For the San Francisco Giants, the Void Beckons
When we look back on this era of baseball in future times, exhorting children to get off our lawns, nobody shed tears of pity for the San Francisco Giants. After all, the Giants of this generation made the World Series four times and won three of them, a difficult, probability-crushing feat in a world where six division winners and four wild card teams make the playoffs. It was a team that featured most of the grandest years of one of the best players anyone will ever see — no, Dusty Baker, not Pedro Feliz — before that mantle was handed off.
After such a highlight-filled epic, the problem is what comes next? In literature, you have the ability to just end the story. King Arthur’s body sails to Avalon; Beowulf lives another 50 years; Frodo sails away. Or maybe the author doesn’t finish the books, and a TV adaptation shoves three years’ worth of material into 13 episodes. But baseball always has another sequel, another tale with new protagonists and antagonists and unfortunate Joe West cameos, and these San Francisco Giants have bungled the end of their current tale.
The Outfield Conundrum
We’ve talked a lot about Cleveland’s failures this offseason to address their outfield situation, but San Francisco’s problems are long-standing and arguably even less excusable. While one can rightly complain about the amount of chutzpah (and possibly arrogance) needed for a contending team to just let a major weakness slide going into the season because their competition is extremely weak, the Giants were under no such illusion. The NL West provided five playoff teams combined in 2017 and 2018 and the Dodgers were the NL champs in both seasons, so the “Hey, we play the Tigers and Royals a lot” excuse doesn’t hold. Not to mention that the Dodgers, while losing their partial season from Manny Machado, reasonably expected to get a full season from a returning Corey Seager, which is as good as a major free agent signing.
In terms of WAR, the last time the Giants had an above-average outfield was back in 2014. Hunter Pence’s last good year — though he’s been shockingly good this year — carried the bulk of the load, hitting .277/.332/.445 and posting 4.1 WAR for the season. Gregor Blanco, Angel Pagan, and Michael Morse covered the rest of the cavernous outfield. The team’s outfield ranking dropped to 24th in 2015, and hasn’t reached those dizzying low heights since. Blanco’s .291/.368/.413, 2.0 WAR season in 2015 remains the top WAR season for a Giants outfielder since Pence’s 2014. If we were in 2016 or 2017, that would be troubling; in 2019, it’s a disaster for a team claiming contention.
That’s not to say the Giants did absolutely nothing; that would be an unfair charge. When the Miami Marlins, looted and pillaged more often than fifth-century Rome, opened up their gates for another round prior to the 2018 season, the Giants were in on all of Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, and Marcell Ozuna at various times. They came away with none of those players and instead traded for Andrew McCutchen, and went the bargain route with Austin Jackson. McCutchen worked out more or less, but was an insufficient short-term fix to a long-term problem; the Giants essentially paid the Rangers Cory Gearrin and Justin Bahr just to be relieved of Jackson’s contract.
This year, looking at the last, best chance to recapture the magic of the 2012 season, San Francisco’s grand outfield plan was to sign outfielders that were highly sought-after by other teams…in 2012. None of Cameron Maybin, Gerardo Parra, or Craig Gentry made it out of March with the organization. While the Kevin Pillar trade was a reasonable one, it still left the Giants with an outfield that projected to be worth around two WAR combined for the 2019 season. Meanwhile, Pillar looks increasingly like the latest outfielder the team has picked up after their prime, rather than before or during it.
Magic is Dead
However they got here, 2019 is already essentially a lost cause. The Giants are tied with the Rockies for the second-worst record in the National League (for a team that’s actually trying to compete — apologies Marlins), and the aging roster has less upside than that of any team in the NL West. The ZiPS projected standings as of Monday morning paint a bleak picture of the division, at least as far as San Francisco is concerned.
