SAN FRANCISCO – Before the Giants make any moves on players, CEO Larry Baer and Brian Sabean, the executive vice president of baseball operations, will have to find a new general manager. The position will not be a one-for-one replacement for the recently fired Bobby Evans, and whoever is hired will report directly to Baer with a higher title than GM. Once that search concludes, they might pursue one of three offseason paths.
No. 1 – The Bryce Harper option
Get your groans out. For as long as Bryce Harper’s free agency has been discussed, so too has the Giants’ interest in signing him. It makes sense. The team is aging and has no depth whatsoever in the outfield.
Unless the Giants sign Harper, sign other free agent outfielders, or retain one or both of Hunter Pence and Gregor Blanco, the starting outfield next season will likely be Steven Duggar in center, Gorkys Hernandez in left and Austin Slater in right.
Duggar was fantastic on both sides of the ball before tearing his left labrum and Hernandez hit a career-high 15 home runs this season. Slater was a good at the plate, but not great. He was sometimes a liability defensively, and was said by manager Bruce Bochy to need to change his swing to increase power after hitting just a single home run this year.
None of those players are bad. But they don’t exactly inspire fear in the hearts of opposing pitchers with a combined .242 batting average, 18 home runs and 80 RBIs. Granted, Duggar and Slater were in their rookie years and were still getting their feet under them, but that can’t be an excuse for what is essentially the Giants’ entire outfield.
Duggar, Slater and Hernandez played a combined 257 games and together mustered about the production that Andrew McCutchen alone provided in his 130 games San Francisco (.255 BA, 15 HR, 55 RBI). Duggar had by far the most efficient run production out the three, with 0.415 RBIs per game compared to Slater (0.311) and Hernandez (.282). McCutchen averaged 0.423 RBIs per game.
Assuming Blanco and Pence don’t return, which is possible, although unlikely given their production and age by the start of next season (both 35), there is almost no depth in the outfield.
There is Chris Shaw, who struck out at an alarming rate after being called up this season before leveling out and finishing with a decent hitting stretch at the end of the year. Bochy said he’ll likely need more time in Triple-A, which seems like the best course of action for a player who didn’t always see the strike zone well.
The only real outfield alternatives the Giants have are Alen Hanson, who’s more of an infielder than an outfielder, and Mac Williamson, who suffered a serious concussion and was unable to produce the same way he had earlier in the year.
The point of this all is to say the Giants are desperate for outfielders who can hit. As Bochy said after the year, they are looking for “professional hitters” with power, athleticism and hopefully, youth.
That would undoubtedly come from Bryce Harper. Despite an oddly low .249 batting average and a career-high strikeout rate (in 24.3 percent of his plate appearances), Harper still had a .393 on-base percentage thanks to his league-leading 130 walks. That, and his 34 home runs and 100 RBIs would have led all Giants players. He would immediately be the most dangerous batter in the lineup.
Here’s the problem: Harper may well command the highest per-year contract in MLB history. He’s a 26-year-old superstar client of Scott Boras, an agent who generally prioritizes cash over anything else. This could well mean a salary of at least $30 million per year for Harper, probably in the five-plus year range. Now, the Giants can afford to pay that, without question. But if they do, it leaves very little room for reinforcements.
If they keep everyone on their current roster except for Pence and Blanco, they’ll have around another $10-20 million to spend after signing Harper without going over the luxury tax. That’s if Harper takes $30 million a year. It could very well be more.
This is also assuming there’s no unforeseen spike in salary coming through arbitration this offseason. It’s a fair bet for most salaries to remain steady considering no one eligible had a truly standout year, although Sam Dyson and Will Smith will be likely candidates for raises.
However, even if the organization makes a great offer, it’s unlikely Harper actually comes to San Francisco, a middling contender at best in a pitcher-friendly ballpark. Andrew Baggarly, a Giants beat writer for The Athletic, said there’s a “6.67 percent” chance Harper comes to the Bay.
While Baggarly’s figure wasn’t entirely serious, the thought behind it was. AT&T Park has never been a highly attractive destination for hitters, let alone when the Giants are playoff pretenders. But, they have money and play in a huge market and that could potentially be enough to lure Harper depending on the other offers he receives.
