF Jairo Pomares
OF Hunter Bishop

Pitchers:
P Carson Ragsdale
P R.J. Dabovich
P Carson Seymour
P Nick Sinacola
P Seth Lonsway
P Will Bednar

 

[LHG]

Some Giants R5-eligible prospects this winter
Position players:
C Onil Perez
IF Brett Auerbach
IF Christian KossI
F Will Wilson
IF Luis Toribio
IF Aeverson Arteaga
OF Victor Bericoto
OF Jairo Pomares
OF Hunter Bishop

Pitchers:
P Carson Ragsdale
P R.J. Dabovich
P Carson Seymour
P Nick Sinacola
P Seth Lonsway
P Will Bednar

In my opinion, none of those guys are worth protecting, except maybe Auerbach and Ragsdale. Pomares was looking like one to protect mid way through the season but his production collapsed the 2nd half of the year.

 

[tzill]

In my opinion, none of those guys are worth protecting, except maybe Auerbach and Ragsdale. Pomares was looking like one to protect mid way through the season but his production collapsed the 2nd half of the year.

I think they will protect Ragsdale...maybe Seymour

 

[sf1giantfan]

I had high hopes for Wilson when we traded for him but of course now I don’t.

 

[tzill]

From Baggs today:

1) Teams for sale often seek to reduce large future payroll liabilities
2) Twins paying down some of Carlos Correa’s contract and trading him to the Giants (who still need a SS!) would be objectively hilarious.

 

[calsnowskier]

From Baggs today:

1) Teams for sale often seek to reduce large future payroll liabilities
2) Twins paying down some of Carlos Correa’s contract and trading him to the Giants (who still need a SS!) would be objectively hilarious.

I assume the Twinks are for sale?

he is still owed a shit-ton of money, but he has a series of team friendly team options at the end of the contract that COULD be nice.

But while he had decent numbers in “24, he only played in 86 games. His long term durability is a REAL question. Unless they sweeten the offer with some decent-ish prospects in return for a bag of balls and that broken down team bus that San Jose has been trying to repair as a team-building project, I will pass.

 

[tzill]

I assume the Twinks are for sale?

he is still owed a shit-ton of money, but he has a series of team friendly team options at the end of the contract that COULD be nice.

But while he had decent numbers in “24, he only played in 86 games. His long term durability is a REAL question. Unless they sweeten the offer with some decent-ish prospects in return for a bag of balls and that broken down team bus that San Jose has been trying to repair as a team-building project, I will pass.

It all comes down to cost...if they'll eat enough of the contract I'd do it.

 

[calsnowskier]

It all comes down to cost...if they'll eat enough of the contract I'd do it.

But if they are looking to deal him due to cost, than them eating cost defeats that goal. I would be OK eating the whole contract if they throw in prospects to offset it.

Think Will Wilson, but substitute and actual prospect rather than a total bust.

 

[tzill]

But if they are looking to deal him due to cost, than them eating cost defeats that goal. I would be OK eating the whole contract if they throw in prospects to offset it.

Think Will Wilson, but substitute and actual prospect rather than a total bust.

I agree, and I'd imagine if they are going to eat a major portion of the salary that they'd want a good prospect or two back.

FWIW here's the contract:

Carlos Correa ss
6 years/$200M (2023-28), plus options

• 6 years/$200M (2023-28), plus 2029-32 club options
  • re-signed by Minnesota as a free agent 1/10/23
  • $8M signing bonus (paid $4M 2/23 and $4M 2/24)
  • 23:$32M, 24:$32M, 25:$36M, 26:$31.5M, 27:$30.5M, 28:$30M, 29:$25M club option, 30:$20M club option, 31:$15M club option, 32:$10M club option

 

[filosofy29]

It all comes down to cost...if they'll eat enough of the contract I'd do it.

Why would he come here is the bigger question? Why come back to an ownership group that literally cost him over $100M? Unless it was 100% FZ’s fault (which I doubt).

 

[calsnowskier]

Why would he come here is the bigger question? Why come back to an ownership group that literally cost him over $100M? Unless it was 100% FZ’s fault (which I doubt).

