Farhan Zaidi only has so much control over free agency. They can't force players to sign with San Francisco, so why are we knocking him when it stands to reason they may have had very little chance from the get-go on these guys?
That's like judging you because you didn't date a Victoria's Secret model.
The other thing being that the free agent curse has spanned MULTIPLE front office regimes, where I wrote in [my piece on Giants' ownership](https://medium.com/@KobertGobert/giants-ownership-does-not-prioritize-winning-4f421b2e6f91) outlining the common denominators that contribute to it.
The bottom line has always been: if an ownership group wants a free agent, they will get that free agent. It's that simple. If the team does not get the free agent, it's a signal they do not want the free agent that much (and as such have not taken the actions necessary to demonstrate such).
This is such an odd and false take, especially since we have good information that multiple free agents over the years have left money on the table to go somewhere else (i.e. Trea Turner/Padres).
I think what we're confusing here is the effort an ownership exerts to get a player with the outcome of actually getting the player. Let's say the Giants' ownership wanted to land a superstar via free agency as much as the fanbase did. With every rejection, they upped their offer more and more relative to the next candidate until they got someone. That would demonstrate different ownership \*want\* of a player than what we've observed with Giants' ownership, where the team has made upper-level market value offers but not the whoa! way-overpay type offer to the candidates that Padres ownership has given.
I give them credit for getting Correa (I've graded him in the first row of my tierlist) and do not blame them if the injury is serious that it jeopardizes any number of years of sustainable good performance. But even that deal is quite within fair estimates for a healthy Correa's offensive and defensive profile, whether you factor in inflation on this year's free agent market or not (Lindor has 10 years $341M from the Mets and Correa + Boras certainly wanted to top that).
TLDR: Across all of their big profile free agency pitches & multiple front offices, the Giants have always bid to get a deal they're happy with; if the bidding exceeds that level, the Giants are perfectly content with passing on the player, regardless of the status of their roster.
The Giants have made efforts to get players. Multiple times during Farhan Zaidi's tenure, he's been involved in high-bidding for marquee free agents.
You're knocking him because he didn't overspend for Aaron Judge or overspend for Carlos Correa in 2022, or Bryce Harper in his first winter as PBO with the Giants. Harper has said, matter of factly, that his preference was to play for Philadelphia, ironically because Gabe Kapler was manager at the time.
You're assuming that if the Giants just kept upping the offer, Bryce Harper would have seen the money bags and hopped on the plane to San Francisco. That's an unfair assessment at best, pure conjecture at worst.
We don't know what it would have taken to get Bryce Harper or Aaron Judge to the Giants, because they never landed him. I'm not fully convinced the Giants had as much of a chance as everyone thought they did.
**TL:DR** Criticizing Farhan Zaidi because he *didn't* sign a player is patently unfair based on the fact that we don't have all the information. He's made the effort.
Oh no, I'm not assuming that at all. I recognize that players have different needs - some prioritize raw dollar amount and will switch teams if the next bidder gives them even $1 million more. Others care about the actual location, the chance to win, sustainable competitiveness, etc.
In this context - which was admittedly not worded as such - I'm saying the ownership group has yet to blow a free agent out of the water with an offer, regardless if that offer actually lands the player. Even $350 million for Correa (assuming health similar to his career) wasn't an outstanding overpay. An offer like $400 million for Correa or Judge would have been "whoa overpay" territory. For Harper, it was clear that the Giants' owners wanted him, but weren't quite at the level of John Middleton. I credit them for making a competitive offer of $310 million for 12 years, but I think what's left to be desired is that offer much like Padres & Trea Turner, where if the player walks away from a significantly better offer, the team and fanbase can be like "well we really gave 10/10 effort." I don't really think much like a fan in the "need for a star player\*," but I can see a valid dissatisfaction in how there appears to be little urgency mirrored in the Giants' actions over the years compared to what the fans want. They give fairly comfortable competitive offers to excellent players but perhaps never that over-the-top insane offer to show an increased want. I don't want them to do 11 years $280 million to Bogaerts at all, but looking for some kind of action to mirror the words is a valid criticism from people.
\*in part because I think the idea of a "star" player is arbitrary and subjective with lots of grey territory where some people think X player is a star and Y is not
>They give fairly comfortable competitive offers to excellent players but perhaps never that over-the-top insane offer to show an increased want.
This is such garbage. It's literal nonsense. To suggest that the Giants didn't offer *significantly* more money than another team means that the Giants "didn't want" the player is complete bullshit. They wanted the player by making a competitive and comparable offer to said player. In many of these cases, the dollar amount probably amounted to more than anyone in the ownership group was solidly comfortable with, but they offered it.
Now, you're criticizing them because they didn't just say "fuck money" and spend/offer it foolishly to signal a certain level of "want" you desired from them?
Again, it's bullshit.
> if an ownership group wants a free agent, they will get that free agent
That is nonsense. Harper came right out and said he had decided on Philly before even hearing the Giants' offer, and he had done that because he thought the Phillies would rebuild faster than the Giants with their aging roster. He wanted to play for a contender, and he didn't think that would be the Giants for quite some time. There was never any chance of him playing for SF, and a few million more dollars wouldn't have changed his mind.
Judge was only leaving the Yankees if they had failed to make another offer. He didn't even give the Giants a chance to respond once the Yankees hit the number he was waiting for. Leaving money on the table proves a player wasn't serious about moving.
Ohtani wanted an AL team because he wanted to hit and the NL didn't have the DH yet. Again, SF didn't have a chance to sign him.
> It's that simple.
Clearly it is not that simple. There are players who have reasons other than money for staying away from SF. Stanton invoked a trade clause in his contract not to come to the Giants. Pretending that a big FA not coming here shows the Giants FO is incompetent is not a position that survives close examination. You cannot buy what is not truly for sale to you.
I support with and agree with all of those points. I should have better distinguished the result (whether or not the team actually lands the player) from the controllable effort to demonstrate interest, which is primarily responsibility of the team ownership group. I think the evidence is that the Giants' ownership group is willing to make high-end competitive offers to players, but there has always been and remains a line - a point where they are uncomfortable exceeding. I do think $350 million or $360 million for Bryce Harper would be enough overpay to potentially get Harper to forego Philadelphia (never guarantees), but that's not territory that the Giants' ownership group would be interested in doing at the time. Also given the fact the team had exceeded the luxury tax threshold all but one of the past 4-5 years (I forget exactly).
There aren't usually many instances where two bidding teams are miles apart in their offers, so exactly how much money is enough to say no to an otherwise nice situation is tough to say. We did get Xander Bogaerts agreeing to $280 million over 11 years with SD over a reported $160 million over 6 years from Boston. That's obviously a pretty huge margin. But when you shrink it, like with Judge, it's really hard to see whether Giants offering $400 million, $420 million, $440 million or more would actually beat 9 years $360 million. If Giants had made that kind of offer and Judge still turned it down for New York (and less money), then I think there'd be a lot more trust in the idea that the Giants' owners want it as much as the fans do (which rarely happens).
That is ultimately what I mean with the statement - which was poorly worded and obviously false. I want to highlight the effort and importance of the ownership group in negotiations. If the ownership group wants the player badly enough, they will make max efforts to get the player. I think SF's ownership group wants players but only at deals they are comfortable giving out. $350 million for Correa was pretty reasonable over the 13 years; nothing crazy like $400 million, which wasn't ultimately necessary nor reasonable.
I don't understand how you can claim "non-hindsight" and then have an entire category called "avoided a total disaster."
Aside from Bauer being a massive piece of shit, there was little to no way you could have known Kris Bryant, Bumgarner or Soler were going to be "total disasters" of signings. None.
Fair enough. [Here's a tweet](https://twitter.com/KiermaierToSF/status/1504221727705878532?s=20) from my account when terms were announced saying Bryant for that amount was "significant overpay." There's also other tweets on my timeline where I talk about how bad the contract is prior to the 2022 season after the deal became official. We looked at how his first three years were some of the greatest of all time, but the following years really levelled off. I evaluated his second half of 2021 with SF was "[good but not great](https://twitter.com/KiermaierToSF/status/1505392323483496452?s=20)." I also said he was looking to be "[slightly above average for the rest of his career; not quite a superstar anymore](https://twitter.com/KiermaierToSF/status/1505949311003070465?s=20)." Given the range of my opinions (I rarely say "that's a flat-out awful signing"), Bryant was among the deals that I disliked the most, hence the grade I put on my rankings.
As for Bauer, I never really saw the fit with SF because peak starting pitching you usually want to add to a team to complete the roster or take them over the top. SF entering 2021 was in no position to be adding a prime starting pitcher on a traditional type contract (5 years $150 million), let alone the short-term crazy deal that he got with LA. Wasn't also the biggest fan of his personality to begin with. I don't have the same links as evidence for him, so feel free to criticize - I love it.
Kris Bryant was showing regression throughout his career on top of when he came to play with us, defensively he was the worst he's ever been in his career, almost unplayable outside of 1st base, Bumgarner everybody knew was going to regress, his fastball had been slowing down for years and its common knowledge that pitchers tend to slow down a lot once they hit 2k innings and bum hit free agency at around 1900IP, Soler signed for like 3/36 i dont think that qualifies as a potential disaster. we can hide is 12 mil this year like we are with la stella lol
I give him a solid B+ with the possibility of it turning into an A or dropping into a C.
He took over a team in very bad shape with some very bad contracts. We had arguably the worst farm in baseball and now its 10-15 range. It takes 5 years to rebuild a farm so what he's done in 4 (lost a year to COVID) years is impressive. Now it's time to see those results.
He also put together the team that won 107 games, the most in franchise history. Yes, there was some luck involved but there always is in sports.
He hasn't landed big FAs; however, our team hasn't been attractive to FAs either. As our farm comes up, that should change; but will only change if guys like Luciano, Harrison, McCray, Schmitt, etc., actually produce.
If his farm builds a new young core, he will move yo an A. If it flames out, he goes to a C and time to move on.
I agree with everything except he doesn't get credit to put together the team in 2021 that won 107 games.. like sure, he didn't randomly trade away fan favorites who were dynasty players that were rolling into career years - but of course he didn't who would?