| Team | W | L | GB | PCT | DIV% | WC% | PLAYOFF% | WS WIN% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 96 | 66 | — | .593 | 97.2% | 1.3% | 98.5% | 12.7% |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 81 | 81 | 15 | .500 | 2.0% | 12.2% | 14.2% | 0.5% |
| San Diego Padres | 78 | 84 | 18 | .481 | 0.7% | 4.8% | 5.5% | 0.2% |
| Colorado Rockies | 75 | 87 | 21 | .463 | 0.1% | 1.3% | 1.4% | 0.0% |
| San Francisco Giants | 70 | 92 | 26 | .432 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
ZiPS places the odds of the Giants making the playoffs at about one-in-355. That’s not impossible, but it’s at least implausible. The true odds might be even worse. One of the things that is out of ZiPS’s so-called “jurisdiction” is future roster moves. The ZiPS projections are based on which players teams currently have in their organizations, not the ones who could be. For example, in the more pessimistic scenarios for the Dodgers, ZiPS doesn’t consider that the team could make a trade for Marcus Stroman or Anthony Rendon or whoever else could help fix whatever happens to be going wrong in that slice of the multiverse. The Giants may be less-equipped than any team in the division to make these kinds of additions, featuring what is arguably the worst farm system in the NL West — if it’s not, it’s still not very good — and the least payroll flexibility.
But let’s imagine for a moment that the Giants could make the best possible acquisition for the least possible cost. Let’s re-project the Giants after acquiring Mike Trout for a heavily used VHS copy of 1989’s Think Big, a humorless comedy featuring the Barbarian Brothers driving a truck full of toxic waste while trying to thwart Martin Mull, David Carradine, Bull from Night Court, and the guy who played Jaws.
| Team | W | L | GB | PCT | DIV% | WC% | PLAYOFF% | WS WIN% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 95 | 67 | — | .586 | 97.0% | 1.3% | 98.3% | 11.8% |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 80 | 82 | 15 | .494 | 1.9% | 10.5% | 12.4% | 0.4% |
| San Diego Padres | 78 | 84 | 17 | .481 | 0.7% | 4.0% | 4.7% | 0.2% |
| San Francisco Giants | 76 | 86 | 19 | .469 | 0.3% | 2.4% | 2.8% | 0.1% |
| Colorado Rockies | 74 | 88 | 21 | .457 | 0.1% | 1.0% | 1.1% | 0.0% |
The best trade in major league history couldn’t save the 2019 Giants — only amazingly good luck could.
Dwindling Veteran Value
While the Giants spent the last couple of years competing without winning, a potential rebuild withered on the vine. With the farm in recent years looking like something ripped from The Grapes of Wrath, the Giants haven’t developed much in the way of new talent to compensate for the dwindling trade value of their veterans.
| Player | Pre-2017 | Pre-2018 | Pre-2019 | Now |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Johnny Cueto | 24.8 | 11.7 | 4.0 | 4.0 |
| Buster Posey | 22.7 | 18.9 | 11.5 | 10.9 |
| Brandon Crawford | 18.2 | 11.5 | 7.2 | 6.3 |
| Madison Bumgarner | 16.1 | 5.4 | 1.5 | 1.2 |
| Brandon Belt | 14.0 | 11.1 | 5.6 | 5.7 |
| Joe Panik | 11.0 | 8.7 | 3.5 | 3.6 |
| Jeff Samardzija | 10.4 | 6.2 | 2.0 | 2.2 |
| Mark Melancon | 5.3 | 3.0 | 0.7 | 1.0 |
| Will Smith | 2.0 | 1.1 | 0.9 | 0.7 |
| Evan Longoria | — | 8.9 | 4.1 | 3.8 |
| Kevin Pillar | — | — | 4.4 | 2.9 |
| Total | 124.5 | 86.5 | 45.4 | 42.3 |
It would have been extremely difficult for the Giants to justify starting their rebuild after the 2016 season. They were coming off an 87-win campaign and a playoff appearance, with an excellent infield and the top three of the rotation that looked like one of the best in baseball. 2017 was a notable disaster at 64-98, but you could still argue that with an aggressive retooling focused on making the team better in the short-term, there was room for a bounce-back season much like the ones the Boston Red Sox achieved a few times in the previous decade. But after another disaster in 2018? While winning is a laudable goal, rebuilding before this season, short of a major, near-miraculous overhaul of the roster, should have been an easy call.
Due to years used and unexpected player declines — there are far more players expected to under-perform than over-perform — the Giants’ name-veterans only have roughly a third of the win-value remaining in their contracts. And this ignores salaries — in a world where the Giants will not pay the entire freight on any contracts they move (also known as reality), many of these contracts are underwater and near-unmovable.
