December 22: As it turns out, Watson actually didn’t exercise his player option; rather, he and the Giants negotiated a new deal that will pay him $3MM in 2020, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network. He’ll still have the chance to earn $4MM worth of incentives, bringing his potential 2020 earnings to a total of $7MM.
November 2: Giants reliever Tony Watson has exercised his player option for 2020 with San Francisco, according to Kerry Crowley of Bay Area News Group (link).
Watson arrived in San Fran in 2018 via a modest two-year, heavily incentivized deal that promised him a combined $6.5MM over the first two years of the deal, with a 2020 option attached. Watson’s option for 2020 is guaranteed at $2.5MM, and Bob Nightengale of USA Today relays that Watson will have the opportunity to earn $7.5MM total in 2020 via incentives (link); At the time of the deal’s signing, it was reported that Watson had the ability to earn $14MM over two years or $21MM for three years, depending on escalators and performance bonuses.
Regardless of the particularities of his salary structure, this offseason would have likely marked an inopportune time for the 34-year-old Watson to hit the open market. 2019 marked the lefty’s first season pitching to an ERA in excess of 4.00, and he also logged some of the lowest strikeout totals (6.83 K/9) of his career in the process. Worse yet, a broken wrist ended his season prematurely in early September.
Of course, between 2013 and 2018 Watson was one of the game’s most reliable southpaw bullpen arms, recording a 2.46 ERA in 424.2 innings with the Pirates and the Dodgers. Now, the Boras client can suit up for San Francisco for one more go-around in 2020 in hopes of recapturing that old form and reentering the market again in advance of the 2021 season.
This is surprising. He had a bad year last year but he definitely would have gotten more than 1/2.5 on the open market.
Don’t know what you were watching?he had two bad weeks at two different times of the year and one of those he was playing hurt,don’t try to make him a scapegoat,they couldn’t hit enough at Home,that was the biggest problem and obviously they feel the same way,the Giants had two of the best Lefties out of the Bullpen
What does this have to do with my comment?
Ingman must be Watson’s mother.
Sue he could have gotten 1/2.5, but who is guaranteeing him 6.5M+ of pretty decent incentives. Well his bonuses assign him that. He can realistically recover 10.5 in 20. Seems a great decision.
Total is 7 with all incentives
His contract is according to local reports at~$7M for 2020. His deal has contained numerous escalators which helped lower his year 1 CBT and has never quite been articulated in contract websites. I presume on top of the $7M there’s upside. past escalators where appearance and games finished
Nice cheap guy for the roster, Giants have so much to spend in FA cannot believe no one talking about them, people’s memories are so short these days.
They can, but won’t, spend in free agency. They have so many bad contracts on the books, and are really looking at 2021 before their window of prospects come into play. Just going to be a long 2020 season.
This is correct. Frisco will not spend much. There is no logical reason to increase payroll.
I don’t think anyone here can say equivocally whether they will or won’t spend and probably to start the year all any can likely say is they won’t be over the CBT line.
Thank you Atlanta Braves for talking all of Melacon’s remaining deal (and a lottery ticket prospect to boot) that’s a $14M pickup
The only “bad” contract the Giants have is Longoria’s, but at least he had a bounce back on the field from 2018 (ditto Shark) TBD is Cueto’s if he fully bounces back from his TJ procedure and it’s a early good sign he pitched late in 2019 then I like him on the rest of his deal.
Everyone else is on 2yr deals or less and rather than bad these are merely over-pays. As always with older players health is a determining factor to performance. We seen declines with several regulars and what’s TBD is how much decline is health, how much is age. To be clear, Wil Myers, Chris Davis, Miguel Cabrera, Jason Heyward and I’m gonna call it now, Eric Hosmer… those are BAD deals.
In 2020 I expect the Giants to have a much deeper roster, flexible roster where old guard everyday guys still play but the days of the them starting 150 games is in the rear view mirror and we’ll see a lot of match-up lineups.
The Giants can afford their roster so while Shark and Belt have limited NTC, $ isn’t a driver as roster construction is. All things equal I believe the Giants would like a RHH at 1B or just to have the position open for lineup flexibility. Just speculation
. They aren’t long term deals but they’re certainly bad. Posey for 2/44 is bad. Belt for 2/32 is bad. Crawford for 2/30 is bad. Longo’s 57 is bad. Cueto’s 47. You add that up and it’s more bad money than any of those deals you listed. It’s just spread out bad money. Rather than a one shot stinker. Which is arguably worse because these guys take up 5 40 man slots you could otherwise spend on prospects/waiver claims or other FA’s.
The advantage is that their off the books sooner but ST they really bind things up.
hmm didnt expect that. gotta trade him this offseason, right?
Giants went 54-51 after May 30th and have 70ish million to spend in free agency. People still talking about them tearing down are painfully behind. Not crazy to see them as a 90 win team next year depending on how they spend that cash. 2.5m to shore up a shaky bullpen is a good place to start.
2020….a believen’ year?
They won’t make any major signing for the sheer fact that they won’t sacrifice draft picks or pool money. Their best prospects are barely going to double AA. They won’t sign players if they don’t have reinforcements ready. Just look at Farhan’s track record.
Plenty of major signings available w/o sacrificing a draft pick.
90 win team Lol. This team is not ‘ few pieces away’
They might want to try to finish above .500 before reaching into the 90 win category.
