In a Friday appearance on the Murph & Mac podcast (audio link and partial transcript here), Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi discussed the relatively slow pace of the offseason, his personal takes on some Giants players, and several other subjects over the course of the interview. From a hot-stove perspective, Zaidi noted that “we’re hopeful to have an announcement on a signing or a trade here in the next couple of days,” so some type of transaction could be imminent now that we’re more than two days removed from the interview.
Some more highlights…
- In general, the Giants’ offseason maneuverings have been made more difficult by their lack of prospect depth and financial flexibility. “The reality is our organizational stock in both those areas is not particularly high right now. It just casts a different light on the opportunities that we have out there,” Zaidi said, while adding “I still think we’re going to have those opportunities” as the offseason develops. Headline-grabbing moves aren’t always the ones that help the team the most, as Zaidi noted that the Giants’ best move of the 2017-18 offseason may have been inking Dereck Rodriguez to a minor league contract.
- Zaidi reiterated that the Giants aren’t going into a full rebuild, saying “We’re going to do what we can within the constraints we have to put a competitive ballclub out there” in 2019. Winning the division “is always going to be a goal,” even as Zaidi admits the Dodgers are still the team to beat at this point.
- A recent report from MLB.com’s Jon Morosi linking the Brewers and Giants in trade talks about Madison Bumgarner was “overblown,” in Zaidi’s words, as Bumgarner is “a huge part” of San Francisco’s plans to compete next season. “We spent this offseason having to be realistic with where we are and being willing to listen on anything,” Zaidi said. “But it doesn’t change the fact that Madison Bumgarner is a very central cog to this team. Nobody is making any outgoing calls on Madison Bumgarner.”
Let me know when he makes the move that he said he hopes to complete tomorrow or Tuesday
A glimmer of hope would sure be nice.
Probably the Holland signing.
something about the Giants nickname in a sports team that makes them stubborn to move on from the past
…huh?
He’s referring to the NY Giants nfl team.
You know the old saying
No moves is the good moves
The Giants have been so good for so long with many titles. Personally they’ve earned a rebuild at this point and I’m not sure what they’re waiting for.
They were good for 5-6 years. That’s not a very long time. The last time they were good was the first half of 2016. Since then they’ve been atrocious. 2 and 1/2 seasons of terrible and at least 2 more.
1 game away from beating the eventual WS champs in 2016 sounds pretty atrocious.
LOL that’s one series. It means nothing. Their 2nd half winning % was nearly as bad as the winning % of the 2017 team that finished 40 games out.
Also being good for 5-6 years isn’t “long”? What is long to you?
He’s probably a Yankees, Red Sox or Dodgers fan. They don’t rebuild they just rebuy. You know the teams that can spend their way out of a rebuild.
The Giants could and should employ that same strategy.
Giants had a higher payroll than dodgers in 2018. And dodgers develop a LOT of farm talent.
Giants FO are cheap because they sell out most, but not all, of their games. They think fans will disappear from Oracle Park (that’s the name now) if they admit to a “rebuild”. They have to hang on to Bum and Buster to keep the “faithful” in thrall…
honestly they ought to go the dodger route – that is use the money to ride the edges o the rules to acquire spending money, draft picks, take on bad contracts to get other guys they want etc. The fact is that teams like the giants, dodgers, yankees, red sox will never be able to rebuild the same way that the astros or the rays or any of the teams considered small market teams since they don’t have the same kind of advantage that things like comp picks and additional intl. spending money give you, they need to use their super power – money creatively – otherwise the only real option is to sign the most expensive guys on the market for long contracts and cross your fingers..
You do realize the giants had the 2nd highest payroll in baseball in 2018 only behind the Red Sox?
Facts are these guys kriponite.
*kriptonite*
3rd right? The Nats were higher
Yankees developed all their own home grown talent.
You do realize looking at one year doesn’t make your argument right? From 2013-2017 the dodgers had the highest payroll in baseball according to Spotrac.com.
*kryptonite*
5th actually, based on ending payroll that account for luxury tax purposes and something Cots and others don’t fully reflect. The Giants’ opening day payroll was 2nd, but were leapfrogged by Nats, Cubs and Dodgers by seasons end. This was talked about on MLB Now when the luxury tax was figured by MLB, where the Sox and Nats were the only teams to owe.
LOL the Giants spent MORE MONEY than the Dodgers in 2018. The Dodgers haven’t signed a big time free agent since Greinke like 5 years ago.