The team still has a chance to get something in return for a few of their veterans. While Evan Longoria and Johnny Cueto would likely pass through waivers at this point, Madison Bumgarner is finally back to his 2016 strikeout rate, and his ERA is only inflated because of a .312 BABIP. Our erstwhile colleague Jeff Sullivan implored the Giants to trade Will Smith back in January; it’s even more of an imperative now that 2019 looks as unimpressive as was projected. Not a lot of teams need a first baseman, but Brandon Belt would improve the Indians, Astros, Nationals, and maybe the Yankees if the Grim Orthopedist pays them another visit.
San Francisco made a great effort to avoid paying the luxury tax and they’ve been successful. But instead of paying the luxury tax, they’ve spent three seasons paying the mediocrity tax, finishing well out of the playoffs with payrolls in the high hundred-million range. Since the last time San Francisco made the postseason, they’ve won four fewer games than the Marlins while spending well over $100 million a year more. The longer it takes for the Giants to acknowledge the future instead of holding onto the past, the more painful that future will be.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
Is there any chance Longoria could play LF or RF reasonably average? Maybe if he could then the Indians might be interested.
Holy moly
Well, I guess people hated this. Don’t know why, just thinking of how the Giants could make current players more valuable. It’s not like Longoria is completely unathletic.. Sheesh, sorry.
A team would have to be pretty dumb to fall for that. I am sure that some teams switch around players positions to maximize WAR, but I don’t think a real team is that simple-minded. I think there is still (thankfully) a huge disconnect between WAR and what teams actually value . Its the readers and authors of these pages that worship WAR, but I don’t think MLB teams look at it that way. It takes a certain kind of blindness to not notice lipstick on a pig.
RonnieDobbs is the reason this site needs to have paid membership requirements to post comments.
Yeah, people hate this because it would make him less valuable, not more. He’s still at least an average 3B. However, his bat is, uhhh, below average. So you move him down the defensive spectrum to LF/RF and what? Now, he’s completely unplayable because of his bat.
Plus, he may be terrible in the OF. Who knows? He’s probably not going to be Alex Gordon transitioning to the OF from 3B.
Thrasius hits on one of the big points, but the other is that nobody is going to pay more than $1M on a guaranteed contract for a scratch defender in a corner outfield with a wRC+ of 90. The Giants could give him away, pay virtually all of his salary, and still not receive anything in return.
I suspect the downvotes came not because 17 people really hated it, but because 17 people sort of hated it.
Also tied with the Mets for that same second-worst NL record among those ostensibly trying to win this season.
And the Rockies. And within spitting distance of the Reds. So tied for the third-worst NL record with essentially three other teams, which isn’t good, but not terrible.
I’m more put off by the -42 run differential.
Sad that we accept that some teams are not trying to win.
Every team is trying to win – it’s just they are trying to set it up to win in the future. If you took over the Marlins, Giants, Orioles what moves could you make that would get them into the playoffs this year?
The Marlins might not actually be trying to win now or in the future. It’s hard to know what they’re thinking.
Cody Bellinger has accumulated 4.2 WAR this season.
The entirety of the Giant’s outfield from 2016 to the present has also accumulated 4.2 WAR.
That is all.
I hope Belt gets traded while he has something left. He has suffered Bochy’s ire, mismanagement. and that home park for so long… Imagine him in Yankee Stadium.
The other night in AZ Belt hit a 410′ HR to the D-backs swimming pool. Statcast said it would have been a HR in 29/30 parks. Nobody had to guess which park was the 1.
That’s funny. There’s a sense among the beat writers that now that Polo Grounds-loving ownership partner Peter Magowan has gone to the big ballpark in the sky, the Giants next year will get rid of triples alley and put the bullpens out in right-center. Two benefits: Attract more power hitters, and get rid of the safety issue with the bullpens on the side of the field.
One disadvantage though: can’t use the park as an excuse for why hitters won’t sign here.
I thought that was a done deal? Those “bullpens” are a safety hazard and it seems inexcusable to have ever put them there in the first place. Whatever was gained in asthetics (?) was more than offset by the hazardous potential.
