Good Will Hunting

Jan 10, 2026 | Latest Post, Out of Left Field

by DrLefty

I’m not really going to talk about the movie, though it did give me an opportunity to feature Robin Williams, Good Giants Fan (RIP) as the cover image. Rather, it’s a play on words about what the Giants are doing right now.

 

Hunting International Good Will

The big “news” this week was that a 17-person Giants contingent that included President of Baseball Operations Buster Posey, CEO Larry Baer, GM Zack Minasian, manager Tony Vitello, and shortstop Willy Adames traveled to Seoul, Korea, on what appeared to be a marketing/branding excursion. Yeah, I know that Vitello and Adames said they were there to “show love to Jung Hoo Lee,” and hopefully he felt supported by them, but let’s not kid ourselves. The Giants would like to see lots and lots of “SF” logo caps around Seoul in years to come. They’re workshopping a new slogan for 2026 to replace “Nothing Like It”: “If the Dodgers get Japan, we’ll take Korea.” Maybe not pithy enough?

 

Anyway, Buster gave an inspirational speech to a bunch of Korean high school baseball players, Adames’s Instagram feed was on fire, and everyone got to eat at a Korean BBQ place that’s impossible to get into–thanks to Kanye making it famous–because Lee is a rock star in Korea. It was all very good natured, and they seemed like they were having a good time. But…

 

Hunting Local Good Will

The fan base was not especially amused or charmed by all the hoopla being generated by this road trip to Seoul. “Why aren’t they here, trying to make the team better?” was pretty much the gist of the commentary on X/Instagram/Facebook/YouTube, and…what else is there, again? Especially since the only other news of note was the signing of Tyler Mahle being made official, accompanied by Minasian’s pronouncement that “We’re very comfortable with the five we have” (the starting rotation), implying that the Giants are done now with seeking starting pitching after adding two back-end starters (Mahle and Adrian Houser) with daunting injury histories. In his “Mailbagg” article yesterday, Andrew Baggarly added that fans shouldn’t even expect what seemed to be obvious fallback options: Vitello’s former player and friend Max Scherzer or recent Giant Justin Verlander.

In addition to Baggarly, various beat writers and columnists (John Shea of the SF Standard, Susan Slusser and Ann Killion of the Chronicle) have published articles over the past week along the lines of “Why aren’t the Giants, ya know, doing anything?” The major point of cognitive dissonance is the recent additions of Matt Chapman, Adames, and Rafael Devers, all big-ticket items on long-term deals who are not getting any younger–Chapman will play his age-33 season, Adames is 30, and Devers is 29. Even ace Logan Webb, who still seems like a kid, is 29 years old now. In other words, it’s a “win now” group of players, so why do you make those kinds of investments and drag your feet about finishing the job?

The other point of confusion is Posey himself, who came out of retirement to build a winner, not run back a team that finished 81-81. Yes, he replaced the manager and most of the coaching staff, and they’ve added two new starting pitchers whom you’d hope would be at least a modest upgrade from Verlander and the motley crew that took turns auditioning for the rotation in the last two months of the 2025 season. But that’s not much when you consider other downgrades. The bullpen is worse than it was a year ago at this time, and not by a little bit. Last season’s Opening Day right fielder is now an Atlanta Brave, and at this point, his replacement is a dubious platoon of two or maybe three guys who haven’t proven that they can hold down a major league job (Drew Gilbert, Luis Matos, and Jerar Encarnacion). The guy who played the most games as the DH last year (Wilmer Flores) is a free agent. No one is sure whether top prospect Bryce Eldridge will be ready to start the season in the major leagues. The top option to open the season at 2B, Casey Schmitt, had wrist surgery and will be delayed in spring training. Last year’s Opening Day starter at 2B, Tyler Fitzgerald, is in organizational limbo. No one ever seems to mention him.

Unless something changes in the next month or so, the team looks at best minimally improved from the one that finished the 2025 season, and you could argue that, except for the addition of Devers, it’s a worse team than it was a year ago at this time. So the confounding question is why is Posey content with mediocrity? It doesn’t seem consistent with who he is or what he’s said.

