Down, Down, Down…But Maybe Not Forever?

Sep 7, 2024 | Latest Post, Out of Left Field

by DrLefty

Since my last Out of Left Field, the Giants have…checks notes…won one (1) game. And that was despite Blake Snell, who removed himself after a rugged 42-pitch first inning, leaving the bullpen to cover eight innings, which they did quite well. Also, the struggling Patrick Bailey drove in all three runs including a walk-off double. Bailey now has three walk-off hits in his young MLB career, which let’s recall only began in mid-May, 2023. Buster Posey, who debuted in 2009, didn’t get a walk-off hit until 2013. Just saying.

The Giants are really good at walk-off wins. In fact, they lead the majors in that category. It’s nice to be the best at something. Of course, one could quibble that you wouldn’t need so many walk-off wins if you actually played well for the other eight innings. But I digress.

I waved the white flag two weeks ago, which was sooner than the Giants did. Last week I declared that we were onward to 2025, a theme I’ll return to from a different angle in a minute. But let’s briefly take stock of where we are now:

  • The Giants are 69-73 and double-digits behind the third place NL West team (the Diamondbacks). They’re 8.5 games out of the final wild card spot (currently a Braves-Mets tie) and have two other teams between them and that final spot.
  • They have the 11th-worst record in MLB right now. Remember how The Oracle used to do a “reverse magic number” thing in the dog days of 2017 and 2018? That annoyed some people. But I’m not gonna lie: a top-10 draft pick would be a nice consolation prize for this dismal failure of a season (including two lost draft picks).
  • We don’t need the gory breakdown of everything that’s gone wrong over the last three weeks. Let’s just stipulate that pretty much they haven’t done anything well–situational hitting, starting pitching, shutdown relief, defense…
  • They finally, a couple of days into September, waved their own white flag, calling up Marco Luciano and Luis Matos and sending down Blake Sabol (who was back for one whole day) and Casey Schmitt (who got way too many reps this year). It’s time to play the kids. We need to take deep breaths and tolerate misplays in the infield and bad ABs and sloppy base running and rookie starters with messy first innings. None of these games matter (except for getting a good draft pick!), but major league playing playing experience and the opportunity for the staff to assess the players close up could matter a lot.
  • They also shut down Kyle Harrison for the season. Except for a brief IL stint after he rolled an ankle in the weight room, Harry has taken the ball all season and for the most part has done a good job. His drop in velocity has been concerning, but it’s not unheard of for a young pitcher ramping up his innings beyond career highs. Next year will be his age-23 season, and we’ll see where we’re at. Let’s keep looking at Hayden Birdsong, Landen Roupp, Spencer Bivens, and Mason Black to gauge where they might fit in next year.

 

Another Angle on 2025

As we know, there was one big and unexpected piece of good news this week, namely Matt Chapman signing a new long-term deal with the Giants (six years, $151 mil). A lot of people here and elsewhere have commented on this deal, with most agreeing that it’s a positive move for the Giants and a (somewhat surprising) sign of health in the organization* that Chapman wanted to re-up and that, according to him, players from other teams are texting him about coming to the Giants themselves.

One thing we shouldn’t worry too much about is the price tag. Especially as the Giants lean more heavily into homegrown players (16 of the 26 players on the current active roster are homegrown; three more–Mike Yastrzemski, Erik Miller, and Brett Wisely–were obtained while minor leaguers and made their MLB debuts with the Giants), their costs for years to come will be more controlled. In addition, Jung Hoo Lee, Randy Rodriguez, and Keaton Winn are homegrown and on the IL but likely to be in the 2026 mix. This is no longer a roster that’s been primarily built through free agency.

Let’s look at the projected payroll for the next few years, using the Fangraphs Roster Resource tool. The 2025 luxury tax payroll as it currently stands is at about $136 mil. That does not include the salaries of arbitration-eligible players (for next year, that will be Yaz, Tyler Rogers, and LaMonte Wade Jr., plus first-timer Camilo Doval). Assuming all four of them will be offered arbitration, let’s call that number $18 mil. (This year’s total was $14.6 mil, which included nearly $5 mil paid to Thairo Estrada. We can assume that Doval will make less than Thairo did but that the other three will get raises.) So the Giants’ luxury tax number, even with Chapman on board, should be around $154 mil. (That number apparently assumes that Snell will opt out but that Robbie Ray will not. I’m not sure where Wilmer Flores’s likely opt-in for $3.5 mil fits.)