In ACTUAL payroll, but not what CBT goes by. I’m talking about for luxury tax purposes and the Dodgers were higher, but it was within 200 thousand, so not much difference. Also, I would add, better money well spent by LA over SF.
They have the highest winning percentage in the history of the National League. Numbers speak for themselves. Making your jealousy known to the public never helps…
They’re concerned about their season ticket holders. They’ve sold a lot of season tickets with the promise they’ll continue to try and win championships. Right or wrong, they’re trying to make good on that promise, at least publicly.
what he said…
Giants’ ownership fear a drop of season ticket holders as well as no shows happening that hurt concession sales. The last time they talked of a rebuild was after 2007 and letting Bonds walk. They aimed for a competition play in 2011 as reported by John Shea and Schulman. Andrew Baggarly had once said something about 2009 changing course because they became competitive, which was like 1997’s “rebuild”! From 2007 to 2008, AT&T dropped under 3 million for the 1st time and over 300 thousand fans and stayed steady to that in 09. They almost gained it all back in a competitive 2010 and haven’t looked back since.
They may take a hit in attendance at first, but I believe the fans would return once competitive again, if they do it right and not prolonged it with bad drafts, etc…sort of like my ex wife, she’d hit me, but I always came back, she reminds me a lot of Bobby Evans though and that’s why I eventually stopped lol
I agree this team needs a complete rebuild but the fans are idiots who won’t stand for it and the idiot owners throw money to appease them.
Not impressed from what I’ve seen of him yet (key word: yet). Maybe it’s just because the offseason has been slow, but by now I’d have expected a Will Smith/Tony Watson trade and more minor league signings. I like the Jaime Callahan signing as his ceiling is pretty high, but outside of him the only notable minor league signing is Venditte. Our bullpen is our greatest strength, we need outfielders on minor league deals, not relievers.
How could you be impressed or not impressed so soon? You realize it’s going to take 2-3 years, at least, to fix this team and be ready to truly start competing? They’re a complete mess. Old. Expensive. No farm system. Reality is, they’re probably the worst situated team in the NL West — even worse off than the Padres who have built an incredible farm system.
What do you expect? They aren’t adding any more big money so that eliminates major free agents. Relief pitching fetches more in July than the offseason. Theres nothing to do.
Watson is coming off his best season. His value won’t be higher.
I would wager at least 1 of Watson and Smith will be dealt. I think both will be gone before opening day, just looking at what’s available out there.
2014-15 Watson was a top tier RP and had extremely high value. They wont get any more than what PIT got for him in 2017 (a nice lottery ticket prospect)
Why not keep both Watson and Smith? Sure trade value is high for both of them, but rp has been a concern in recent years. Don’t dig yourself out of one hole just to create another.
If you are not, you are the typical homer fan that somehow thinks the Giants will compete.
What part of the following three things do you not compute:
1) worst farm in the west bottom three in majors, for quite a number of years.
2) top 2-3 team salary in the majors
3) aging core with injuries no other teams want.
Now what part of that tells you FZ would come in and fix this overnight?
you gotta wait till at least the trade deadline. before you pass judgement. If the market for trades hasn’t really developed for the guys that Zaidi can move then the better thing to do is to hold on until a need develops from a team and negotiate from a position of strength. You don’t get rich off of a clearance sale that advantages the buyer – a clearance sale is just to move stock.
I’m almost certain that Zaidi doesn’t care who acquired whom. nor that it has any impact on his plans. Assuming that he cares and is operating under that limitation is clearly erroneous. It’s no surprise that Bum is probably staying put since the perception that he’s in decline has lowered the value of what teams will offer in trade. And what teams will offer in trade is not worth what he could be worth as a bounce back season.
Note: This was in response to a post that has apparently been deleted.
But it’s his last season under control so there is no rebuilding his worth. His value can only diminish from this point on. What you are offered now will be the same or risk less by mid-season.
That’s totally false. He puts up the normal numbers before he had those fluke injuries he’ll be worth more then now with post season hunters. This dude is a horse, 200+ innings eater all day with a low timid 3 era.
Yep if he puts up a solid first-half this season, their will be several playoff-chasing teams asking for him. He’s the best postseason starting-pitcher in MLB right now.