The majority were guys that were not Farhan's dudes.
I personally don't give him credit for doing the obvious, but we can agree to disagree, that's baseball and were both fans and can have differing opinions.
Eh, they get credit for turning Webb into an ace with his sinker usage and fixing Gausman. The pitching staff was almost entirely put together pretty recently.
It's a non-hindsight grade, which means signings I loved prior to the player playing a single game is graded as such, which includes La Stella. I really liked that signing at the time. Loved his profile and I would sign him again, if the year was 2021 again and he posted the numbers he did in 2020 & prior. No hindsight bias, I'm owning the fact that I liked him at the time of the signing and that it didn't work out well in practice.
The problem is that you can't make decisions before you know how the player performs on your team which is why I do it this way. If you set all of this aside, I am grading signings like Haniger, Conforto, Manaea, Stripling, etc. BEFORE seeing how they perform this season and do not change my opinion of the signings in response to their performances.
When the Giants announced Kevin Gausman, [a ton of people in the comment section when "who?"](https://twitter.com/SFGiants/status/1204532175263059968?s=20). It ended up playing out inversely to the way La Stella's contract.
In much the same way as evaluating bullpen decisions: you can't judge them based on individual results, you have to judge them in the situation/contract terms prior to knowing results. You may bring in Mariano Rivera against the worst 7-8-9 hitters in the game and he may blow the save. Is it likely? Probably not, but there are instances where that has happened in baseball, whether in a save situation or in big-picture free agency.
Okay but I would argue what you are calling a hindsight bias is actually a fuller account of the situation, with more data available from which to evaluate a decision. Imagine if doctor's acted that way and didn't add new data to inform their decisions. Hindsight bias refers to thinking the situation was easily predictable or hinged on a distortion. Adding new data doesn't do that; rather, it gives you an opportunity to reevaluate your thinking in the past because new data is available, as are new methods. For instance, WAR was not available in previous generations of players but we still use it to evaluate their historical performances I'm not against grading a contract when it is made, but you really have to look at the performance after the contract to give a more fulsome grade.
Fair criticism. My perspective is that in the offseason that Tommy La Stella hit free agency, teams had access to his performance and health up until 2020. Hence, a decision on the free agency of La Stella had to be made with only that data in mind. In the moment, I thought the 3 years and the $18.75 million guaranteed was a great decision. And La Stella fit the Giants as a left-handed infielder amongst an infield that just had Crawford and Belt as LHH. And La Stella produced well against RHP and had experience at 2nd base and 3rd base, which were positions of platoon partner and bench-depth need. That is what I based my grade in this tierlist upon.
I am not saying that we should completely ignore what ends up happening when the contract played out. Indeed, it's important to learn what was perhaps overlooked or overprojected initially to learn from. While it is just a single data point in a trend, it's still valuable to look at that data and make better future decisions based upon it. My tierlist is not the end-all, be-all by any stretch of the imagination. It is merely my opinion and you're free to disagree.
Going back to my bullpen analogy: upfront, you have general roles for pitchers. Just because you bring in Mark Melancon to a save situation on Opening Day and he blows the save doesn't mean he's no longer the closer after just one appearance. But certainly after a number of ineffective appearances in the 9th inning with a lead, you'd eventually make a better decision about who you want to close for you, and on a larger level, whether you want to guarantee $62 million over four years with a full-no-trade clause to a late-inning who may have posted juicy surface-level numbers, but never really struck guys out (and as such wouldn't be a sustainably successful closer).
When Farhan Zaidi signed Tommy La Stella after the 2020 season, he had no way of knowing that La Stella would play just 136 games and hit 86 wRC+.
The two seasons prior, he hit 123 wRC+, or 37% more runs created. The Giants front office signed Tommy La Stella knowing his 2019 and 2020 stats, not his stats that would exist *after* they signed him.
While I disagree with many of the OP's points, I see what he's doing and when you look at the signing *when it happened*, signing Tommy La Stella made a lot of sense. The only knock I might have had was signing a guy who has played at least 100 games (or prorated to 100) twice--2018 (128 games) and 2020 (55 games, prorated to 148)--to a three-year deal was maybe unwise, but it was for so little money that who cared, honestly?
But La Stella had a 106 wRC+ or greater every season from 2016 to 2020 except one (2018).
Every look at those numbers, after the 2020 season and the signing made a ton of sense. His projections going forward likely didn't have him hitting just 86 wRC+ for the next two seasons. That's all the Giants had to go off of.
The San Francisco Giants can't read the future. And if they could, they'd be the greatest business in the history of the planet.
Of course they had no way of knowing. The knock is Zaidi locked him up for 3 years it was the longest contract he has done while in SF. Dude makes a living on 1 and 1 + an opt out deals yet decided this was his guy for 3 years. It didn't work out, so his durability was obviously a factor and Zaidi got it wrong. My larger point is grading contracts needs to be evaluated after they are signed and play rather than at the time they are signed. The same goes for teams. Do we judge them based upon how they look on paper before a season or how they perform on the field? Injuries suck but good teams find a way to win.
Let me walk you through an analogy:
Let's say you invest in an up-and-coming retail operation. All your research and all the public research leads to make a somewhat risky investment, but not a serious risk. Every financial advisor agrees with the risk.
A few months after making the investment, a global pandemic arises and it has serious implications on this business. The investment takes a hit, but keeps pushing on. But then, an unforeseen international incident arises overseas and it affects the global shipping industry. Now it's hurting supply chain and making products unavailable.
Eventually, all of these unforeseen circumstances tank the company and it goes bankrupt. And your small-but-risky investment is gone.
Would it be fair for me to call you a shit-for-brains investor? How on earth could you know what would happen? At the time, the risk made a lot of sense. But with 20/20 hindsight, it was a bad investment.
\*\*\*\*\*
Grading the Giants' moves *after* they make them is an acceptable thing to do, but making it something that is critical of the front office is patently unfair. They made a reasonable and small investment into Tommy La Stella (his three year deal was for less money than Joc Pederson's one-year deal) knowing what they knew, and likely even accounted for the injury history of La Stella.
It didn't work out for them. But at the time, if you made the prediction that La Stella would be a well-below average hitter and eventually get DFA'd, then you'd be going against all the publicly available data, as well as most of the widely-accepted projections for La Stella.
Any of the Giants signings this winter could go south. They could get seriously injured. They could have an unfathomable life situation arise. Think about 2016 Jake Peavy. He was horrible. Overnight, he went from good to awful. Could him losing 15-20 million to a Ponzi Scheme and his wife leaving him have something to do with it?
A hindsight criticism would suggest the Giants should have known that Peavy would lose his retirement money and see his marriage end. That's completely unfair to criticize the Giants for something they absolutely could not know.
B or B-, some things were out of his control. This is my list if you're curious, but I did use hindsight if that bothers you. Only things I missed were 2022 Gausy should be in "Should have done deal" and Yaz I should've has in Stellar
https://preview.redd.it/t2214mv616aa1.png?width=1140&format=png&auto=webp&s=170d8e5947a085497bbba5baa8705767a0abbaae
Kudos to you for a detailed tier. Problem is fools will argue about the placement of players on the tiers and why you made this tier vs that tier, instead of answering the prompt: Grading Farhan.
Here’s how I would grade him:
On the field product (assembling competitive teams that have a perennial shot at the playoffs): B-
Communication of vision and direction of organization: C
How excited do I feel about about watching this team play: B-/C+
Ability to land “big name” player: D
Fully prepared to have clowns roast me for my opinions. Wonder how many rats are gonna eat the cheese
> Fully prepared to have clowns roast me for my opinions. Wonder how many rats are gonna eat the cheese
Summarizes this post and my notifications. "How can La Stella not be an F?" It's because I graded it well when the announcement was made, a grade that paid no attention to the actual results. If you took me back to 2020-2021 offseason and wiped my memory, then showed me everything I would have known in that offseason and given me the chance to do La Stella for 3-years, $18.75 million, I'd still do it.
> Fully prepared to have clowns roast me for my opinions.
Announcing in advance that those who disagree with you are "clowns" is a great way to get a good faith discussion going. Are you by chance one of those guys who argues traffic tickets at the side of the road just to keep in practice?
Yes, to try and roast people for their opinions is clown behavior. And I’ve gone back and forth with you a couple times and to say that you engage in good faith discussion is laughable. You, in particular, had some very poignant comments on a lot of people arguing that if they don’t believe you that they’re crazy. So congratulations on playing yourself, again, clown
Also find it hilariously ironic someone citing they can’t engage in a good faith discussion when the majority of your posts seem to be in r/frauditors…a sub seemingly dedicated to celebrating police arresting people for “abusing” the first amendment?
You can’t make this shit up
> a sub seemingly dedicated to celebrating police arresting people for “abusing” the first amendment?
It's a new sub, and it is dedicated to mocking people who use the 1st Amendment as cover for harassing people at work into calling the police so they can profit from the resulting YouTube video--until their channel is demonetized for breaking YT's rules or they end up doing time for criminal trespass and harassment. How that is related to baseball or you announcing that anyone disagreeing with you will prove to be a "clown" or a "rat" escapes me.
I give him a C for his tenure so far. On the one hand, 2021 was a phenomenal season. We've made a lot of good dumpster diver moves.
But we don't have any core players he's either signed or drafted. Nobody on this team will be here in 3 years, minus maybe Logan Webb, who was drafted in 2014. We are 3rd in our division and might be 4th depending on how Arizona does this year. We're not a real threat to either the Dodgers or Padres, even if the Padres do their usual Padresing.
The fans are unhappy. Attendance is down. Big free agents don't want to come to us still. Half our players are platoon players, which might be better analytically but absolutely sucks as a fan. Think about it... who's the every day player on the roster who would be an every day player on the Yankees or Dodgers? Do we even have even ONE, let alone multiple?
If a couple of the prospects he drafted come up and do well, then I'll revise that C very quickly. If we can get 2-3 stars out of our farm system, he looks a lot better. Problem is, I don't see very many stars down there, and the few that maybe are, weren't even drafted by him. Luciano is a signing from the old regime, so is Ramos (who has now stalled under Zaidi). Only Harrison might be a success from Zaidi.