The fans are confused. The writers who cover the Giants are confused. National observers are shrugging their shoulders. What’s going on?

 

Some Possible Answers

I’m not saying I agree with any of the explanations I’m about to offer. Just trying to make sense of something that just…doesn’t.

  1. It’s a very slow free agent market in general. Baggarly made the fair observation that if you cruised around the Athletic home pages, you’d find a lot of other fan bases asking their local writers similar questions. Baggs mentioned the Padres, Guardians, Reds, Phillies, Yankees, and Mets. The Phillies haven’t yet signed back J.T. Realmuto. The Yankees supposedly want Cody Bellinger back. The Mets cancelled their FanFest event because the fan base is so unhappy that the team traded Brandon Nimmo and let free agents Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz walk. In other words, it’s not just the Giants disappointing people.
  2. The free agent market is log-jammed because of interesting economic factors. Another article in the Athletic, by Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon, pointed out some daunting math. The top free agents remaining unsigned, the likes of Kyle Tucker, Bellinger, Alex Bregman, Bo Bichette, and Framber Valdez, are all expecting very large paydays. But the teams most likely to pay them are deep (DEEEEP) into the luxury tax vortex. They gave the example of Tucker and a hypothetical average annual value of $40M. If the Dodgers were to sign him, Tucker’s deal would cost them $84M because they pay a 110% penalty–and this would be true for every year of the deal unless the CBA changes or the Dodgers reset their tax basis by dropping their payroll (much) lower. The Blue Jays are at a “mere” 90%, so the same contract to Tucker would cost them $76M per year. The Dodgers’ deal with closer Edwin Diaz will cost them $44.1M each year due to their 110% penalty rate. Similar math applies to the Mets, Phillies, and Yankees. Now, these are rich teams and maybe they don’t care. But those kinds of numbers will make you think twice. None of that applies to the Giants, who were not taxpayers last year, but it affects the whole market.
  3. The rest of the market is paralyzed until some dominoes begin to fall. While the rich teams hesitate over paying big salaries/penalties to the top free agents, other free agents and teams with trade chips are waiting to see what happens. For example, until Bichette and Bregman land somewhere, the Cubs and Cardinals will likely wait on trade talks about Nico Hoerner or Brendan Donovan–maybe a team that loses out on one of those free agents will make a better trade offer than one not competing for the big names. Or Harrison Bader, who might be the best free agent outfielder left after Bellinger and Tucker, might want to see how the market plays out for the other guys before making his own deal. This is the factor that might actually affect the Giants.
  4. The Giants may be waiting until after January 15 to make further moves. I haven’t read any analysis that suggests this, but I floated this idea the other day in the comment section. January 15 is the opening date for international free agent signings, and the Giants are expected to sign Venezuelan shortstop Luis Hernandez, who on some lists is the top position player in the class, to a large bonus. If they sign a free agent who received a qualifying offer, they would lose $500K out of their $5.4M bonus pool. They might want to make sure to sign Hernandez and any other IFAs with whom they have handshake deals before they pursue any free agents with QOs.
  5. Taken together, all four of the above factors might mean that the Giants aren’t actually done yet. Together with the two questions in the previous section (Why spend the money on Chapman/Adames/Devers if you’re not in “win now” mode and why would Buster Posey be satisfied with underachieving mediocrity), there are reasons to think that perhaps Santa might be arriving late this year. (Hopefully not TOO late. See Snell, Blake, 2024.)

I don’t really know. Things are confusing right now, and not just in Giants Nation. And we haven’t even discussed the specter of a lockout that could decimate the 2027 season, the shrinking pool of money from TV rights, the Curran Theater, etc., etc. I guess we have to wait for Buster, Zack, Tony, and Willy to get home from good will hunting in Seoul and see if they hunt some good will here in the Bay Area. We know Buster likes to hunt. Stay safe out there, guys! Lefty out.