Does he have a no trade?

Regardless, even though I don’t “blame” the Giants for that fiasco (outside of letting it get soooo far down the path that it had to blow up in such a public way), it would be natural of him to have bad feels towards the Giants.

 

[filosofy29]

Does he have a no trade?

Regardless, even though I don’t “blame” the Giants for that fiasco (outside of letting it get soooo far down the path that it had to blow up in such a public way), it would be natural of him to have bad feels towards the Giants.

Didn’t do a ton of digging but according to twins daily, yes. No idea of its accuracy

 

[sf1giantfan]

I will pass, but I trust Posey to make the decisions.

 

[LHG]

From MLBTR (behind paywall):

A big shakeup is in process for the front office in San Francisco. The Farhan Zaidi era came to an end last month and now Giants legend Buster Posey will be calling the shots as president of baseball operations. Since Posey has so little experience in running baseball operations, it’s hard to know exactly what to expect, but there are some signs that the club will move from a measured approach to a bolder focus on acquiring marquee players.

Guaranteed Contracts

• Matt Chapman, 3B: $151MM through 2030
• Jung Hoo Lee, CF: $101MM through 2029 (Lee can opt out after 2027)
• Logan Webb, RHP: $82MM through 2028
• Jordan Hicks, RHP: $36MM through 2027
• Taylor Rogers, LHP: $12MM through 2025
• Tom Murphy, C: $4.25MM through 2025 (including $250K buyout on 2026 club option)

Option Decisions

• LHP Robbie Ray can opt out of final two years and $50MM remaining on contract
• LHP Blake Snell can opt out of final one year and $30MM remaining on contract
• IF Wilmer Flores has $3.5MM player option, Giants have $8.5MM club option if he declines

Total 2025 commitments (assuming Snell opts out while Ray and Flores stay): $110.75MM
Total future commitments (assuming Snell opts out while Ray and Flores stay) : $439.75MM

Arbitration-Eligible Players (projections via Matt Swartz)

• Mike Yastrzemski (5.128): $9.5MM
• LaMonte Wade Jr. (5.035): $4.7MM
• Tyler Rogers (5.034): $5.5MM
• Camilo Doval (3.071): $4.6MM

Non-tender candidates: Yastrzemski, Doval

Free Agents

• Michael Conforto, Mark Canha, Curt Casali, Thairo Estrada

 

[LHG]

Part 2:
The Giants did some good things under Zaidi’s watch but the club was mostly defined by mediocrity in his time. The club finished just below .500 in his first two seasons. They shot up to an amazing 107 wins in 2021 but were eliminated by the Dodgers in the playoffs and crashed back to earth after. They finished at .500 in 2022 and just below in the next two years, making the 2021 season look like a clear outlier.

On top of the on-field results, there were some unsatisfactory elements elsewhere. The club’s offseasons often focused on the players they didn’t acquire, as guys like Aaron Judge and Carlos Correa came close to becoming Giants but ultimately didn’t. Also, the club struggled to graduate many of its top prospects, with guys like Joey Bart, Luis Matos and Marco Luciano struggling to establish themselves at the big league level.

There were some nice finds on the pitching market, but mostly on short-term deals that allowed the players to get their big money elsewhere. Both Carlos Rodón and Kevin Gausman were able to resurrect their careers as Giants, but both quickly returned to free agency and got their big deals from A.L. East clubs, Rodón with the Yankees and Gausman the Blue Jays. To a lesser extent, guys like Sean Manaea, Alex Wood and Anthony DeSclafani had some good results with the club but are no longer in San Francisco. The club recently snapped up Blake Snell when he lingered unsigned into early 2024, but he now seems destined to depart like the others.

Last month, it became apparent that the franchise was growing weary of this generally tempered approach. Third baseman Matt Chapman, who had also signed a short-term deal like Snell, was signed to a six-year extension to stay by the Bay. But it was quickly reported that Posey had taken a lead role in getting that deal done, talking with Chapman directly in order to work around Zaidi and Chapman’s agent Scott Boras.