More than anything, you can be sure the Giants’ front office knows the seat-filling value that signing Harper would bring to AT&T Park in 2019. After two disappointing, sub-.500 seasons, he would immediately provide excitement, power and youth. Whether that means success is another story.
No. 2 – Continue to push for the playoffs – without Harper
If the Giants don’t sign Harper, they may actually have a better chance at making the playoffs. Signing Harper would lock in the most bloated payroll in baseball through at least 2021.
How the offseason shakes out all depends on how the new GM – who should be in place, according to Baggarly, around the end of the World Series – looks at the roster. If the new GM decides the team can – and should – contend for the playoffs, there are plenty of avenues for that to become a reality, both under and above the luxury tax threshold set at $206 million for the 2019 season.
For that to work, the team would need to hold onto Madison Bumgarner.
The toughest part of this playoff equation is Brandon Belt, whose injuries derailed a fantastic first half of last season. When healthy, Belt is one of the best first basemen in the league. Debate that all you want, but in all four seasons that he’s played at least 137 games, he’s batted over .275 and averaged 14.75 home runs and 68.25 RBIs.
As this season has shown, you can’t expect anyone will stay healthy for the whole year. But if the team is going to compete for the playoffs, they’re going to have to assume he’ll be their starting first baseman and play at the standard he’s shown when he is healthy. That goes for Brandon Crawford too.
But there’s one glaring problem at the heart of everything the Giants do for the next few years. The team is paying an absurd amount of money for players who are over the age of 30 years old. If they want to re-sign Madison Bumgarner in free agency after next season, he’ll join that group too.
I mentioned this issue earlier in the year. The team has $128.9 million and $129.4 million guaranteed to seven 30-plus-year-old players in 2019 and 2020:
In order to maneuver around this, the team will have to be extremely specific in identifying what they need and how to acquire it. Trading prospects for players isn’t really an option, no matter how competitive the new GM would like to be. The organization has a very thin farm system, so any trades to improve the roster would likely mean using MLB players and/or taking on bad contracts, which there isn’t much leeway for.
If this team is going to actually try and compete for the playoffs next year, which would be in-character and not out of the question based on how the National League West shook out this season, here is what an ideal free agent crop would look like.
Outfielders:
To compete, the Giants need at least two starter-plus quality outfielders to accompany Duggar, Slater and Hernandez. The first one, who would make the most sense, is McCutchen (0.255 BA, 20 HR, 65 RBI). His batting average was also lower than it should have been based on how hard he was hitting the ball throughout the season.
This is without acknowledging how well he slotted into the lineup, got along with teammates that he still maintains contact with, and most importantly, how the season fell apart almost immediately after he and Duggar were gone.
There are plenty of power-capable outfield options in free agency. It’s just a matter of whether they’ll accept short-term deals. Looking at the table above, there’s no way the team can offer a contract longer than three years to anyone who’s over the age of 30. It wouldn’t fit the timetable of expiring contracts and how the team will reshape itself over the next half-decade.
McCutchen is 32 and still hitting the ball well, but at his age, he’s lining up for what is likely his last big contract. Spotrac.com lists his market value as a tick over $18 million, with most players at his age signing five year deals. If the Giants are going to bring him back, it would only make sense if it’s less than $15 million a year for the next three or four at most. That fits with the timeline of other players and leaves roughly $25-35 million elsewhere under the cap.
The best outfielder outside of Harper is probably Nick Markakis (0.297 BA, 14 HR, 93 RBI), who at age 35, might be amenable to a two- or three-year deal, probably around that $15 million mark. If you’re unaware of his career stats, they’re something to behold. Somehow, he’s made just one All-Star game despite a career .288 batting average over 13 years.
Besides McCutchen and Markarkis, there are four potential options all between age 30-33 with 16-plus home runs this season: Carlos Gonzalez (33: 0.276 BA, 16 HR, 64 RBI), A.J. Pollock (31: 0.257 BA, 21 HR, 65 RBI), Michael Brantley (32: 0.309 BA, 17 HR, 76 RBI), Marwin Gonzalez (30: 0.247 BA, 16 HR, 63 RBI).