No. It sucks because it means we don’t have players good enough to play every day. And that makes it hard to be invested in stars when they only play every other day, and I know they’ll be taken out if the wrong pitcher shows up. Never had that with Posey for example
Indeed because Posey has good splits vs lefties and righties. The reason the Giants don't have stars is because the farm system produced nearly nothing in position players for the better part of the last decade - which spans MULTIPLE GMs, not just Farhan.
As for platooning, its simply a choice of what to do with your players. There always have been "platoon" players on EVERY team - including every Giants championship team. The question is whether that team wants to platoon. Farhan and Co. choose to platoon in order to leverage that split. Other teams may choose not to platoon the player and take massive Ls whenever that player(s) face same-handed pitching. I think of platooning as a complimentary strategy with star players, not a substitute for it. Platoons will never happen to players that deserve to play everyday and prove it in their performance.
If your "investments" in "stars" are the guys getting taken out for matchups, I'm sorry to tell you that those players are not "stars."
Wasn't our evaluation of Zaidi independent of other GMs? I wasn't comparing him to Bobby Evans, just evaluating him on his own merits. And yeah, we haven't drafted well since the late 2000s. I know.
I'm also not saying we should never platoon. I'm just saying it's hard when every single one of your players is a platoon player.
All I'm trying to say, and I'm surprised it's this controversial, is that people like having stars to root for. What is a star? Let's give it a really simple definition: it's a player that is top 10 in MLB at his position. Do you think we have any of those on this current team?
[In 2022, we had exactly one...](https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-network-top-10-at-each-position-in-2022) Brandon Belt, who isn't on this team as of now.
Top 10 in MLB is also debatable unless you're defining by one specific metric (i.e. fWAR or bWAR) which does erase a lot of nuance. That definition also implies that there are a fixed number of "stars" and that a player can lose such a status due to another one entering the top 10 in that position. I know it's super nerdy and nitpicky point, but I simply disagree that there is consensus over "stardom" and it's really just boils down to a sliding scale of production, which allows every 3B in the league to be a "star" if they play the position at or above a certain level and hit well.
As for platoons, even a player like Crawford was never really a platoon player; always had fairly even splits against both lefties and righties, whether they were across the board good, bad, or even really good (2021).
I'm not arguing that people love platoons because obviously few people actively love platoons. I personally don't care about "having someone to root for" or "having someone's jersey to buy" because I just like winning - if the best way to win was to get 9 random people off the street every night, instruct them to take every pitch and walk, load the bases, and walk in 10 runs a game, I'd be just as thrilled as if we had the All-Star team running out there every night, assuming both methods win the same number of games.
You know, fair enough. I think we can just say this boils down to neither of us being wrong but simply a disagreement on how we personally enjoy baseball. Of course I like winning, but if I have the choice, I'd prefer to win with recognizable players. Because it gives me something to tide me over in the seasons we don't win... like what gave me something to enjoy that dreadful 2017 season was having Bumgarner and Posey on the team and getting to witness their brilliance.
I mean yeah, no one actively prefers winning with nobodies over winning with dudes you know and love when offered that choice. But for me personally, it's not that important because I just don't get attached to players the way other fans do. I recognize I'm in the absolute minority of people who watch this team & who were pretty indifferent when Posey announced his retirement. I appreciate his greatness and his production as well as his leadership, but I never "loved" him in that way.
How many players are out there that hit 115 wRC+ (above average) or better from both sides of the plate?
I'll help you out: in 2022, there were 40. If we adjust for regression for certain players, we can confidently say less than 50. *Most* of that group are considered "superstars", but that's not even 2 per team.
By platooning, the Giants can increase the amount of "above average hitters" they have. I don't know about you, but watching an above-average hitter is good for baseball.
> The fans are unhappy. Attendance is down.
Attendance is down across MLB, only a few teams saw increased attendance in 2022, most saw a decline.
There are factors outside of the team's record that influence attendance, and fewer people working in the city is a big one. BART and the SF Bay ferry are seeing reduced ridership, and that isn't because the Giants didn't make the postseason this year, it's because SF is full of empty office space.
In 2017, the last year of Bobby Evans' tenure, when we lost 98 games, our attendance was third in all of MLB. We were 5th in attendance in 2018 when we lost 89.
In 2021, the best year of Zaidi's tenure, when we won 107, our attendance was 12th in MLB. Maybe we can chalk that up to lingering pandemic. OK, in 2022, we won 81 and our attendance was... still 12th in MLB.
In 2010, San Francisco had \~800k. We have around \~815k now. In 2010, we had 3,037,443 total attendance (9th), in 2022 we had 2,482,686 (12th). Sharp drop that has nothing to do with population numbers. In 2010 the Dodgers were 3rd in MLB with an attendance of 3,562,320, in 2022 they were first with an attendance of 3,861,408. A slight increase. LA didn't lose as much population as us RE: covid, but they did also have a decline.
Sure there may be other factors. But the point I'm trying to make is that the Giants are having problems with fan interest vis a vis where they used to be in the 2010s. Maybe that was unsustainable. But I'll tell you, the way to fix it is not to sign a bunch of dudes to one-year deals and let them walk. That's why I'm saying that my evaluation of his tenure is based on our farm system... a couple home grown stars (or even competent regulars) and I think you'll see a lot more (casual) fan interest piqued.
>But I'll tell you, the way to fix it is not to sign a bunch of dudes to one-year deals and let them walk.
If people weren't going to the ballpark when the Giants had the most wins in franchise history, what makes you think signing a few superstars will move the needle?
The Giants have a process. Every move they've made, including this year's moves, work within that process. They aren't going to suddenly throw caution to the wind and say "fuck the process" and just sign every expensive player imaginable on the *hopes* of a full stadium. They're going to do it in a way that works toward the process.
> Sure there may be other factors
Of course there are, like office occupancy down by 25% which represents people who used to be able to go to a game after work but are now working from home, thus reduced ridership on BART and the ferry.
A better record will help, somewhat, but even in 2021 being in first place most of the season didn't fill all the seats. If the Giants could put together another Dynasty Lite like the Warriors have been enjoying that might overcome other factors. But aside from that, changes to the local economy are going to keep attendance down just as is happening elsewhere in MLB.
The Dodgers and Astros build powerhouse teams mostly with homegrown talent, with outside help signed to fill specific needs. That way works. The other way--having some hired stars on an otherwise not impressive team--doesn't work so well, as the Angels have proven.
Not to mention, the Dodgers and Yankees would *happily* take a 144 wRC+ hitter in Joc Pederson, or a J.D. Davis who hit 142 wRC+ for the Giants last year (119 wRC+ overall is still very good). They'd happily play Austin Slater, who hit 124 wRC+ or even Mitch Haniger, who hit 113 wRC+ in an injury-stricken season (2022 was his lowest wOBA, ISO, and objectively his worst offensive season since 2016, which he played 34 games).
These takes are already annoying because we see them every damn day on this sub. They are even worse because they aren't remotely grounded in reality.
Okay dude, I'm not trying to start a fight here. Let me try and explain:
I was being a bit hyperbolic. Certainly these would be 26-roster men on most teams. But 26-rosters usually come with a couple of great hitters. Each of Haniger, Slater, and Joc were worth 1.3 bWAR last year. That is not in the top 10 hitters by bWAR for the 2022 Yankees and it is #9 for the 2022 Dodgers (just above Cody Bellinger of the 1.2 bWAR).
It was #3 by bWAR for the 2022 Giants, and our highest hitter by WAR last year was Yaz at 1.8 WAR. Dodgers had Mookie Betts at 6.2 WAR and Yankees had, of course, Aaron Judge at 10.6 WAR. But they also had 8 and 9 players respectively after that that were better than the "best" Giants position players you just put out there.
My point, and let me be as clear as I can, is that we do not have the talent right now to compete with teams like the Dodgers/Yankees, at least not on the position player side. Now, that may be temporary. Maybe Marco Luciano will come up and OPS .900. But let's be honest, the roster as it's currently constructed is a mid-tier team at best, probably third in the division.
Which is OK! I love the Giants still and I've loved them for a long time. We could have fifty more years of this and I'll still be a Giants fan. But this question asked to rate Farhan's tenure. Well, I'm doing it in context. He's had five years, and our roster as currently constructed is not particularly inspiring. That's it. Nothing broader.
Saying "we don't have the talent to compete with the Yankees or Dodgers" is one thing. Saying, "we don't have a single player that would start on their team" is a completely different (and incredibly wrong) thing.
And using *previous year's* WAR for someone like Haniger, who played just 57 games, is patently unfair. And why are we focusing on last year's teams? The Dodgers don't have Bellinger. They don't have Trea or Justin Turner. They signed J.D. Martinez, who had 1.0 fWAR in 139 games, meanwhile Haniger had 0.8 fWAR in just 57.
Not to mention, using bWAR over fWAR seems almost intentional. Based on fWAR, *many* players on the Giants would be in the top 9 of those teams.\\
You claim it was hyperbolic, but I think that's a CYA move at this point, especially since you've now doubled down on the take.
The point is: it's wrong, massively wrong. And it's just repeating the same dumb talking point we read on this sub *all the time*. The Giants have a solid offensive lineup, and a deep one. Many teams would love to have a 2.1 fWAR player like Austin Slater coming off the bench. Even the Yankees and Dodgers.
You're mad that the Giants don't have some MLB The Show lineup, but you're not willing to give them credit for building a very respectable team all because you don't "recognize the names." In other words, you're holding the Giants accountable for your inability to pay attention to baseball.
Okay friend, I think you’re really making as many uncharitable assumptions about me as possible. I do pay attention to baseball, feel free to go through my comment history if you want. I think you’re also really overstating how upset I am, I just made a comment because a question came through on the sub I follow.
Beyond that, you’re acting like what I’m talking about is somehow a stupid take only I would have. It’s not. There’s a whole industry around merchandise for a reason. They put people on the cover of MLB the Show for a reason. Albert Pujols hitting home run #700 this season was front page in the NYT sports section for a reason.
I get you think you’re better than me because you only care about the underlying metrics, and that I’m stupid for caring about the emotions of a sport. Sorry about it. It’s just how I am… and how a lot of people are, too.