I’ve long wondered that. He has a much higher career wRC+ than Arenado. Now I am not certain that should be correct, but to me it does sort of say, wow. He is a great hitter, a truly great hitter. That at bat last year when he set the major league record for most pitches seen in an at bat is must see tv. Yes, it is over 14 minutes long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6FTg1XwLfg
he plays half his home games in a cavernous park, true dat. But he’s hurt so much. And even on the road he’s hit only 75 homers in 1701 at bats. He’s always had greatness upside, but he’s not there and at his age likely won’t ever be. But…I LOVED that AB!!!
The humor here is just excellent. The first couple of paragraphs are great, and then the Think Big and Grapes of Wrath references… priceless.
Yeah this is Dan at his savage best! Like Roger Ebert having to review a Deuce Bigelow flick— merciless; but nakedly honest. I dare anyone to take issue with any of it.
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/deuce-bigalow-european-gigolo-2005
I had to google it. nice read.
As good as it gets. I Laughed out loud over the Marlins comment.
I’m not a Giants fan myself, but have many friends who are. And even they would find this piece amusingly written (albeit a wee bit sad).
I already said it in the farm system article: the giants need to go full Astros style tank. This is because they have the triple threat:
-below average (albeit slightly improved) farm
-old and bad mlb roster
-bloated payroll
The third thing makes their situation particularly bad. The royals, Os and tigers also have not much talent in minors and majors but at least they have not a high payroll, the giants have a lot of money committed the next 2-3 years too similar to the 2013 Phillies.
This means they can’t really do that much. They can’t add more payroll and the money also means many guys are untradeable. The big club is not getting better either.
They have two high upside talents in ramos and bart and that is it.
A multi year tank job, adding money to bad contracts to get prospects , spend money internationally drafting high, signing relievers and reclamation projects to trade is the way to go.
They have a great new GM so maybe it could go a little quicker than the Phillies 2012-17 rebuild.
Yeah that GM is lauded and worshipped by everyone in LA, but he may well have dug himself too big a challenge to Houdini out of and still end up smelling pretty
I don’t really believe true “tanking” is worth it. The high draft picks are nice, but it’s utterly shameless and the fans know it…it rips through your fanbase pretty hard. It’s not like the NBA where one player can single-handedly rescue a franchise, and the only way to get a true star is to pick in the top five picks or be located in Los Angeles or Miami or NYC.
Let’s say, hypothetically, you gave away Posey, Belt, Crawford, Samadzija, and Melancon for org depth and got very little salary relief (which is likely what they could get at this point, because of the no-trade clauses–you might not be able to even give away Cueto or Longoria right now). If you have expensive veterans who aren’t very good and won’t actually get anything back, trading them just to get them off the roster and you lose another 5-7 games, that would bump you from being #7 in the draft order to #5. Is that worth it? No, probably not, although Bumgarner’s probably another win right there, which would put them in play for #4.
Three of the five best players in the NBA (Giannis, Kawhi Leonard, Steph Curry) were not drafted in the Top 5. None of them play in LA, NYC, or Miami.
Ask Cubs or Astros fans if tanking was worth it. Judging by their attendance, their fans either have short memories or they’ve created a ton of new fans. Tanking is worth it, but it has to be done wisely.
I don’t really think the Cubs tanked. Tanking is just working on losing, regardless of the future prospects you’re getting back by getting rid of your contributors.
The Anthony Rizzo trade doesn’t really fit that description. The Paul Maholm signing, and then later trade, was really all about getting Vizcaino. The Dempster trade brought talent back. The Scott Feldman trade brought talent back. The Samardzija/Hammel trade brought talent back.
Now, the Astros absolutely did that, and it was utterly embarrassing. Was it worth it? I don’t know. It took them winning a world series to restore their attendance. You fall short, then you’ve permanently scarred a (micro) generation of fans.
Tanking in mlb is not just about the draft picks, it is also about trading everyone of value for prospects. The high picks are a nice side effect of this.
But that’s not tanking. That’s rebuilding. There really is a difference. Tanking is, by definition, trying to lose games to improve draft position. Rebuilding is trying to stockpile talent by trading current assets for ones that will mature later with the rest of your minor league system. I don’t really think there’s ever been a good example of tanking in MLB except the Astros a few years ago.