Many smelled smoke in that report and the fire was later confirmed, as Posey was then given Zaidi’s job. Posey said that he views baseball as a “memory-making business” at his introductory press conference. “Sure, winning is great,” Posey said, per Maria Guardado of MLB.com. “Ultimately, that’s our goal, to be a playoff team every year and compete for a championship. But I think just the overall big picture of being a part of something that’s bigger than yourself was really appealing.”

Does this mean that the Giants are now going to take a more free-wheeling approach, with less concern about squeezing the value of every dollar at the margins of every transaction? Will the plan be just to get things done, even if that means being a bit more reckless and perhaps overpaying from time to time?

Ultimately, it’s tough to say. Posey’s post-playing track record is so brief that some guesswork has to be involved. He was on the field as recently as 2021. About a year after retiring, he joined the Giants’ ownership group and got a seat on the board of directors. He has been around for a couple of years, clearly getting involved from time to time, but we can’t know for sure how he’ll behave.

If he does opt for a more trigger-happy style than Zaidi, that could be a reason for excitement or concern, depending on how you look at it. The Rangers recently took an extremely aggressive stance in free agency, with former player Chris Young as general manager. Young was hired as GM in December of 2020 to work under president of baseball operations Jon Daniels, but Daniels was fired in August of 2022. Since Young’s hire, the Rangers made bold strikes for Corey Seager, Marcus Semien and Jacob deGrom and won the 2023 World Series, though deGrom had Tommy John surgery and has not provided the club much return on that deal.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Astros had a fairly analytical general manager in James Click, who helped the club win the World Series in 2022. But he and owner Jim Crane didn’t get along, so Click was dismissed on the heels of winning that title. Crane ran the club without a GM for a while, counting on advice from former players like Jeff Bagwell and Reggie Jackson before Dana Brown was hired as GM. In that interim period, the club gave big three-year contracts to José Abreu and Rafael Montero. Both players performed poorly and were booted off Houston’s roster as their deals were only about half done.

Though there are possible pitfalls, there’s an argument that more aggression is indeed what the Giants need. Their rosters in recent years have mostly been filled by players with solid attributes, but who are clearly a notch below star level, players who can hit but need to be platooned or perhaps don’t play the field well. Pitchers often weren’t trusted to have traditional starting roles, getting put behind openers. Having a few more guys locked into stable, everyday roles has some understandable appeal.

They should have the money to do it as well. Per RosterResource, the club has about $135MM committed to next year’s team, but Snell will subtract $30MM when he opts out. Arbitration contracts will add to that somewhat, but it’s a small class and some of them are candidates to be non-tendered or traded, so there’s plenty of powder dry. Per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, the club’s payroll has been in the vicinity of $200MM for most of the past decade. In the long term, Chapman, Lee and Webb are making good money well into the future but it’s not overly crowded.

The rotation will likely be an area that Posey is looking to invest in, particularly if Snell is gone, which seems likely to be the case. He is sure to opt out and return to the open market after his dominant finish to the season, looking to get the nine-figure deal he didn’t find last winter. The Giants could be the one to give him that deal, as was the case with Chapman, but there may be some bad blood between Snell and the club. Per Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic, it seems that it wasn’t well received when Snell decided not to pitch in the club’s penultimate game, preferring to protect his health as opposed to throwing for an eliminated team. Baggarly suggests a reunion is unlikely because of how this played out.

 

[LHG]

Part 3:

Robbie Ray also has a chance to depart the club, but he will have reasons to forgo his opt-out opportunity. He missed most of the past two seasons due to Tommy John surgery and would be hard-pressed to top the $50MM remaining on his deal.

Assuming Ray stays, he and Logan Webb would be the club’s top two rotation options. Beyond those two, the Giants mostly have young guys still working their way towards being established major leaguers. Kyle Harrison has 159 innings under his belt with a 4.47 earned run average, which is surely enough to get him a job on the 2025 club. Hayden Birdsong has a 4.75 ERA through 72 innings. Keaton Winn has a 6.08 ERA through 97 2/3 innings and finished the season on the injured list due to elbow surgery, though he is expected to be ready by the spring. Guys like Landen Roupp, Mason Black and Kai-Wei Teng are also in the mix. Prospect Carson Whisenhunt is waiting in the wings, as he reached Triple-A. He posted a 5.42 ERA in 25 starts there but with a .379 batting average on balls in play. His 28.4% strikeout rate was strong but his 11.1% walk rate high. He could be an option soon but more time in the minors would also be justified.