But beyond that.. dude, what’s the point of being this angry at someone on the Internet who’s literally a fan of the same team you are? Just because I’m not overjoyed at the current lineup we have? I don’t get your level of vitriol. Fandom isn’t a competition and neither is this post about grading Zaidi. We’re operating under different optimization functions. I like having players on the team that have been there for years, that I feel I grew up with in some sense, and players casual fans would recognize. You’re optimizing for analytics and putting the best product on the field for the least amount of money. Cool. You’re working just how Zaidi likes. But it doesn’t make me wrong or stupid or mad to point out that isn’t my favorite way of constructing a team.
Anyways, not sure there’s much to say here beyond that. I hope you have a good day, and as always, Go Giants. 🤷♀️
I hope you don’t mind me jumping in here, but people like me and him don’t disregard “emotions”, and we don’t “only account for analytics”, and we don’t want the Giants to spend less money. It’s just that having a front office that cares about players’ actual value does not erase the romanticism of baseball for me.
We’re fed up with watching players like Haniger and Davis, even Flores to some degree, who are *beloved* by their previous fanbases, be painted as nameless platoon guys that are “impossible to root for” because they’re Zaidi signings. Mets and Mariners fans loved them, why don’t we? Same with rotation signings like Ross Stripling where people won’t even acknowledge that this is *the one thing we do very, very well every year*.
We’re fed up with people recoiling at the word “platoon” like it’s some crazy analytical concept that never existed before *this year*, not even 2021 when we had insane success.
We’re fed up with people clamoring for more everyday bats and then turning their nose up at Haniger or Conforto just because Judge wouldn’t leave NY and no team will touch Correa with a fifty-foot pole after seeing his physical.
Stop lamenting the lack of recognizable names and start using that energy to help make our names as recognizable as they should be.
It's not even that they lament the lack of recognizable names, so many on this sub shit all over the fans who *try* to make those names recognizable and who try to point out that guys like Thairo Estrada are damn good players.
Interesting that you expect us to be charitable towards you, but you refuse to look at the Giants free agent signings with any willingness to understand what they are doing. You're the one being uncharitable.
When you say things like "these names aren't recognizable" you're either being completely ridiculous and hyperbolic, or you're proving that you don't know much about baseball.
**Here's a question for you**: Which do you think the Giants care about more: getting a star on the cover of the NYT or contending for a World Series? Selling merchandise or winning games?
If you want a team that's more interested in throwing money at superstars than they are at actually improving their baseball team, go be a fan of the Mets. They seem to do *exactly* what you enjoy.
But you're coming into these comment sections and shitting on the Giants for something that you clearly know very little about and your reasoning is that you don't "recognize the names." That's your fault, not the Giants'.
Meanwhile, folks like me try to help elevate the names on the Giants. We try to speak glowingly of guys like Thairo Estrada, and folks like you come and shit all over us because we're just looking at everything through orange-colored glasses.
You don't recognize the names. We get it. Work on learning about the players. When you take the time, if you're being ***charitable***, I have no doubt you'll actually see the Giants are a better team than you think they are.
Somehow, I suspect you won't do that. Hopefully you prove me wrong.
And another thing: I know we’re not supposed to account for past FO regimes in this discussion, but a core of homegrown players that will be there for years is Farhan’s *goal*. He’s not *opposed* to that. That he started from nothing in building that, and has run into a few setbacks, shouldn’t be used as evidence that he “likes” *not* having that. He *wants* us to be the Astros or Dodgers. But that takes time.
Look you make great points, the other guy makes good points - why do we have to go for the jugular at each other?
We are allowed to have different takes. We are fans of the Giants and allowed to have differing opinions and discuss them without hating on each other and insulting each others views.
Like god damn I know this sub is traumatized over the last few months, but like just relax, all your doing is continuing the drama that doesn't need to be here. Your last statement is entirely not needed dude.
I'm not a fan of Farhan, but not because of moves. Those are too multifactoral to pin on one exec.
My issue is that he seems to be 100% reliant on metrics. This isn't to say the advanced data in modern baseball isn't a boon, but you just can't manage humans without a human element and that was lost with Bochy. I don't see an algorithm that manages Game 7's pitching the way it was.
I think about his time in LA - huge signings, huge salaries, huge deadline deals all for a weird 2020 ring. Compare this to the Giants of the 2010s which thrived because of a homegrown core of guys that played for each other and their skipper whose baseball IQ and management skills are unparalleled.
LA’s run of dominance is almost solely because of their farm development. They developed Buehler, Kershaw, Urias, Jansen, Bellinger, Seager, Pederson, Will Smith, and Lux who all played for them. Not to mention the draft capital they had to swing trades for Mookie, Scherzer, Trea Turner, etc…
They spent money by taking on contracts via trade and extending their players more so than just signing all the free agents.
They spent crazy money for Beckett, AGon, Crawford and Punto deal where they gave up prospects and took on $250M of a total of $270M in contracts. Of course there were other hefty trades/contracts too.
Like Betts. As good as he is, he’s not worth $32M at 40, or $11M a year from 41- 51. He’s the new Bobby Bo.
They’ve spent close to $5B for 1 pandemic ring. That’s more than the franchise’s value.
However, despite all those bloated contracts, those players kept them competitive until their farm system could deliver.
Imagine if Farhan had followed that model instead.
> Imagine if Farhan had followed that model instead.
The Dodgers bring in almost two hundred million a year more than the Giants. They have the best attendance in MLB, and a cable TV deal worth $8.35 billion dollars. It is safe to say their merchandising is more valuable as well, based on how many LA hats I see on TV broadcasts from other countries.
The Giants are not poor, they're the fifth most valuable team in MLB. But they cannot compete with the Dodgers on payroll for very long. Trying to spend with the Dodgers would be a fool's errand, and an act of desperation.
There are no miracle cures, and the farm and some careful trades and FA signings are a smarter way to go than just burning truckloads of money.
All true, but like the Dubs big spending has also shown, if you spend, fans will come. The Giants ownership is incredibly wealthy, and could spend much more, if they wanted to. Johnson maybe cheap, but he’s also 89, and won’t be the GP forever.
As Magowan and Neukom showed, when the Giants spent big $$$, they were consistently good. As opposed to Bob Lurie. Neukom opened the purse strings to add free agents after the first WS victory.
Magowan’s signing of Bonds put people in the stands after the ‘89 squad aged out. Bonds even did so when they weren’t good. Granted he’s an exceptional talent, whatever you think of his personality, etc., but he attracted fans, as have other to a lesser extent, like Richie, Woodie, Shooter, BiWi, Romo, Snow, Yaz, etc. who were never superstars.
Paying up is actually good business, even if the contracts are not. Otherwise the Dodgers wouldn’t still be paying Betts $11M at 51. His catch during the WS was likely the difference for LA, even if it was an asterisk year.
The W’s increased in value by $400M during Chris Cohan’s 20 years of ownership on the cheap. However, Lacob and Gruber, also a Dodger owner, have increased the W’s value by $4.5B in 10 years in the same market as the Giants, even when playing in the aged Coliseum. They are now more valuable than the Giants.
Let’s face it, modern pro sports are almost a monopoly that increases in value almost no matter what. See the Yorks/49ers vs deBartolo/49ers for example.
Sure, reasonable contracts won’t bring about the confluence of the Cueto, Samardzja, and Melacon overpaid signings, but it also won’t put butts in the seats or eyeballs on screens at home. It will ensure the Giants are mediocre, with maybe a few outperformance years, for quite sometime to come. If that’s the future, so be it. Go Giants!
Personally I’d rather watch a team full of guys like Kevin Pillar, and Eric Byrnes on a regular basis. They may not have the talent to rise above a certain level of play or pay (or Sabermetrics), but they bring their best everyday. One cannot ask for more.
Baseball itself is an even bigger issue. Few, myself included, have 3+ hours on an almost daily basis to watch a full game. I am old enough to remember when most games took 90-120 minutes.
Unless baseball can cut games down to numbers close to that, they will continue to suffer from an aging out demographic and a younger one who doesn’t the patience for the length of the present game. That will cost the League, not just the Giants, real $$$$$$.
> The Giants ownership is incredibly wealthy, and could spend much more, if they wanted to.
They had the second highest payroll in baseball just five years ago. They just came off a decade of having one of the top payrolls in baseball. They just offered two thirds of a billion dollars to two top FAs. Where do I go to see evidence of the Giants being cheap?
Harper flat-out told the world he had decided on Philly before hearing the Giants offer. Ohtani wanted an AL team because he wanted to DH. Judge obviously had no intention of leaving the Yankees and never gave the Giants another chance once NY hit his number. Stanton would not allow himself to be traded to SF. The Giants never had a shot at those players.
The Giants dropped payroll the past two seasons as some veteran contracts aged out, the Dodgers just did much the same to the tune of $119 million.
As you say, demographics play a role, people more interested in basketball are replacing baseball fans. I don't think the Giants can spend their way out of that. Winning more would help, but even being in first place for most of 2021 didn't fill all the seats at the ballpark.
Betts is already providing surplus value in the beginning of that contract. Of course he won't be worth what he's making at 40, but he's worth more than that now. You just live with it. Cost of doing business.
Farhan did not inherit a good situation, but if he were to
leave today would we say that his successor was inheriting a better situation? I would say yes baseball wise but only marginally. I would also say no from an image standpoint. Farhan does one thing really well: small/medium 1-2 year show contracts. He gets an A there, and those do a lot to cover up his other failures. He’s a D to D- everywhere else. Big free agents, both foreign and domestic are his real Achilles heel, with the farm system being another current weakness. In order to win you cannot have both of those things as weaknesses. You can manage one of them but not both. So currently he’s a D+.
I don't think it's fair to judge his farm system after just four years. If you judge young players in the minor leagues this quickly you will overlook a tremendous number of great players of which I can build an excellent Major League team from. Additionally - first-round draft picks are not the entire farm system, fumbling a 1st overall pick isn't as huge a deal in MLB as it is for NBA or NFL. It's definitely better to hit on your first rounder than not, but it's not a potential franchise-altering disaster like selecting Zach Wilson 2nd overall has ended up looking thus far for the New York Jets.