While alternatives exist, the Giants need power more than anything, and if they’re serious about challenging for a World Series next year, they have to sign at least two plus-quality corner outfielders, and at least one from that list.
If the Giants are able to sign two corner outfielders for the price of one Harper (around $30 million), it leaves around $10-20 million in cap space. They would be wise to use some of that on a reliable closing pitcher. While they have a solid bullpen already, there has been no clear closer since Strickland went to the disabled list, and he wasn’t exactly dominant. When San Francisco won three World Series rings, they had Brian Wilson and Sergio Romo as THE guys.
To be genuine contenders, they need another one, and by signing someone like Adam Ottavino, Zach Britton, Jeurys Familia or Kelvin Herrera, they could move another reliever like Strickland to clear a bit of cap space. That signing would leave things tight, but could leave enough room open to go after Daniel Descalso, Neil Walker or potentially even Asdrubal Cabrera to challenge Joe Panik at second base.
Still, they wouldn’t be able to go after a starting pitcher by making those moves, or they’d need to go after a lower-tier, cheaper corner outfielder to compensate. The hope from Bochy and those within the organization is that Sean Anderson may be nearing a call up next season and could bolster the rotation. But for all those pieces to click, the Giants – who have yet to replace their recently fired strength and conditioning coach, Carl Kochan – need to somehow figure out how be healthy.
No. 3 – Rebuild – or as many commenters put it, ‘blow it up’
In the long term, this is the best option for the Giants, even though they’ll always have the payroll to compete with any team in baseball. But you shouldn’t spend money simply because you have it. They desperately need to get better everywhere and you do that by younger, stronger and more athletic.
Going after another Jeff Samardzija or Mark Melancon doesn’t help the team now. Signing an overpaid veteran doesn’t help at all, although it’s hard to predict whether an aging player like Samardzija or Melancon will get injured and suddenly become “overpaid.”
The team has one of the worst farm systems in baseball. While farm system rankings are inherently subjective and the organization seems to have a knack for turning unheralded prospects into gems, it’s not a reliable strategy, and teams like the New York Yankees, with the most money in baseball, have used the MLB pipeline to produce players like Aaron Judge, Luis Severino, Dellin Betances, Miguel Andujar, Austin Romine, Gleyber Torres, Gary Sanchez and Greg Bird.
The Yankees still have a massive crop of talent in the minors despite trades for J.A. Happ, Giancarlo Stanton and McCutchen. They gained some of those prospects – including Torres – by trading away Aroldis Chapman to the Chicago Cubs before re-signing him in the offseason. The Giants could try that with Bumgarner and they might pull it off with McCutchen this offseason.
As far as a full rebuild goes, not everyone is tradable. The team won’t move Buster Posey and probably won’t move Brandon Crawford. Both have full no-trade clauses as does – somehow – Mark Melancon.
Both Samardzija and Belt have modified no-trade clauses. Since the terms of those clauses are sometimes revisited in the offseason, it’s hard to know exactly which teams they can refuse to be traded to. Either way, Samardzija won’t be tradable unless he proves he’s healthy and has a resurgent year thanks to the remaining two years and $39.6 million on his contract. The same pretty much goes for Belt, who has three years, $51.6 million left. If the Giants can find a trade partner, they may well have to take on some of Belt’s remaining salary, the downside of which could be assuaged by the prospect haul.
Neither Evan Longoria nor Johnny Cueto have no-trade clauses, but their bloated contracts, age and – especially for Cueto, who will miss most, if not all of next season after Tommy John surgery – health concerns, mean they’re both effectively untradable.
So, if the Giants want to genuinely start rebuilding right now, what are their options?
First, trade Bumgarner
There will be no shortage of suitors for Bumgarner, who has one year and $12 million left on his deal. The Giants should look to contenders, like the Milwaukee Brewers, Yankees and Braves, who all have fantastic farm systems, for trade partners.
The Brewers’ top prospect is a second baseman, Keston Hiura (AA, 73 G: 0.272 BA, 6 HR, 20 RBI, 18 2B, 11 SB, 22 BB), who would be the clear future at the position. The Brewers also have a number of highly-touted outfield prospects. Granted, asking for an organization’s top prospect or prospects is not an easy maneuver, but the Brewers are in win-now mode.