And he’s still young. 29-years-old isn’t bad for someone like him. He’s never been a “power-pitcher” in the sense that he’s gonna blow it by you at 100 mph. But he is excellent at attacking hitters and pitching inside. And his arm is tough,, as his injuries have came from outside of baseball and a liner that hit him.
If he could regain just 70-80% of his production from 2016, he would be an awesome addition to a team this year that is trying to get into the Playoffs.
Agreed. If MadBum bounces back and the Giants are sellers at the deadline, he has significantly more value in July.
a lot of guys really – not just bum. Belt is coming off of a surgery – I believe crawford sat out at the end with an injury, pablo was shut down for surgery (though I don’t know the trade possibilities/rules of a guy who was released by another team) if you want to think about posey – he went under the knife too. All these guys will have better value after they show that they have performed over the first half than right now. That is why anyone who is screaming for a fire sale this offseason has no idea what they are talking about, it isn’t that the giants have no one good – of the guys that there were last year for the most part anyone good was injured and most everyone else underperformed. it is going to take a combo of work and patience to be able to extract value from the guys if you want to move them otherwise you get nothing.
Bounce back. They will be saying that about Rodriguez in 2020.
Bounce back. It’s what the dodgers are saying about Bellinger and will be saying about Buehler next year.
FWIW
Bellinger 2018 season = 85 runs, 60 extra base hits, an OB% of .343, 15 SB’s and he played solid D at multiple positions all while playing in his age 22 season.
Not really sure a giant fan should be excited about calling that a year he needs to bounce back from but I get it…It wasn’t 39 HR’s in 480 ab’s like he put up his rookie yr.
You are really delusional
Bellinger was solid in 2018…
Yeah his rookie year was better, but we’re talking about half a win difference and 6 HR.
The Giants are pretty stuck. Longoria and Cueto are still owed a chunk of change but are not reliable anymore.
Crawford and Posey appear to be past their prime. Panik hasn’t done anything. The outfield is non-existent.
Cueto led the league in ERA for two months before getting hurt
Ya, injured = not reliable.
He also hasn’t consistently been as good as he was last year before his injury.
He’s also classified as old now in baseball years.
Hahaha, cmon dude. Make some sense. You have no clue what cueto is going to do. Quit guessing. He was lights out before the injury. Barely pitched a game before heading to surgery.
having no clue what Cueto is going to do, IS the definition of unreliability.
Ryan Flaherty was MLB’s best hitter for several weeks…
The season is long.
Ryan Flaherty (Braves’ UTIL guy)
Led the NL in hitting for several weeks at the beginning of the season…
The season is long.
Compete next year? What is he talking about? This team is old and terrible. Trade Bum and start the rebuild already!
He did say “within the constraints.” At some point if you have unmovable contracts you have to do what you can to put a decent team on the field and at midseason, maybe you have some trade pieces.
Zero concept of how contracts work huh? This team has more bling and experience then anyone since 2010, 77 win team last year, with no Cueto, no Bum, hurt Posey, hurt Panik, hurt Belt, hurt Longo. Blown 30 saves, if they would’ve won half of those, we had a 88 to 90 win team. Get outa here!
I’m confident he doesn’t expect the team to compete this year just as most of the fans don’t. But saying that publicly months before the season begins just isn’t done in markets like SF. It also doesn’t mean they should just give Bumgarner away now no matter what’s being offered. As has been pointed out, if the offers right now are based on an assumption that Bumgarner is in steep decline at age 29 the return being offered isn’t likely to benefit the Giants much in 2019, 2022 or ever. The 12 million he’s owed this season certainly isn’t a burden to a team like the Giants and they’re very unlikely to be able to spend that amount of money better for this season. And it’s certainly at least possible, perhaps even likely, that Bumgarner pitches much more like his pre injury self this season than he has the last season and a half. Even if the offers don’t improve and/or Bumgarner doesn’t have a better season they could make him a qualifying offer and either receive draft pick compensation or use that leverage to bring his price tag down a bit and re-sign a 30 year old fan favorite who won 3 World Series rings with the team in hopes that he can continue to be a draw for fans and perhaps a back end starter in his mid 30s on the next truly competitive Giants team. It seems to me that most of the people clamoring for the Giants to trade him are either fans of other teams with unrealistic expectations of being able to acquire him without giving up any one of their 5 best prospects or anxious Giants fans who are simply transaction hungry and have their own unrealistic expectations of being able to acquire a package of franchise changing prospects.
Very well said.