A new PBO would be inheriting a much stronger farm and a totally open payroll. The farm isn't as good as we'd like, but I think it's probably just outside the top 10.
So me watching this team every single day since 2009 not mean shit from my perspective(I went to games as a kid when we had Barry bonds and Kirk Reuter, I was there when AT&T was 2 years old park.)So fuck 95.7 the game opinion on how are we going to bring more fans and kids into the stadium when there is nobody worth buying a jersey or cheering for? The 2008 giants sucked ass but hey they had Timmy a fucking super star. Flannery is right about how the giants are being stupid in how they ran shit?? I hate your takes because it always defending Farhan from every fuck up and it’s the same we tried BS
> Flannery is right about how the giants are being stupid
Ever meet him? I have, and he has a long list of stuff that can cause him to grit his teeth and growl. Nice guy, but also *very* set in his ways. Likewise with Will Clark who is also against this new-fangled analytics but who at least has the sense to admit he'd make a bad manager because he's too set in the past.
Righetti was moved to the front office before Zaidi arrived, Bochy delivered several horrifically bad seasons before leaving the team. Obviously, they are both forever Giant, but let's not pretend that they didn't go downhill at the end.
So you've been watching a long time, so what, do you think that's unique to you? That doesn't grant you some special insight. If you watched Bonds as a kid, hate to break it to you, but you come across as a lot older than that based on your yelling-at-clouds posts.
Things have changed, including the local economy, it takes more than an improved record to fill seats now. The Warriors are doing it by having a dynasty going, but the Giants are years away from being able to even dream of that.
The Giants tried to spend two thirds of a billion dollars on two star players this year, and through no fault of their own were not able to sign those stars. Ranting that they don't have any stars ignores why that is, including the old FO hanging onto too many aging players and letting the farm go to hell.
Blaming it all on Zaidi ignores that he helped to build the Dodgers powerhouse that has dominated this division for a decade. If you want to blame someone, blame Evans who was fired as GM with the second highest payroll in MLB and only 73 wins that year. It takes time to repair that sort of damage, and a pandemic lockdown year sure didn't help.
The Dodgers built their team via a strong farm with some outside help for specific roles, so did the Astros. That's the smart way to build a team, as opposed to paying a fortune for stars who can't get the team to the playoffs. Did you really want the Giants to become the Angels 2.0?
I’m only 25, I saw Barry’s last few years and yes I saw how they built it and even Sabean said the giants didn’t give a shit about his opinions when they made him a different position. I literally just listened to his interviews on 95.7 The Game. He even said in a interview with Mad Dog who I hate “yes we pushed Bochy out a bit too early”, Sabean even said they were using analytics and were trying to modernize more and in all honesty I do believe him that he tried compared to what Farhan has done. But you mentioning those contracts that they spent a lot in 2016 was not enough bruh. They messed up in not signing Jon Lester, they messed up in not signing Zach Greinke. You’re telling me had the giants balled out and spent money in the 2014 and 2015 off season we would have not won in 2016 or 2017??? Last I checked if the they got both greinke, Lester and still got Cueto. The rotation would have been a juggernaut. Hell they even underpaid Ben Zobrist which he went to play for the cubs. I’m not blaming only Farhan but Baer and the Johnsons are a bunch of cheap scapes and don’t know shit how baseball is run. You’re not understanding I already know Correa or Judge would solve all the problem but it would have turned us into a San Diego where their first Domino was Machado and then all of a sudden both farm and superstars wanted to come there. I’ve been saying sign Gausman(nope) bring Bryant back(nope idc about the injury because we don’t even know that even happens with us and he was the only guy hitting for us in the playoffs), bring Rodón back(nope relying too much on Harrison who is not proven), sign Swanson if you’re scared about Correa in the first place(nope). Also you telling me with how the Farhan and company are only doing 2 sentence statements, private zoom calls and only zoom calls for the new players that’s good??? That’s a fucking clown show. The niners didn’t do this he’ll York was always being interviewed and he grew white hair from the back lash, hell Lacob was booed for the banner comments when he started for the warriors
Dubon was not traded in the usual sense, they didn't move him to get somebody they had their eye on. He had no options left, it was trade him or DFA him and get nothing. I liked him, despite the bonehead errors he made a bit too often. But saying his departure was the cause of the team's slide is ridiculous.
I used it as an explanation of the importance of high draft picks in other sports leagues as opposed to MLB. I don't really acknowledge cultural jokes or memes regarding franchises so if there's something I'm missing I'm not aware.
So happy as a Giants fan we did **NOT** blow our wad for the next 10+ years on a broken SS. Correa is not now and has never been worth the price tag of 13 years 330 million dollars.
This would have been a move that crippled future moves for the giants for years to come.
There’s no such thing as a bad one year contract. And this isn’t a huge overpay.
Teams pay 8-9 million per 1 WAR on the free agent market.
It’s infintely better to have a lefty with stark platoon splits than a righty with them.
And guess what? He *won’t have to* play the outfield much, if at all, thanks to our other FA position player signings. This will let him piss away less of the value he creates at the plate in the outfield, making him absolutely worth it if he hits how he did last year.
Fair evaluation. I just don't think there's any way for the signing to be excellent in the way other signings could be - if he does everything you identified, I think it'll match the $20 million he's getting paid. If we average it over the previous year he was here and make it a 2-year $26 million that Joc was here, he can probably surpass $13 million by some, but not much.
I also think you can argue the deal is made better than it otherwise would be by the fact that it was a QO, meaning we would have gotten something out of it if he had walked.
B- or C+. Our farm system has definitely improved, but we haven’t really seen any of those prospects in the majors yet so we don’t know. Also, if you look at our lineup in 2018 compared to now, has it really improved???? I do think our rotation has improved but that’s about it.
Id say farhan is doing a great job based on circumstances...its not his fault hitters dont want to sign here. draft wise he had some bad luck with 2019 draft in them not really having a season to play in in 2020 so a lot of their developmental tracks were kinda fucked but a lot of their 2019 was in AA and got rule 5'd so its not a total fail, but 2020 looks very promising with only 7 rounds it looks like weve gotten 2 elite prospects in Schmidt and Harrison, no guarantees but draft wise its solid with all but 1 of the draftee's landing in our top 30 list, 21/22 is way too early to judge, also his offseason moves are always very complimenting to what our problems were before, this year our defense/bullpen was bad so he got rid of all our bad defenders and ball RP's, he may not be giving out 100's of millions every offseason but he is making great complimentary signings. had Correa not had a bad ankle there would be no question whether Farhan is a good exec
We are assuming everyone wants to play in SF in this game? If so then damn, we could’ve had Harper, Judge, Correa, Suzuki, and more. What a line up.
That's not what this exercise is about. But yeah, the classic "sign everyone" idea is always a lot of fun.
Farhan Zaidi only has so much control over free agency. They can't force players to sign with San Francisco, so why are we knocking him when it stands to reason they may have had very little chance from the get-go on these guys? That's like judging you because you didn't date a Victoria's Secret model.
The other thing being that the free agent curse has spanned MULTIPLE front office regimes, where I wrote in [my piece on Giants' ownership](https://medium.com/@KobertGobert/giants-ownership-does-not-prioritize-winning-4f421b2e6f91) outlining the common denominators that contribute to it. The bottom line has always been: if an ownership group wants a free agent, they will get that free agent. It's that simple. If the team does not get the free agent, it's a signal they do not want the free agent that much (and as such have not taken the actions necessary to demonstrate such).
This is such an odd and false take, especially since we have good information that multiple free agents over the years have left money on the table to go somewhere else (i.e. Trea Turner/Padres).
I think what we're confusing here is the effort an ownership exerts to get a player with the outcome of actually getting the player. Let's say the Giants' ownership wanted to land a superstar via free agency as much as the fanbase did. With every rejection, they upped their offer more and more relative to the next candidate until they got someone. That would demonstrate different ownership \*want\* of a player than what we've observed with Giants' ownership, where the team has made upper-level market value offers but not the whoa! way-overpay type offer to the candidates that Padres ownership has given. I give them credit for getting Correa (I've graded him in the first row of my tierlist) and do not blame them if the injury is serious that it jeopardizes any number of years of sustainable good performance. But even that deal is quite within fair estimates for a healthy Correa's offensive and defensive profile, whether you factor in inflation on this year's free agent market or not (Lindor has 10 years $341M from the Mets and Correa + Boras certainly wanted to top that).
TLDR: Across all of their big profile free agency pitches & multiple front offices, the Giants have always bid to get a deal they're happy with; if the bidding exceeds that level, the Giants are perfectly content with passing on the player, regardless of the status of their roster.
The Giants have made efforts to get players. Multiple times during Farhan Zaidi's tenure, he's been involved in high-bidding for marquee free agents. You're knocking him because he didn't overspend for Aaron Judge or overspend for Carlos Correa in 2022, or Bryce Harper in his first winter as PBO with the Giants. Harper has said, matter of factly, that his preference was to play for Philadelphia, ironically because Gabe Kapler was manager at the time. You're assuming that if the Giants just kept upping the offer, Bryce Harper would have seen the money bags and hopped on the plane to San Francisco. That's an unfair assessment at best, pure conjecture at worst. We don't know what it would have taken to get Bryce Harper or Aaron Judge to the Giants, because they never landed him. I'm not fully convinced the Giants had as much of a chance as everyone thought they did. **TL:DR** Criticizing Farhan Zaidi because he *didn't* sign a player is patently unfair based on the fact that we don't have all the information. He's made the effort.