They also have Jonathan Schoop, Hernan Perez and Travis Shaw (depending on whether he moves back to third with the impending free agency of Mike Moustakas) all at second base, with Orlando Arcia and Tyler Saladino at shortstop. They are not in desperate need of a middle infielder.
Why would the Giants need a middle infielder? That brings me to part two.
Send Joe Panik to a contender
Panik still has value and is making $3.45 million this season. He’s eligible for arbitration this offseason and after struggling to stay healthy and demonstrate the defensive range and capability that he once showed, the Giants would do well to capitalize on whatever value he still has, which may well be as a starting or at least top backup second baseman on a contender.
The Yankees could well be an option here. While Gleyber Torres will keep his starting second base spot, backup second baseman Neil Walker is likely to go elsewhere in free agency, and a team like the Yankees is always in need of starter-quality backups. Their farm system is chock full of pitching prospects, and Panik would be sure to bring back at least a couple of lower-level prospects, whether that’s from the Yankees or somewhere else.
Dish relievers while they’re hot
Again, the Giants can’t trade Melancon. But they do have a solid bullpen, despite some mistakes throughout the year. And there has literally never been a hotter time for relievers. With the surge of “bullpenning,” in which teams often skip starting pitchers and instead use a half-dozen relievers, it’s the prefect chance to put relievers on the market.
They traded prospects for Will Smith two years ago, but there’s no reason why they couldn’t reverse that process on another team with someone like Tony Watson (2.59 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 66 innings). At age 33, Watson concluded his best season since 2015 (1.91 ERA, 0.956 WHIP, 75.1 innings).
It doesn’t make sense to clean out your bullpen and leave nothing behind, but trading Watson, who’s only going to get older and has a palatable two years, $6 million left on his contract, is the type of move the Giants should be making.
The same goes for relievers like Sam Dyson and Hunter Strickland.
Dyson just finished the year with a 2.69 ERA, made $4.425 million this year, and is eligible for arbitration in each of the next two years. He had the worst season of his career last year and re-established himself as a reliable relief pitcher this year. He would fit right into a contending bullpen.
Strickland’s value probably tanked since he returned from punching a door and breaking his hand after a blown save. He’s shown attitude problems, which may be a factor of the ulcerative colitis he’s been quietly dealing with. However, he also demonstrated the ability to be a closer, and that glimpse is something other teams may want to take a chance on, despite his ERA jumping up to 3.97 at the end of the year and his velocity dropping off.
The only other reliever worth trading is Will Smith, who should be off limits after winning the 2018 Willie Mac Award. He inspired teammates with a comeback from Tommy John surgery (2.55 ERA this year) and is only 29, with the stuff to remain a very good reliever for a long time. He does go into his final year of arbitration this season, meaning the Giants will risk losing him to free agency the following year if they don’t extend him.
Hold onto veterans to fill the gaps
This means bringing back Derek Holland, Nick Hundley and maybe even Blanco or Pence. If you’re rebuilding, you need mentors for younger players who can teach on and off the field. The roles for Blanco and Pence would have to be made clear and diminished, but as two well-loved players who fill a position of need, and cheaply – likely at the veteran minimum – there’s really no harm in bringing them back. That’s true as long as they don’t take playing time from a player like Chris Shaw, if he proves he’s ready for day-in, day-out major league competition.
Play the kids
This is the most important step of any rebuild, and while Bochy has sometimes shown a reluctancy to give young players time, that’s probably more a factor of their readiness rather than Bochy’s willingness to give youth a chance. He ran out Duggar, Slater, Rodriguez, Suarez, Shaw, Garcia and even Avelino at the end of the year, but generally has an eye for when the kids are ready to play.
Unfortunately, the kids are sometimes going to have to face a baptism by fire. They might not be ready to play, but when you’re rebuilding, you have to let the ugliness persist to let them learn. Plus, by the time players like Crawford and Belt expire, the Giants will have an ungodly amount of cap space. That time in-between won’t be pretty, but if they want to win another three World Series titles in five years – or just one – this is the route they should take.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated the Giants traded for Tony Watson. The team traded for Will Smith, not Watson, who was signed in free agency in February.