And getting rid of Posey, Belt, Crawford, etc right now would be essentially a tank job. Whatever value they have is negated by the lack of leverage because of the no-trade clauses. They’d essentially be giving them away but continuing to pay them, so in that case, why not keep them and save the team some embarrassment?
Not really. Tanking is more about stripping down the Major League roster of almost all valuable commodities (that aren’t still young and cheap enough to still be valuable upon return to contention) without signing or otherwise acquiring very many stopgap players to fill the big holes on the Major League roster and instead rushing mediocre or unfinished prospects that should still be playing in AAA. On the other hand, mere re-builders will still sign those veteran stopgaps to put up a decent Major League payroll and avoid a complete embarrassment of a MLB roster.
The state of the Major League roster and payroll is mostly what separates the two approaches, not the potential draft picks nor the value of the prospects received in trades.
I’ve always viewed trading away current assets as an aspect of tanking and tanking as an aspect of rebuilding. I’ve also viewed cheap (1-year) veteran stopgaps as potential current assets to flip for future assets.
Okay, but how do they do it with so many unmovable contracts?
There is no rebuilding for the Giants. They didn’t have the prospects to truly get in on the Marlins fire-sale and literally the only 2 big contracts that don’t have no-trade protection are Cueto (who can’t currently, you know, pitch) and Longoria who is on year 3 of looking like toast and has another 3.5 years on his deal. Posey, Crawford and Melancon have full no-trades. Samardzjia, Belt and MadBum have partial no-trades and MadBum just submitted his list of 8 teams he can block trades to and basically listed every plausible contender that might want him which just obliterates his trade value. Smith can’t bring back much. Maybe Pomeranz if he can put together a solid month here and re-establish some value but even there you’re looking at a modest take not building blocks.
They are $30M under the luxury tax and probably could have been in on someone like AJ Pollack or Michael Brantley or McCutchen but they didn’t and as noted in the article, that wouldn’t have changed things at all. (As for Harper, I think they have absolutely zero shot at him. Young LH power hitter with likely HOF aspirations and I have no doubt he wanted no part of AT&T Park as a long-term situation).
They are just going to have to stink for awhile while they wait for contracts to fall off the books. Samardzjia comes off the books after 2020, POsey, Cueto, Crawford and Belt after 2021 and Longoria after 2022 (& Posey, Longoria and Cueto come with buyouts totaling $13M) so they probably are looking at 2022 before they can really spend FA money and longer than that to replenish their putrid farm system.
I do wonder if the no-trade clauses are being weighed too heavily. I certainly don’t know the mindset of Crawford, Posey, Belt, MadBum, Samardzjia and Melancon, but I have to think, if they sit down with these guys and say, Look, here’s the situation, we don’t have the talent to compete right now, our payroll is bloated and our farm system sucks. We won’t be adding any significant free agents or making any trades for MLB ready talent. Essentially we’re going to suck for the remainder of your contract. Obviously we can’t force you to waive your no-trade clause but this is the reality of the situation. Alternately, we could trade you to a contender and you could have another shot or two are winning a World Series before you retire. What’s your preference?” I would think the majority of them would be willing to waive that clause. Granted, they may make it a little more difficult on them by refusing to go to a few select teams; however, I don’t think the no-trade clause is going to end up being as big of a deterrent as it’s being made out to be.
I guess I’ve always thought the no-trade had less to do with baseball and more to do with family issues. These guys are people with wives and kids who have established roots in the community – friends, school, etc. Who wants to be ripped away from that where you either have to move your family halfway across the country or spend 6 months away from your family. No-trades give players control and say over where they play and has less to do with winning for the most part.
The one guy I could see waiving a no-trade is MadBum. He lives in North Carolina on a farm during the offseason and lives in a small condo in SF during the season. He’s married but I don’t think he has any kids and she is from NC as well. I could see him waiving the no-trade to Atlanta which is about 4.5 hours from his farm. (Of course, the counter-argument to Atlanta is that if he wouldn’t mind being traded there, why did he put them on the no-trade list in the 1st place?)