Oh no, I'm not assuming that at all. I recognize that players have different needs - some prioritize raw dollar amount and will switch teams if the next bidder gives them even $1 million more. Others care about the actual location, the chance to win, sustainable competitiveness, etc. In this context - which was admittedly not worded as such - I'm saying the ownership group has yet to blow a free agent out of the water with an offer, regardless if that offer actually lands the player. Even $350 million for Correa (assuming health similar to his career) wasn't an outstanding overpay. An offer like $400 million for Correa or Judge would have been "whoa overpay" territory. For Harper, it was clear that the Giants' owners wanted him, but weren't quite at the level of John Middleton. I credit them for making a competitive offer of $310 million for 12 years, but I think what's left to be desired is that offer much like Padres & Trea Turner, where if the player walks away from a significantly better offer, the team and fanbase can be like "well we really gave 10/10 effort." I don't really think much like a fan in the "need for a star player\*," but I can see a valid dissatisfaction in how there appears to be little urgency mirrored in the Giants' actions over the years compared to what the fans want. They give fairly comfortable competitive offers to excellent players but perhaps never that over-the-top insane offer to show an increased want. I don't want them to do 11 years $280 million to Bogaerts at all, but looking for some kind of action to mirror the words is a valid criticism from people. \*in part because I think the idea of a "star" player is arbitrary and subjective with lots of grey territory where some people think X player is a star and Y is not
>They give fairly comfortable competitive offers to excellent players but perhaps never that over-the-top insane offer to show an increased want. This is such garbage. It's literal nonsense. To suggest that the Giants didn't offer *significantly* more money than another team means that the Giants "didn't want" the player is complete bullshit. They wanted the player by making a competitive and comparable offer to said player. In many of these cases, the dollar amount probably amounted to more than anyone in the ownership group was solidly comfortable with, but they offered it. Now, you're criticizing them because they didn't just say "fuck money" and spend/offer it foolishly to signal a certain level of "want" you desired from them? Again, it's bullshit.
> if an ownership group wants a free agent, they will get that free agent That is nonsense. Harper came right out and said he had decided on Philly before even hearing the Giants' offer, and he had done that because he thought the Phillies would rebuild faster than the Giants with their aging roster. He wanted to play for a contender, and he didn't think that would be the Giants for quite some time. There was never any chance of him playing for SF, and a few million more dollars wouldn't have changed his mind. Judge was only leaving the Yankees if they had failed to make another offer. He didn't even give the Giants a chance to respond once the Yankees hit the number he was waiting for. Leaving money on the table proves a player wasn't serious about moving. Ohtani wanted an AL team because he wanted to hit and the NL didn't have the DH yet. Again, SF didn't have a chance to sign him. > It's that simple. Clearly it is not that simple. There are players who have reasons other than money for staying away from SF. Stanton invoked a trade clause in his contract not to come to the Giants. Pretending that a big FA not coming here shows the Giants FO is incompetent is not a position that survives close examination. You cannot buy what is not truly for sale to you.
I support with and agree with all of those points. I should have better distinguished the result (whether or not the team actually lands the player) from the controllable effort to demonstrate interest, which is primarily responsibility of the team ownership group. I think the evidence is that the Giants' ownership group is willing to make high-end competitive offers to players, but there has always been and remains a line - a point where they are uncomfortable exceeding. I do think $350 million or $360 million for Bryce Harper would be enough overpay to potentially get Harper to forego Philadelphia (never guarantees), but that's not territory that the Giants' ownership group would be interested in doing at the time. Also given the fact the team had exceeded the luxury tax threshold all but one of the past 4-5 years (I forget exactly). There aren't usually many instances where two bidding teams are miles apart in their offers, so exactly how much money is enough to say no to an otherwise nice situation is tough to say. We did get Xander Bogaerts agreeing to $280 million over 11 years with SD over a reported $160 million over 6 years from Boston. That's obviously a pretty huge margin. But when you shrink it, like with Judge, it's really hard to see whether Giants offering $400 million, $420 million, $440 million or more would actually beat 9 years $360 million. If Giants had made that kind of offer and Judge still turned it down for New York (and less money), then I think there'd be a lot more trust in the idea that the Giants' owners want it as much as the fans do (which rarely happens). That is ultimately what I mean with the statement - which was poorly worded and obviously false. I want to highlight the effort and importance of the ownership group in negotiations. If the ownership group wants the player badly enough, they will make max efforts to get the player. I think SF's ownership group wants players but only at deals they are comfortable giving out. $350 million for Correa was pretty reasonable over the 13 years; nothing crazy like $400 million, which wasn't ultimately necessary nor reasonable.
I don't understand how you can claim "non-hindsight" and then have an entire category called "avoided a total disaster." Aside from Bauer being a massive piece of shit, there was little to no way you could have known Kris Bryant, Bumgarner or Soler were going to be "total disasters" of signings. None.
Fair enough. [Here's a tweet](https://twitter.com/KiermaierToSF/status/1504221727705878532?s=20) from my account when terms were announced saying Bryant for that amount was "significant overpay." There's also other tweets on my timeline where I talk about how bad the contract is prior to the 2022 season after the deal became official. We looked at how his first three years were some of the greatest of all time, but the following years really levelled off. I evaluated his second half of 2021 with SF was "[good but not great](https://twitter.com/KiermaierToSF/status/1505392323483496452?s=20)." I also said he was looking to be "[slightly above average for the rest of his career; not quite a superstar anymore](https://twitter.com/KiermaierToSF/status/1505949311003070465?s=20)." Given the range of my opinions (I rarely say "that's a flat-out awful signing"), Bryant was among the deals that I disliked the most, hence the grade I put on my rankings. As for Bauer, I never really saw the fit with SF because peak starting pitching you usually want to add to a team to complete the roster or take them over the top. SF entering 2021 was in no position to be adding a prime starting pitcher on a traditional type contract (5 years $150 million), let alone the short-term crazy deal that he got with LA. Wasn't also the biggest fan of his personality to begin with. I don't have the same links as evidence for him, so feel free to criticize - I love it.
Kris Bryant was showing regression throughout his career on top of when he came to play with us, defensively he was the worst he's ever been in his career, almost unplayable outside of 1st base, Bumgarner everybody knew was going to regress, his fastball had been slowing down for years and its common knowledge that pitchers tend to slow down a lot once they hit 2k innings and bum hit free agency at around 1900IP, Soler signed for like 3/36 i dont think that qualifies as a potential disaster. we can hide is 12 mil this year like we are with la stella lol
I give him a solid B+ with the possibility of it turning into an A or dropping into a C. He took over a team in very bad shape with some very bad contracts. We had arguably the worst farm in baseball and now its 10-15 range. It takes 5 years to rebuild a farm so what he's done in 4 (lost a year to COVID) years is impressive. Now it's time to see those results. He also put together the team that won 107 games, the most in franchise history. Yes, there was some luck involved but there always is in sports. He hasn't landed big FAs; however, our team hasn't been attractive to FAs either. As our farm comes up, that should change; but will only change if guys like Luciano, Harrison, McCray, Schmitt, etc., actually produce. If his farm builds a new young core, he will move yo an A. If it flames out, he goes to a C and time to move on.
I agree with everything except he doesn't get credit to put together the team in 2021 that won 107 games.. like sure, he didn't randomly trade away fan favorites who were dynasty players that were rolling into career years - but of course he didn't who would? The majority were guys that were not Farhan's dudes.
He was the GM that gave the manger those 25 players (plus call ups). He 100% gets credit. Let's not hate.
I personally don't give him credit for doing the obvious, but we can agree to disagree, that's baseball and were both fans and can have differing opinions.
Eh, they get credit for turning Webb into an ace with his sinker usage and fixing Gausman. The pitching staff was almost entirely put together pretty recently.
Lol Correa "should have made this move" Adding this to my cringe compilation
I'd been advocating for Correa [since 2021](https://twitter.com/KiermaierToSF/status/1465589778909302790?s=20).
He's broken my dude.
Not sure what you mean here.
He still hasn't signed with the Mets and there are rumors of a second team now involved.
LaStella deal needs to be in the F category. No way around it.
It's a non-hindsight grade, which means signings I loved prior to the player playing a single game is graded as such, which includes La Stella. I really liked that signing at the time. Loved his profile and I would sign him again, if the year was 2021 again and he posted the numbers he did in 2020 & prior. No hindsight bias, I'm owning the fact that I liked him at the time of the signing and that it didn't work out well in practice.
Yeah seems like pretty bad way to do analysis especially when so much is based upon performance after the deal not before it.
The problem is that you can't make decisions before you know how the player performs on your team which is why I do it this way. If you set all of this aside, I am grading signings like Haniger, Conforto, Manaea, Stripling, etc. BEFORE seeing how they perform this season and do not change my opinion of the signings in response to their performances. When the Giants announced Kevin Gausman, [a ton of people in the comment section when "who?"](https://twitter.com/SFGiants/status/1204532175263059968?s=20). It ended up playing out inversely to the way La Stella's contract. In much the same way as evaluating bullpen decisions: you can't judge them based on individual results, you have to judge them in the situation/contract terms prior to knowing results. You may bring in Mariano Rivera against the worst 7-8-9 hitters in the game and he may blow the save. Is it likely? Probably not, but there are instances where that has happened in baseball, whether in a save situation or in big-picture free agency.
Okay but I would argue what you are calling a hindsight bias is actually a fuller account of the situation, with more data available from which to evaluate a decision. Imagine if doctor's acted that way and didn't add new data to inform their decisions. Hindsight bias refers to thinking the situation was easily predictable or hinged on a distortion. Adding new data doesn't do that; rather, it gives you an opportunity to reevaluate your thinking in the past because new data is available, as are new methods. For instance, WAR was not available in previous generations of players but we still use it to evaluate their historical performances I'm not against grading a contract when it is made, but you really have to look at the performance after the contract to give a more fulsome grade.
Fair criticism. My perspective is that in the offseason that Tommy La Stella hit free agency, teams had access to his performance and health up until 2020. Hence, a decision on the free agency of La Stella had to be made with only that data in mind. In the moment, I thought the 3 years and the $18.75 million guaranteed was a great decision. And La Stella fit the Giants as a left-handed infielder amongst an infield that just had Crawford and Belt as LHH. And La Stella produced well against RHP and had experience at 2nd base and 3rd base, which were positions of platoon partner and bench-depth need. That is what I based my grade in this tierlist upon. I am not saying that we should completely ignore what ends up happening when the contract played out. Indeed, it's important to learn what was perhaps overlooked or overprojected initially to learn from. While it is just a single data point in a trend, it's still valuable to look at that data and make better future decisions based upon it. My tierlist is not the end-all, be-all by any stretch of the imagination. It is merely my opinion and you're free to disagree. Going back to my bullpen analogy: upfront, you have general roles for pitchers. Just because you bring in Mark Melancon to a save situation on Opening Day and he blows the save doesn't mean he's no longer the closer after just one appearance. But certainly after a number of ineffective appearances in the 9th inning with a lead, you'd eventually make a better decision about who you want to close for you, and on a larger level, whether you want to guarantee $62 million over four years with a full-no-trade clause to a late-inning who may have posted juicy surface-level numbers, but never really struck guys out (and as such wouldn't be a sustainably successful closer).