There’s also the Jordan Hicks question to be answered. The club moved him from the bullpen to the rotation in 2024 after signing him to a four-year deal, with mixed results. After 15 starts, he had a 2.82 ERA. But he seemed to hit a wall, posting an 8.18 ERA over his next five starts with diminished velocity before being moved to the bullpen. He had a 4.91 ERA over nine relief appearances down the stretch while going on the injured list twice due to shoulder inflammation.

It’s not clear where the Giants want to put him next year. Even if he’s in the rotation, there would be room for an addition next to him, Ray, Webb and Harrison. The group of Birdsong, Winn, Roupp, Black and Teng could all be optioned to the minors or moved to long relief roles in the bullpen. If the Giants want to play at the top of the market, Snell will be up there but joined by Corbin Burnes, Jack Flaherty and Max Fried. Below those guys, there’s a large group of mid-rotation options, including Sean Manaea, Luis Severino, Yusei Kikuchi, Michael Wacha, Nick Pivetta, Nathan Eovaldi and more.

On the position player side, shortstop might be the most logical place for the club to add. Brandon Crawford had that spot locked down for years and the Giants struggled to replace him in 2024. Tyler Fitzgerald ultimately got the lion’s share of playing time there but is probably best suited elsewhere. He had a great year at the plate but his defensive grades at short were poor and he’s capable of playing elsewhere. Moving him to second base or a super utility role is probably the best plan going forward.

Marco Luciano was once viewed as the shortstop of the future but it’s unclear if the club views him that way now. He hasn’t hit much in the majors so far, with a .217/.286/.304 line through 126 plate appearances. That’s a small sample but he’s also hit .243/.370/.386 in 462 Triple-A appearances, which translates to a 95 wRC+ in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League.

Regardless of how he performs at the plate, he might not be viewed as a viable shortstop from a defensive standpoint. The club moved him to second base late in the year and Zaidi then said they wanted him to start learning the outfield. It’s possible that Zaidi’s dismissal changes the plans but public scouting reports aren’t bullish on his glovework.

The jewel of the free agent market will be Willy Adames, who won’t be cheap. Though he’s maybe not a superstar, he’s going into his age-29 season with a track record of above-average offense and defense. It’s a fairly similar profile to players like Dansby Swanson, Trevor Story and Javier Báez, who all went into free agency at the same age. Swanson got $177MM on a seven-year deal while Story and Báez both got $140MM over six.

If the Giants don’t want to give out that kind of deal, their options will be more limited. Ha-Seong Kim is perhaps the second-best free agent available but his situation is clouded by the fact that he just underwent shoulder surgery. Beyond Kim, the market will feature Paul DeJong, Nick Ahmed, Kevin Newman, Kyle Farmer and others who are questionable as viable everyday solutions.

The trade market hasn’t quite come into focus yet. Bo Bichette would be the top option if he were available but it doesn’t currently appear as though that will be the case and he’s a risk after his down year anyway. Perhaps Oswald Peraza can be pried loose from the Yankees as he’s blocked from regular playing time and out of options, but he didn’t have a good year in the minors. Perhaps guys like Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Orlando Arcia or Taylor Walls would be available but they are mostly light-hitting options. Given what’s on offer, a bold strike on Adames is perhaps the most attractive path, though time will tell if that’s something the Giants have in mind for this winter.

If the club successfully adds a shortstop, the rest of the infield could be set. Chapman has third base locked down for the foreseeable future. LaMonte Wade Jr. should be back at first base after another strong season at the plate. Prospect Bryce Eldridge will be pushing for that job eventually but he’s only 19 years old, turning 20 this month. He’s only played 17 games above the High-A level and struggled in his first eight Triple-A games, so he’s still got some climbing to do, but he’s hopefully the long-term solution at first base.