The truth is they project to worse next year than 2019. They won a bunch of 1 run games last year that they will not win this year. They won’t have the bullpen and without Bumgarner,the starting pitching is gonna bad
That’s one way to look at it, I suppose. Another is that minus a torrid and completely unsustainable six week stretch last year, this team has been well under .500 for two and a half years. Subtract the losses (Pillar, Smith, Bumgarner, Dyson) and the continuing decline of the core (Posey, Belt, Crawford), you’re left with the makings of a very rough 2020. As a Giants fan, that’s fine so long as the moves that Farhan does make this offseason are building towards 2021 (when Bart, Ramos, Bishop, etc. arrive) and beyond.
They lost their best starting pitcher, best reliever and best hitter. They will be lucky to crack 70 wins.
– Sam Dyson, Will Smith, Pomeranz, Bumgarner, Melancon, and Pillar. The Pads and D’backs are both better. The Giants arent sniffing 90 wins. I’d bet they don’t see 80.
Pomeranz, short of a quick hot streak once he was banished to the pen, was a smouldering bag of dog excrement for the Giants. It’s a miracle that they were able to swindle a desperate Milwaukee front office out of Dubon.
90 wins next season? wha
who is going to hit and who is going to pitch?
that’s crazy…
Dude just stop
Purely an elementary move.
No stuff Sherlock
The Tigers have rebuilt and have a co-dray of stallions guaranteed to do well next year. The management knows what best and is even considering moving all the seats back to give the players more space between them and the fans.
Guaranteed to do well next year? I didn’t realize there is such a thing in baseball.
Thanks for sticking to the topic.
I don’t thinks it’s too crazy to think Madison wouldn’t take the qualifying offer. He isn’t the kind of guy that looks forward to assimilating to a new environment. It’ll be different under a new skipper, but at least it is in a place he’s comfortable.
Taking slightly more in grantee at the cost of the same amt less in overall potential of a contract. Is that what I’m reading? If he wanted to rid of some of the incentives, I would have negotiated it down more unless he feels confident he will hit certain milestones, which if so why renegotiate to begin with. Whatever, more me trying to wrap my head around the situation than actually caring what he or the team does.
still ridiculous. Watson couldve earned a lot more on the open market.
The man who received the very first bullpen call: “Watson, come here, I need you quickly.”
It’s frustrating that the first Giants- related story on here in over a week is just a clarification to an old news story !
Still, I think one reason we haven’t seen SF signing more players to minor league deals with spring training invites is Zaidi got a head start adding them during the regular season and post- season. In other words he got a lot of his Christmas shopping done early + now it’s just about adding major league contributors- if possible. He has quite a few fringy AAA- AAAA types (Burch Smith, Wandy Peralta, Trevor Oaks, etc) with options remaining on the 40- man roster already. For most teams these players would be non- roster invitees. I think that says more about the farm system’s lack of depth than anything else.
Still I respect Zaidi for taking a risk to not protect any additional minor league prospects from the Rule V draft. That was a gutsy move, and it paid off. He’ll now get to audition those fringy players a bit longer, didn’t lose any real prospects, and he delayed the options clock for quite a few players. He gets an extra year to evaluate those prospects as well before they would have to be added.
I’m going to skip the castellanos talk because if we sign him, great. Same with Sousa. But I’ve been screaming for Domingo Santana. They can sign 2 of those 3 and be good both now and in the future. They can be future trade options or a bridge to the younger guys coming down the pipeline. I also wouldn’t mind seeing some vet pitchers like a Homer Bailey or a Liriano on get right deals and trade chips. Not completely sold that those would be the 2, but you get what I’m saying. you could be competitive with some added trade chips if the season doesn’t pan out. They won’t sit on this money. They will buy young holdovers or tradeable vets.
What makes you think they won’t sit on the money? In Zaidi’s entire career he has not shown a willingness to spend money. But I guarantee they won’t lower prices even if they don’t spend the money. I’m sure Watson will be gone at the deadline this season if he is having a solid year.
I’m Curious to know if the ‘incentives’ are performance related or just appearance related. most RP’s incentives I think are based on appearances or ‘games finished’ but seeing as he most likely isn’t going to get many save opportunities I assume it’s just appearance and not games finished linked. would be really interesting if it were performance based in the sense of actually pitching well – to my knowledge I can’t think of a RP who’s ever signed such a deal — but theoretically this could be an interesting concept going forward (I know it’s unlikely here) but RP deals structured around paying a RP more based on performance could be a really interesting thing if it were ever done. For example say Betances were to sign for 1/$5M plus incentives where if he has an ERA below 3.00 he gets $2.5M and if he has a K/9 above 10.0 there’s another $2.5M — obviously more complex than that with ranges and amount associated. But it would be an interesting way for a team to avoid risk and a player trying to reestablish themselves to ‘bet on themselves’ — idk just a thought that this article for some reason made me consider.
Boom!
Surely they will flip Watson before the season starts, won’t they?
Why do the Giants want him? They’re not going to play any important games where they need someone to come in and get a batter or two out.
Giants are looking at 100+ losses in 2020, maybe even 2018 Orioles-level bad…
Quite possibly. Unlike Baltimore, however, there’s a clear and logical plan to what they are doing. The Giants are going to be a very, very good franchise soon enough. Baltimore will just drift.
Haha, no, they will not be anywhere near that bad. They don’t really need Watson, but he’s not really that expensive and clearly wants to be there, so why not? It’s only one season, and if he’s pitching well, you should be able to get something at the deadline.
Since he had a bit of a down swing last year due to injury the smartest play they will make is trade him during the season given he starts well. Not before the season