He’s also in the final year of his deal so it’s not like he’s committing to playing somewhere else for the next 2, 3, 4 years.
FYI, he put nothing but contenders on his no-trade list (other than the NL West contenders) to give him more leverage on where he is traded. He would waive that to go to ATL no doubt.
The NTC’s are much more about getting the player additional leverage to force an extension than they are about where the player doesn’t want to play. Unless they have a bad agent they’ll list all the most likely trade partners.
Or just straight-up cash compensation to waive it, a lot of times they don’t want or know they won’t get an actual extension.
Absolutely true…push comes to shove, they will accept a trade, even MadBum. And he would go to the Yankees or Red Sox in a heartbeat. Putting them on the no trade list is just to ensure he gets more money when he accepts.
I think he would go almost anywhere, but I doubt he would go to the Yankees. He just seems like the sort of guy who would refuse to go somewhere that would make him shave. He probably wants to go to a red state.
“He probably wants to go to a red state.”
why’s that?
Because he is a redneck? Why does that even have to be said?
I think of the Giants as one of the last teams with an “old school” mentality. I don’t mean they are anti-analytics by that statement. I mean they were too loyal to the players that brought them there instead of looking towards the future.
Don’t fool yourself, they’re still anti analytics beyond the marketing attraction of saying otherwise. They look at analytics as a competing religion and not better and more insightful information.
What is the basis for this comment? To pretend that any of us have a clue how MLB decisions are made is pretty absurd. Pretty harsh criticism for one of the best organizations of recent memory. What is anti-analytical decision making? I think the very idea is pretty absurd.
If that’s true, Zaidi was an awfully strange hire.
Too loyal? They won 3 world series in 5 years, the WS in 2010 being their first in over half a century. I’m a Giants fan I’m glad they rewarded their stars with these deals. Clearly those deals werent great for the organization long term but I’m willing to accept that. Its refreshing to see a sports franchise show some loyalty to their players.
The trade for Longoria is one of the more bizarre player-acquisition decisions in recent years. He still has three years left guaranteed on that deal.
For some reason, Zaidi has decided to follow the party line as the new GM of the Giants, rather than lay out the effort and timetable it might take to dig out of the hole the Giants find themselves in. For the life of me, I don’t understand why he just didn’t lay out the facts of life to the fanbase instead of falling in line with the brand of magical thinking that got them in this mess. It’s not like a magic wand exists to fix the organization’s essential problem, they neither know how to identify nor develop talent in their minor league system.
Upvote, I’ve been wondering the exact same question. Ownership? The current strategy just doesn’t smell like his probable (?) MO.
The problem isn’t that the organization isn’t holding onto the past as much as the fans are. Living in the Bay Area, I don’t get the feeling the larger part of their fanbase gets the notion of a rebuild–instead relying on the hocus-pocus of even/odd years. Evidence bears this out: their ticket sales have tanked since the beginning of the year. Most Giants fans on this site knew the team was bad. Most of the broader Giants fans were hoping “this would be a good year” or arguing “they only need to spend on Bryce Harper.” At any rate, they aren’t going to understand dumping their favorites like Belt or Bumgarner. let alone their favorite detriments like Crawford and Panik. The front office has to deal with those realities.
Hey, what do you call a fantasy league with a Giants fan? The one in which Brandon Crawford was drafted.
I more or less agree with Dan, but realistically this team was never going to be able to trade those veterans after 2018 because they all had no-trade clauses. Or at least, not get much value for them. If you’re saying that they should have traded players after the 2018 season, I don’t see them getting anything at all. Not salary relief, not prospects…everyone had down years.
Where did they really screw up? I think the only reasonable time to say they screwed up was after the 2017 season. They still won a lot of games in 2016, not anything justifying a full scale rebuild. Sure, they would have been smarter to not sign Cueto, Melancon, Belt, or Crawford to huge deals, but that’s a hindsight analysis based on how everything turned out. And sure, they would have been smarter dealing Bumgarner before his shoulder woes but who could have called that?
