It would be easy to assume that the San Francisco Giants might no longer be fully committed to president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi.
For one, they haven’t made public statements about his future. Additionally, the team is coming off an extremely disappointing season, arguably a more disappointing offseason and has yet to produce the type of talent from the farm system that Zaidi was brought in to fix.
In an article posted in The Athletic on Tuesday, however, Giants chairman Greg Johnson gave a strong endorsement of Zaidi, saying he’d be in charge at least through the 2024 season, and hopefully for longer.
“I’ll put this one to bed as much as I can,” Johnson told Andrew Baggarly. “In fairness to Farhan, our policy is not to talk about contracts until things are done. But I can tell you that he is 100 percent here through the end of next season. We do have an option. If we don’t extend him in the near (future) on a longer-term basis, which is what we plan to do, at the very least he’d be here through the end of (2024).
“So the message is that we are very happy with the direction of the ballclub, we are very happy with what Farhan is building and our goal is to lock him in to a longer-term deal.”
Johnson praised Zaidi’s ability to put a competitive team on the field despite not having much help from the farm system. It could be argued that Zaidi could be blamed for the lack of farm system talent, but he did have to essentially start from scratch after taking over in 2018. Johnson also said he likes the progress being made, such as the emergence of Casey Schmitt and Kyle Harrison.
Zaidi’s contract coincides with that of manager Gabe Kapler. Presumably the two will be a package deal when it comes to deciding whether to re-up both at the end of 2024.