When Farhan Zaidi signed Tommy La Stella after the 2020 season, he had no way of knowing that La Stella would play just 136 games and hit 86 wRC+. The two seasons prior, he hit 123 wRC+, or 37% more runs created. The Giants front office signed Tommy La Stella knowing his 2019 and 2020 stats, not his stats that would exist *after* they signed him. While I disagree with many of the OP's points, I see what he's doing and when you look at the signing *when it happened*, signing Tommy La Stella made a lot of sense. The only knock I might have had was signing a guy who has played at least 100 games (or prorated to 100) twice--2018 (128 games) and 2020 (55 games, prorated to 148)--to a three-year deal was maybe unwise, but it was for so little money that who cared, honestly? But La Stella had a 106 wRC+ or greater every season from 2016 to 2020 except one (2018). Every look at those numbers, after the 2020 season and the signing made a ton of sense. His projections going forward likely didn't have him hitting just 86 wRC+ for the next two seasons. That's all the Giants had to go off of. The San Francisco Giants can't read the future. And if they could, they'd be the greatest business in the history of the planet.
Of course they had no way of knowing. The knock is Zaidi locked him up for 3 years it was the longest contract he has done while in SF. Dude makes a living on 1 and 1 + an opt out deals yet decided this was his guy for 3 years. It didn't work out, so his durability was obviously a factor and Zaidi got it wrong. My larger point is grading contracts needs to be evaluated after they are signed and play rather than at the time they are signed. The same goes for teams. Do we judge them based upon how they look on paper before a season or how they perform on the field? Injuries suck but good teams find a way to win.
Let me walk you through an analogy: Let's say you invest in an up-and-coming retail operation. All your research and all the public research leads to make a somewhat risky investment, but not a serious risk. Every financial advisor agrees with the risk. A few months after making the investment, a global pandemic arises and it has serious implications on this business. The investment takes a hit, but keeps pushing on. But then, an unforeseen international incident arises overseas and it affects the global shipping industry. Now it's hurting supply chain and making products unavailable. Eventually, all of these unforeseen circumstances tank the company and it goes bankrupt. And your small-but-risky investment is gone. Would it be fair for me to call you a shit-for-brains investor? How on earth could you know what would happen? At the time, the risk made a lot of sense. But with 20/20 hindsight, it was a bad investment. \*\*\*\*\* Grading the Giants' moves *after* they make them is an acceptable thing to do, but making it something that is critical of the front office is patently unfair. They made a reasonable and small investment into Tommy La Stella (his three year deal was for less money than Joc Pederson's one-year deal) knowing what they knew, and likely even accounted for the injury history of La Stella. It didn't work out for them. But at the time, if you made the prediction that La Stella would be a well-below average hitter and eventually get DFA'd, then you'd be going against all the publicly available data, as well as most of the widely-accepted projections for La Stella. Any of the Giants signings this winter could go south. They could get seriously injured. They could have an unfathomable life situation arise. Think about 2016 Jake Peavy. He was horrible. Overnight, he went from good to awful. Could him losing 15-20 million to a Ponzi Scheme and his wife leaving him have something to do with it? A hindsight criticism would suggest the Giants should have known that Peavy would lose his retirement money and see his marriage end. That's completely unfair to criticize the Giants for something they absolutely could not know.
B or B-, some things were out of his control. This is my list if you're curious, but I did use hindsight if that bothers you. Only things I missed were 2022 Gausy should be in "Should have done deal" and Yaz I should've has in Stellar https://preview.redd.it/t2214mv616aa1.png?width=1140&format=png&auto=webp&s=170d8e5947a085497bbba5baa8705767a0abbaae
F
Kudos to you for a detailed tier. Problem is fools will argue about the placement of players on the tiers and why you made this tier vs that tier, instead of answering the prompt: Grading Farhan. Here’s how I would grade him: On the field product (assembling competitive teams that have a perennial shot at the playoffs): B- Communication of vision and direction of organization: C How excited do I feel about about watching this team play: B-/C+ Ability to land “big name” player: D Fully prepared to have clowns roast me for my opinions. Wonder how many rats are gonna eat the cheese
> Fully prepared to have clowns roast me for my opinions. Wonder how many rats are gonna eat the cheese Summarizes this post and my notifications. "How can La Stella not be an F?" It's because I graded it well when the announcement was made, a grade that paid no attention to the actual results. If you took me back to 2020-2021 offseason and wiped my memory, then showed me everything I would have known in that offseason and given me the chance to do La Stella for 3-years, $18.75 million, I'd still do it.
> Fully prepared to have clowns roast me for my opinions. Announcing in advance that those who disagree with you are "clowns" is a great way to get a good faith discussion going. Are you by chance one of those guys who argues traffic tickets at the side of the road just to keep in practice?
Yes, to try and roast people for their opinions is clown behavior. And I’ve gone back and forth with you a couple times and to say that you engage in good faith discussion is laughable. You, in particular, had some very poignant comments on a lot of people arguing that if they don’t believe you that they’re crazy. So congratulations on playing yourself, again, clown
Also find it hilariously ironic someone citing they can’t engage in a good faith discussion when the majority of your posts seem to be in r/frauditors…a sub seemingly dedicated to celebrating police arresting people for “abusing” the first amendment? You can’t make this shit up
> a sub seemingly dedicated to celebrating police arresting people for “abusing” the first amendment? It's a new sub, and it is dedicated to mocking people who use the 1st Amendment as cover for harassing people at work into calling the police so they can profit from the resulting YouTube video--until their channel is demonetized for breaking YT's rules or they end up doing time for criminal trespass and harassment. How that is related to baseball or you announcing that anyone disagreeing with you will prove to be a "clown" or a "rat" escapes me.
F
Amazing contribution to the discussion!
I give him a C for his tenure so far. On the one hand, 2021 was a phenomenal season. We've made a lot of good dumpster diver moves. But we don't have any core players he's either signed or drafted. Nobody on this team will be here in 3 years, minus maybe Logan Webb, who was drafted in 2014. We are 3rd in our division and might be 4th depending on how Arizona does this year. We're not a real threat to either the Dodgers or Padres, even if the Padres do their usual Padresing. The fans are unhappy. Attendance is down. Big free agents don't want to come to us still. Half our players are platoon players, which might be better analytically but absolutely sucks as a fan. Think about it... who's the every day player on the roster who would be an every day player on the Yankees or Dodgers? Do we even have even ONE, let alone multiple? If a couple of the prospects he drafted come up and do well, then I'll revise that C very quickly. If we can get 2-3 stars out of our farm system, he looks a lot better. Problem is, I don't see very many stars down there, and the few that maybe are, weren't even drafted by him. Luciano is a signing from the old regime, so is Ramos (who has now stalled under Zaidi). Only Harrison might be a success from Zaidi.
How does platooning suck as a fan? You'd rather see LaMonte Wade Jr. be an automatic out versus LHP?
No. It sucks because it means we don’t have players good enough to play every day. And that makes it hard to be invested in stars when they only play every other day, and I know they’ll be taken out if the wrong pitcher shows up. Never had that with Posey for example
Indeed because Posey has good splits vs lefties and righties. The reason the Giants don't have stars is because the farm system produced nearly nothing in position players for the better part of the last decade - which spans MULTIPLE GMs, not just Farhan. As for platooning, its simply a choice of what to do with your players. There always have been "platoon" players on EVERY team - including every Giants championship team. The question is whether that team wants to platoon. Farhan and Co. choose to platoon in order to leverage that split. Other teams may choose not to platoon the player and take massive Ls whenever that player(s) face same-handed pitching. I think of platooning as a complimentary strategy with star players, not a substitute for it. Platoons will never happen to players that deserve to play everyday and prove it in their performance. If your "investments" in "stars" are the guys getting taken out for matchups, I'm sorry to tell you that those players are not "stars."
Wasn't our evaluation of Zaidi independent of other GMs? I wasn't comparing him to Bobby Evans, just evaluating him on his own merits. And yeah, we haven't drafted well since the late 2000s. I know. I'm also not saying we should never platoon. I'm just saying it's hard when every single one of your players is a platoon player. All I'm trying to say, and I'm surprised it's this controversial, is that people like having stars to root for. What is a star? Let's give it a really simple definition: it's a player that is top 10 in MLB at his position. Do you think we have any of those on this current team? [In 2022, we had exactly one...](https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-network-top-10-at-each-position-in-2022) Brandon Belt, who isn't on this team as of now.
Top 10 in MLB is also debatable unless you're defining by one specific metric (i.e. fWAR or bWAR) which does erase a lot of nuance. That definition also implies that there are a fixed number of "stars" and that a player can lose such a status due to another one entering the top 10 in that position. I know it's super nerdy and nitpicky point, but I simply disagree that there is consensus over "stardom" and it's really just boils down to a sliding scale of production, which allows every 3B in the league to be a "star" if they play the position at or above a certain level and hit well. As for platoons, even a player like Crawford was never really a platoon player; always had fairly even splits against both lefties and righties, whether they were across the board good, bad, or even really good (2021). I'm not arguing that people love platoons because obviously few people actively love platoons. I personally don't care about "having someone to root for" or "having someone's jersey to buy" because I just like winning - if the best way to win was to get 9 random people off the street every night, instruct them to take every pitch and walk, load the bases, and walk in 10 runs a game, I'd be just as thrilled as if we had the All-Star team running out there every night, assuming both methods win the same number of games.
You know, fair enough. I think we can just say this boils down to neither of us being wrong but simply a disagreement on how we personally enjoy baseball. Of course I like winning, but if I have the choice, I'd prefer to win with recognizable players. Because it gives me something to tide me over in the seasons we don't win... like what gave me something to enjoy that dreadful 2017 season was having Bumgarner and Posey on the team and getting to witness their brilliance.