On the other hand, the 2017 season was a disaster but Buster Posey was still likely the best catcher in the game, and Jeff Samardzija still looked okay. The no-trade clause screws things up, but if you eat some money and trade those guys, you get to fight another day. Plus, you don’t trade Bryan Reynolds and Kyle Crick, nor trade for Evan Longoria (which, in fairness, looks like lemons all around right now). If you do all those things and fast-forward to 2019 you either have less money on the books or more prospects on the farm for a rebuild, plus Bryan Reynolds. And then this season, you can try and deal Bumgarner and Belt (although Belt also has a no-trade), and Will Smith.
And yet, despite all of that, I don’t really find too much fault in what the Giants have done. Trading Posey would have really ticked off the fanbase, and the no-trade clause means he could have just pulled a Stanton and stuck it out. Samadzija, Belt, and Crawford’s no-trade clauses would have really cut into the return.If you’re not going to save money or get talent back, then what’s the point? You might as well keep them and try to be respectable. They gave up nothing of value for Longoria except money, so it was a worthwhile gamble (although they didn’t get much in return either). And in 2019, it doesn’t make sense for them to try and sign expensive free agents because they’re going to be bad. About the only thing that was objectively bad was the McCutchen trade.
I’d say issuing all those NTCs was objectively bad.
So it comes down to generally deficient development/draft system for the last decade.
That’s what I wonder… is where did they screw up? Other than taking on too many past-their-prime guys.. and hasn’t that issue just recently happened?
Since ’07, the Giants and Red Sox have won 3 WS titles apiece but the Sox have been to the playoffs 7 different times in that span, compared to 4 times for the Giants. I don’t know much about the Giants… are they considered a big market like BOS? But it seems like BOS is consistently ‘in it’, while SF just looks like a team with no light at the end of the tunnel.
Well, the real problem with that 2017-18 offseason is that they needed to heavily retool and get younger to seriously return to contention, but they instead got older by trading for past their prime veterans in Longoria and McCutchen while doing very little to improve the other problem areas on their roster. Everyone at the time knew that it was an insufficient patch job that was going to bite them long term without doing enough to seriously compete in the short term.
And that’s what cost Sabean his job. It’ll take Zaidi a few years to fix it, but the Giants have high revenue, Joey Bart in high-A ball (unfortunately with a broken hand fracture, and good draft choices coming up.
They’re going to sell off this summer. Multiple reports that they’re open for business right now with the bullpen and Bumgarner. No one else has significant trade value to speak of. Mad Bum’s trade value was down in the winter so it didn’t make sense for new Pres. of Baseball Ops Zaidi to sell a franchise icon when his value was down for a very light return. That is looking like a wise decision too, as his K% and velocity are back up this year. Point is, they’re going to start selling soon most likely.
“The Giants are tied with the Rockies for the second-worst record in the National League (for a team that’s actually trying to compete — apologies Marlins)”
This seems to imply the Giants were trying to compete in 2019, and I honestly don’t know where the writer got this notion. They seemingly didn’t try to tear down, but I don’t think any of their moves denote that they were ever trying to win this year.
Also, minor quibble, but Gerardo Parra did make it out of March, and even April, with the big league team.
They did make a pretty public push for Bryce Harper on a short term deal. Whether they were actually trying to sign him or if this was an attempt to show they’re fanbase they’re trying to compete, I don’t know.
They made a 12-year offer.
The first two paragraphs of this article are awesomely written. Maybe you can help out that hack author you referenced…
This article seems to round up the usual suspects about the decline of the Giants, but at least they’ll always have Parra.
*groan*
Sounds like the Giants reflect the decline of their city. Really sad.
wat
They probably aren’t covered in poop and spent needles. So they have that going for them.
So, reading between the lines, the answer is to bring Michael Morse out of retirement?
I agree with this entire article except the contention that is was reasonable for the Giants to not start the rebuild after the 2017 season. It was clear by mid 2017 that the party was truly over.
The only way this can be better is when the A’s new stadium is being built. Would be nice to have some of that wealth the Giants have been keeping to themselves.
Anyways the only time the Giants are relevant is when the Bay series comes along, otherwise it is like the don’t even exist.