I believe Bumgarner will have a more typical Mad-Bum year. It may not be like 2016, where he was a 4-5 WAR player, but more like a 3-ish WAR player. Give or take a little. The guy can still pitch.
how does a rebuild happen? so you sell all your huys when their stock is down for low tier prospects and cross your fingers?
Wonder if the trade involves Smith or Watson and LAA.
The Giants aren’t competitive, and won’t be anytime soon unless they spend a ton of money, or commit to a rebuild.
Thanks for the generalized statement that everyone in this comment section already knew.
Apparently, everyone knows it’s horse#### except SF’s GM. I’m merely contradicting what he stated above.
so, a couple days is 2, a few is 3-4, several is 5-7, and many is 8+ right?
It’s going to take 2-3 years for this team to MAYBE be ready to start competing again in the NL West. Zaidi has been handed a dead team. Just really nothing going for the Giants right now. They’re old. Not very talented. Expensive. No farm. There’s so much to fix and that’s simply going to take time and patience.
Ok. Everyone already knows this.
Actually, after reading the comments, there are some Giants fans who think this team has just been unlucky, injured, etc… They’re just bad. Period. That’s not going to change until 2-3 years pass and these bad contracts go away. Then they need to make better personnel decisions.
They’re old? That’s an exaggeration. It’s an old complaint that’s been repeated over and over without any research to verify it.
Admittedly, they were tied at 29.8 years with the Mariners for oldest among batters last season That’s 0.2 years older than the Angels, 0.4 years older than the Indians, 0.6 years older than the D’backs, and 1.2 years older than the MLB average. But their 3 oldest players, Pence 35, Hundley, 34, and Blanco, 34 are all gone, so they will be younger in 2019.
Pitching age is another story Their age is 28.6, only 0.2 years older than the MLB average, and younger than 14 other clubs which include 8 playoff teams, the Yankees, Brewers, Red Sox, A’s, Dodgers, Indians, Astros, and Cubs (who were the second oldest at 30.2 years).
Yeah, they aren’t old. Pitching is good, offense is bad. I honestly believe if they went for broke again this year they’d have a chance. They aren’t that bad.. they were a .500 team last year minus the September in which they only won 5 games
tad2b13,
Generalized overall statistics are a way of life on MLBTR.
Now, break your figures down to what matters –
How old are the projected starting position players? The top starting pitchers? The top relief pitchers? What have the younger guys on the roster – that drag the average down – accomplished? How many of them are above average established major leaguers?
In short, most of the core players on that team are past their prime and radically overpaid. If they are somehow traded, the Giants will have to pay a good portion of their salary, and play a numbers game with the lower-tier prospects they get back, hoping one in 3-4 makes the majors and develops into something.
_ _ _
The Giants are in the first steps of a rebuild – slowly getting the bloated veteran contracts off the books. Sure they’ll say they want to contend. The Jays did the same when Shapiro took over; the Twins with Falvey; others. Giants ticket and concession prices are among the highest in MLB. You think Zaidi is going to say – “this is very possibly the worst situation any of the 30 MLB teams is in, so save your money, stay home, and watch us on TV some for a few years while we dump these atrocious contracts”?
The Giants still need cash flow to make payroll. Of course they say they intend to compete. Slowly they will dump expensive players. Slowly the payroll will come down. Slowly attendance will dwindle. Slowly Zaidi and his staff will build a farm system and work to develop the players.
It would be nice if they built a team based on defense, speed, quickness, line-drive contact hitters, and pitching to take advantage of their home park as the Royals and Tigers are doing.
Well said…
The Giants contending for the division is very unlikely. Even a WC is a long shot. But assuming they have no chance is just plain pessimistic. Thinking they should have a fire sale, trading off their players at cents on the dollar, is worse than pessimistic, it’s stupid. It’s not going to make them any better in the future.
People forget that just about everything that could go wrong, did go wrong, in 2018. Their best pitcher broke his pitching hand and returned without full strength to grip the ball. Their two best hitters had the worst seasons of their careers. They had more than their share of injuries. And yet on in mid-August they were only 5 games out of first place. On August 31st they were closer to a WC spot than the Nats. People think 2018 was a disaster, and yet it was only the last month of the season that was the disaster when they went 5=21 relying on AAA fill-ins.
They probably won’t go to the PS, but I for one am glad they will attempt to put a winning team on the field rather than tank. I’m glad that Bum will probably be pitching opening day, rather than seeing him elsewhere for some top 50-100 prospect who will be a long shot to be anything more than MLB average.