Let’s also assume that the Giants want to get back out of being taxpayers next year, so they’ll want to keep under the first tax number ($237 mil.). That still leaves them nearly $80 mil to spend on free agents if they want to. I know it seems weird to say this, but they don’t have that many huge holes to fill. If Yaz is back, along with the return of Lee, the emergence of Heliot Ramos, and three other young outfielders on the 40-man roster (Matos, Grant McCray, Wade Meckler), there’s no huge need for a free agent outfielder (though I agree that the Orioles’ Anthony Santander or even Teoscar Hernandez could be a nice target).

They do need to make some decisions about middle infielders. You figure Tyler Fitzgerald is in the mix somewhere, and they still need to figure out what to do with Luciano. But they have those guys, Wisely, and Schmitt, even after cutting ties with Estrada, their Opening Day 2B for the last three seasons. Wade and Flores (if he’s back) can hold down 1B until top prospect Bryce Eldridge is ready, which could be sooner than we think. (His ETA on MLB.com is 2026, but some prospect hounds think that the second half of 2025 isn’t ridiculous.) Bailey is a Gold Glove catcher, and his back-up situation needs to be addressed.

 

The pitching staff, even without Snell, shapes up pretty well with a rotation of Logan Webb, Ray, Jordan Hicks, and two of Harrison, Birdsong, Black, Winn, or Tristan Beck. And the bullpen isn’t losing anyone next year. It’s nearly all young guys.

So the Giants for once will find themselves in an offseason where they can focus on actually getting better rather than urgently filling huge holes. That’s why the Chapman extension is so important–that would have been a big hole to fill. I’m not saying the Giants shouldn’t upgrade some of those positions where they can. There will be plenty of time to discuss what that might look like. But they will have “cap room” and the ability to add strategically rather than out of desperation.

If you look ahead beyond 2025, the payroll situation gets even better. In 2026, the only remaining large salaries will be for Chapman, Ray, Hicks, Webb, and Lee, with Taylor Rogers going off the books. The three arb-3 guys (Yaz, Rogers, Wade) will all be free agents, and only Doval and newly arb-eligible Bailey will remain. In 2027, Ray’s deal will be done, and a long list of young players will become eligible for arbitration. But the numbers stay pretty manageable through the end of the decade.

Here’s one more thought about the Giants’ future that emerged in an article by Susan Slusser about the A’s move to Sacramento. One (anonymous) agent talked about the implications of the A’s being out of the Bay Area and then out of California altogether:

“In 10 years, the Giants are going to generate more revenue than the New York Yankees,” the agent said. “They’ll have all the Bay Area, and half of the state. They’ll have their Triple-A team in Sacramento, their Class-A team in San Jose. They own their stadium, they’re developing around it. San Francisco, Oakland, Silicon Valley, Sacramento — the Giants are about to become the monsters of Major League Baseball.”

*Now, that’s a great future to contemplate, but the elephant in the room is whether Giants’ ownership can or will capitalize on that or will be satisfied to “kind of break even.”  The even bigger elephant is how much longer the Farhan Zaidi-led front office will be in charge of this future.

The next few weeks should tell us a lot. If the Giants continue in the tailspin/death spiral that they’ve been in over the past few weeks and end up with 75 or fewer wins, will ownership double down on Zaidi? I think we can safely assume that Bob Melvin and his staff will be fine–Chapman doesn’t sign a long-term deal here without that–but how much longer will Zaidi be around?

 

Tonight’s Game

Giants at Padres, 5:40 p.m. at Petco Park

Logan Webb vs. Dylan Cease

So the 2024 ship is sinking. No question. But for 2025 and beyond? Maybe the ship will be righted. Lefty out.