The Giants need to cash in their chips that still have some value (W.Smith, T. Watson, Bumgarner) for minor leaguers and/or international signing space and get the pipeline more help. We’ll see how Zaidi does during this season’s draft & trade exercises. Obviously their partnership group wanted to be under the soft cap, and the previous regime was all out of rabbits (like Cody Ross, Aubrey Huff, etc.) that should not have helped them much, but turned out great during the World Series years.
I need to purchase a copy of Think Big.
I have a lot more respect for making an attempt to compete than tearing it down and claiming a rebuild is happening. Criticizing teams for trying to compete is the worst thing anyone can do from a baseball perspective. The opportunity for a profitable tear down and rebuild has come and gone. At the point where half the league is “rebuilding” there is no profit to be made there – nobody wants your veterans. The narrative that a rebuild is a smart baseball decision is a harmful one. More often than not, a rebuild is just a PR spin for a team more interested in $$$ than baseball. Its cute to look at the Astros and Cubs and say that is what a rebuild looks like, but I am not sure that followed any formula and luck certainly played a big role – Arrieta and Keuchel for example and 1st round picks that contributed. Much like the OBP revolution, by the time the rest of the league catches on the advantage is gone. Those successful rebuilds happened long before the window being discussed here. Nobody will keep track of the failures (who ever does?), but most of these “rebuilds” will bear no fruit other than profits for the ownership groups.
I disagree with most of what you post, but I mostly agree with this. The Giants just don’t have much of value to sell. Their roster is also too poor to be worth trying to add, though. I’m not sure there’s much they can do except ride it out and wait for their low-minors prospects to develop.
The one advantage they have is the ability to give major league playing time to some interesting marginal guys. If I were them, I’d be trying to get some cheap/free guys out of the orgs that have stuffed 40 man rosters (Astros? Padres? Rays?) and give them some PT.
This is exactly what they are doing. They constantly claim guys from other teams and either play them on the big league roster or try to sneak them through waivers (Altherr recently, MIchael Reed, attempted this with former prospect Andrew Moore). Either they do well and they become trade chips/sweeteners or they fail and you lose nothing. They did this with Erik Kratz when they traded him to the Rays for a somewhat interesting relief arm.
Parra definitely made it out of March with the Giants, April as well.
Meanwhile, Matt Holliday’s agent is still waiting for a phone call…
I have never heard of “Think Big”, so I had to IMDB it. Quite a description.
“Two somewhat retarded truckers hired to transport toxic waste across the country get caught up with a teen genius who stows away on their truck.”
The option to blow things up this offseason didn’t really exist. What trade assets did they have? They would be selling extremely low on basically every single player you’d want to deal with the exception of Smith/Watson . They didn’t add to their roster in any meaningful way, instead taking fliers on players like Parra, Pomeranz, Solarte, and even Pat Venditte. They clearly resisted adding anymore long term assets at the major league level.
They have been active on the waiver wive and made multiple selections in the rule V draft, with Travis Bergen proving to be a decent lefty arm considering he had only 35 Innings of experience in AA. They are trying to find value any way they can. Sometimes it fails (Michael Reed+Connor Joe) and sometimes it really works (see what Trevor Gott is doing . . . think the Nationals want him back?)
I don’t think the Kevin Pillar trade had anything to do with “competing in 2019”. I think the Giants wanted to find someone who could A. play everyday competently B. would be cheap and C. could be a trade asset with a few good months of play. Hanson/Law weren’t making the 40 man roster so they would probably be lost anyway and De Paula, while still a prospect, has 40 man issues of his own incoming. They pretty much got Pillar for nothing. Trying to turn PIllar in a long term asset is worth the risk of losing Law, Hanson, De Paula.
I would be very surprised if the majority of their bullpen remains on the roster past the trade deadline. The Giants bullpen has been excellent so far and there are several contenders in need of useful arms. I would think that the goal would be to attach an arm(s) like Sam Dyson or Tony Watson to a player with a bigger price tag to offload future commitments (Belt, Samardzjia, Crawford, etc.) . Trading Bumgarner seems inevitable and as long as he continues pitching at this level the Giants will get something decent in return. The same goes for Will Smith who has established himself as one of the best left handed relievers in baseball. The Giants “rebuild” has almost certainly started already. Unfortunately its going to be a lengthy process, The trade deadline should hopefully accelerate the process.