Only argument against your statement is if they have already decided that Bumgarner is not worth the money it will take to resign him. At that point, all they need is more than what the draft compensation would be. That is what they need to worry about if they hold onto him for too long. I think of the return the Orioles got back for Manny Machado. Everyone knew they weren’t resigning him, ended up only getting half a season of him, and they took much less in return for him. It would be awful if that happened with the Giants.
The Giants take care of their players, and the players know, and appreciate that. If Bumgarner is really good in 2019, I can see a Pence-like extension at season’s end. If he’s only so-so they will still offer the QO. If he accepts, Bum for another year at around $18.5M to $19M would not be a problem. And if someone signs him, the draft compensation won’t be much worse than what teams are offering for him now.
I don’t see Machado as comparable. He was gravy for a team already going to the PS. Besides the jury is still out on that return.
All it takes is for a contending team to be desperate enough, due to injury or sub-par performance, to pay big time if Bum is having a good season. Look at what the NYYs got for 2 months of Chapman. I’m not comparing Bum with Chapman, but even a prospect half as good as Gleyber, would be more than what they appear to be getting in offers now.
He’s just being politically correct, saying what he needs to say so the writers have something to write. I can’t see a tear down, a re tool maybe. Needs to cash in where there is value, Crawford, Longo, Posey not going anywhere, doubt they’ll find a suitor for Belt, Panik has this season to prove himself, Mac and Austin Slater also have this season to prove themselves. Lots of moving parts here. Give the man his time, he’s earned that
He should sign Harper and pitch the potential for Bryce to break the splash hit record. Splash hits are AMAZING
yes, they are. kind of awesome, really…
The gameplan of many GMs looking to keep their job for a long time.
– Yes I think we can still make one last run with the current core. If we can’t we’ll begin a strategic rebuild.
– Ok, it didn’t work. We need to begin dealing our veterans and regroup. Should take 3-4 years.
– Make that 5 years (after 2 years)
And you have at least 6 years in a GM role, potentially pushed to 8.
I liked his quote at the end of the article where he said “Madison Bumgarner is a very central cog to this team. Nobody is making any outgoing calls on Madison Bumgarner.”
I could easily see that the Giants are getting multiple calls about Bumgarner (originating from the other teams) and that his importance lies in his trade value.
Madisons FB was trash before his wrist injury. He has literally never been the same since the quad bike accident. Sad but true. Great career but i think 3-5 more years of Lester is what I expect as a win from here out.
“Dee Gordon is our second baseman.”
– Farhan Zaidi
He was traded less than 24 hours later. They’re only lying when they’re moving their lips.
I like the Holland signing, as I thought they might have been in on Sanchez, Cahill, Harvey, or even Gio to add some SP depth. It will be very interesting to see how Shaun Anderson looks in spring training, esp. if Shark is not ready to go (if he ever will be again). This is relatively low risk in terms of length and even $, and DH had excellent peripherals last year.
The big issue I have is that the Gs keep talking about “financial constraints.” This is not the same as having too many long term, high level salary veteran players.
Even after the Holland signing, the Gs are in the neighborhood of $34M under the luxury tax threshold. They were very diligent last year to stay under the LTT, so they are back at baseline in terms of potential penalties. No one expects that they were going to exceed the LTT this year, but there are some moves they could have made like Brantley, Lowrie, etc. that still would have them under the LTT with breathing room (assuming that any free agents want to come to SF right now).
The move I have wanted to see them make all along is Marwin Gonzalez. He can step in and start in LF or 2B, or he can be the quintessential Zaidi super utility player. Send a couple of mid level prospects to Toronto for Valera, and things start looking a bit more promising.
The Gs are not going to content this year, we all know that. But if they are not going to go full rebuild at least make the effort to put a solid, entertaining team out there with the $ that clearly are available
I thought for a moment that I wrote this because I have said this all offseason. Marwin Gonzalez would have been my move and fit FZ’s style of player. 34 million under and they could add. I think they’re playing it safe though and want to see if prices come down. Rebuild, retool or reimagine the roster and focus on the farm as the contracts come off. I do think ownership might push a MadBum extension. I’m good with that, I want a decent product worth watching and going to Oracle Park. As my ex wife once said, money is the answer and then she got halfof everything. ..I sure miss our pomeranian, Mitzi.