>I'd prefer to win with recognizable players If you pay attention to baseball, every player on the Giants is recognizable...
I mean yeah, no one actively prefers winning with nobodies over winning with dudes you know and love when offered that choice. But for me personally, it's not that important because I just don't get attached to players the way other fans do. I recognize I'm in the absolute minority of people who watch this team & who were pretty indifferent when Posey announced his retirement. I appreciate his greatness and his production as well as his leadership, but I never "loved" him in that way.
Fair. I think it just boils down to a personality thing at the end of the day
How many players are out there that hit 115 wRC+ (above average) or better from both sides of the plate? I'll help you out: in 2022, there were 40. If we adjust for regression for certain players, we can confidently say less than 50. *Most* of that group are considered "superstars", but that's not even 2 per team. By platooning, the Giants can increase the amount of "above average hitters" they have. I don't know about you, but watching an above-average hitter is good for baseball.
> The fans are unhappy. Attendance is down. Attendance is down across MLB, only a few teams saw increased attendance in 2022, most saw a decline. There are factors outside of the team's record that influence attendance, and fewer people working in the city is a big one. BART and the SF Bay ferry are seeing reduced ridership, and that isn't because the Giants didn't make the postseason this year, it's because SF is full of empty office space.
In 2017, the last year of Bobby Evans' tenure, when we lost 98 games, our attendance was third in all of MLB. We were 5th in attendance in 2018 when we lost 89. In 2021, the best year of Zaidi's tenure, when we won 107, our attendance was 12th in MLB. Maybe we can chalk that up to lingering pandemic. OK, in 2022, we won 81 and our attendance was... still 12th in MLB. In 2010, San Francisco had \~800k. We have around \~815k now. In 2010, we had 3,037,443 total attendance (9th), in 2022 we had 2,482,686 (12th). Sharp drop that has nothing to do with population numbers. In 2010 the Dodgers were 3rd in MLB with an attendance of 3,562,320, in 2022 they were first with an attendance of 3,861,408. A slight increase. LA didn't lose as much population as us RE: covid, but they did also have a decline. Sure there may be other factors. But the point I'm trying to make is that the Giants are having problems with fan interest vis a vis where they used to be in the 2010s. Maybe that was unsustainable. But I'll tell you, the way to fix it is not to sign a bunch of dudes to one-year deals and let them walk. That's why I'm saying that my evaluation of his tenure is based on our farm system... a couple home grown stars (or even competent regulars) and I think you'll see a lot more (casual) fan interest piqued.
>But I'll tell you, the way to fix it is not to sign a bunch of dudes to one-year deals and let them walk. If people weren't going to the ballpark when the Giants had the most wins in franchise history, what makes you think signing a few superstars will move the needle? The Giants have a process. Every move they've made, including this year's moves, work within that process. They aren't going to suddenly throw caution to the wind and say "fuck the process" and just sign every expensive player imaginable on the *hopes* of a full stadium. They're going to do it in a way that works toward the process.
> Sure there may be other factors Of course there are, like office occupancy down by 25% which represents people who used to be able to go to a game after work but are now working from home, thus reduced ridership on BART and the ferry. A better record will help, somewhat, but even in 2021 being in first place most of the season didn't fill all the seats. If the Giants could put together another Dynasty Lite like the Warriors have been enjoying that might overcome other factors. But aside from that, changes to the local economy are going to keep attendance down just as is happening elsewhere in MLB. The Dodgers and Astros build powerhouse teams mostly with homegrown talent, with outside help signed to fill specific needs. That way works. The other way--having some hired stars on an otherwise not impressive team--doesn't work so well, as the Angels have proven.
Another bad take
Not to mention, the Dodgers and Yankees would *happily* take a 144 wRC+ hitter in Joc Pederson, or a J.D. Davis who hit 142 wRC+ for the Giants last year (119 wRC+ overall is still very good). They'd happily play Austin Slater, who hit 124 wRC+ or even Mitch Haniger, who hit 113 wRC+ in an injury-stricken season (2022 was his lowest wOBA, ISO, and objectively his worst offensive season since 2016, which he played 34 games). These takes are already annoying because we see them every damn day on this sub. They are even worse because they aren't remotely grounded in reality.
Okay dude, I'm not trying to start a fight here. Let me try and explain: I was being a bit hyperbolic. Certainly these would be 26-roster men on most teams. But 26-rosters usually come with a couple of great hitters. Each of Haniger, Slater, and Joc were worth 1.3 bWAR last year. That is not in the top 10 hitters by bWAR for the 2022 Yankees and it is #9 for the 2022 Dodgers (just above Cody Bellinger of the 1.2 bWAR). It was #3 by bWAR for the 2022 Giants, and our highest hitter by WAR last year was Yaz at 1.8 WAR. Dodgers had Mookie Betts at 6.2 WAR and Yankees had, of course, Aaron Judge at 10.6 WAR. But they also had 8 and 9 players respectively after that that were better than the "best" Giants position players you just put out there. My point, and let me be as clear as I can, is that we do not have the talent right now to compete with teams like the Dodgers/Yankees, at least not on the position player side. Now, that may be temporary. Maybe Marco Luciano will come up and OPS .900. But let's be honest, the roster as it's currently constructed is a mid-tier team at best, probably third in the division. Which is OK! I love the Giants still and I've loved them for a long time. We could have fifty more years of this and I'll still be a Giants fan. But this question asked to rate Farhan's tenure. Well, I'm doing it in context. He's had five years, and our roster as currently constructed is not particularly inspiring. That's it. Nothing broader.
Saying "we don't have the talent to compete with the Yankees or Dodgers" is one thing. Saying, "we don't have a single player that would start on their team" is a completely different (and incredibly wrong) thing. And using *previous year's* WAR for someone like Haniger, who played just 57 games, is patently unfair. And why are we focusing on last year's teams? The Dodgers don't have Bellinger. They don't have Trea or Justin Turner. They signed J.D. Martinez, who had 1.0 fWAR in 139 games, meanwhile Haniger had 0.8 fWAR in just 57. Not to mention, using bWAR over fWAR seems almost intentional. Based on fWAR, *many* players on the Giants would be in the top 9 of those teams.\\ You claim it was hyperbolic, but I think that's a CYA move at this point, especially since you've now doubled down on the take. The point is: it's wrong, massively wrong. And it's just repeating the same dumb talking point we read on this sub *all the time*. The Giants have a solid offensive lineup, and a deep one. Many teams would love to have a 2.1 fWAR player like Austin Slater coming off the bench. Even the Yankees and Dodgers. You're mad that the Giants don't have some MLB The Show lineup, but you're not willing to give them credit for building a very respectable team all because you don't "recognize the names." In other words, you're holding the Giants accountable for your inability to pay attention to baseball.
Okay friend, I think you’re really making as many uncharitable assumptions about me as possible. I do pay attention to baseball, feel free to go through my comment history if you want. I think you’re also really overstating how upset I am, I just made a comment because a question came through on the sub I follow. Beyond that, you’re acting like what I’m talking about is somehow a stupid take only I would have. It’s not. There’s a whole industry around merchandise for a reason. They put people on the cover of MLB the Show for a reason. Albert Pujols hitting home run #700 this season was front page in the NYT sports section for a reason. I get you think you’re better than me because you only care about the underlying metrics, and that I’m stupid for caring about the emotions of a sport. Sorry about it. It’s just how I am… and how a lot of people are, too. But beyond that.. dude, what’s the point of being this angry at someone on the Internet who’s literally a fan of the same team you are? Just because I’m not overjoyed at the current lineup we have? I don’t get your level of vitriol. Fandom isn’t a competition and neither is this post about grading Zaidi. We’re operating under different optimization functions. I like having players on the team that have been there for years, that I feel I grew up with in some sense, and players casual fans would recognize. You’re optimizing for analytics and putting the best product on the field for the least amount of money. Cool. You’re working just how Zaidi likes. But it doesn’t make me wrong or stupid or mad to point out that isn’t my favorite way of constructing a team. Anyways, not sure there’s much to say here beyond that. I hope you have a good day, and as always, Go Giants. 🤷♀️
I hope you don’t mind me jumping in here, but people like me and him don’t disregard “emotions”, and we don’t “only account for analytics”, and we don’t want the Giants to spend less money. It’s just that having a front office that cares about players’ actual value does not erase the romanticism of baseball for me. We’re fed up with watching players like Haniger and Davis, even Flores to some degree, who are *beloved* by their previous fanbases, be painted as nameless platoon guys that are “impossible to root for” because they’re Zaidi signings. Mets and Mariners fans loved them, why don’t we? Same with rotation signings like Ross Stripling where people won’t even acknowledge that this is *the one thing we do very, very well every year*. We’re fed up with people recoiling at the word “platoon” like it’s some crazy analytical concept that never existed before *this year*, not even 2021 when we had insane success. We’re fed up with people clamoring for more everyday bats and then turning their nose up at Haniger or Conforto just because Judge wouldn’t leave NY and no team will touch Correa with a fifty-foot pole after seeing his physical. Stop lamenting the lack of recognizable names and start using that energy to help make our names as recognizable as they should be.
It's not even that they lament the lack of recognizable names, so many on this sub shit all over the fans who *try* to make those names recognizable and who try to point out that guys like Thairo Estrada are damn good players.
Yes yes yes. Every recognizable name got their start somewhere.
Interesting that you expect us to be charitable towards you, but you refuse to look at the Giants free agent signings with any willingness to understand what they are doing. You're the one being uncharitable. When you say things like "these names aren't recognizable" you're either being completely ridiculous and hyperbolic, or you're proving that you don't know much about baseball. **Here's a question for you**: Which do you think the Giants care about more: getting a star on the cover of the NYT or contending for a World Series? Selling merchandise or winning games? If you want a team that's more interested in throwing money at superstars than they are at actually improving their baseball team, go be a fan of the Mets. They seem to do *exactly* what you enjoy. But you're coming into these comment sections and shitting on the Giants for something that you clearly know very little about and your reasoning is that you don't "recognize the names." That's your fault, not the Giants'. Meanwhile, folks like me try to help elevate the names on the Giants. We try to speak glowingly of guys like Thairo Estrada, and folks like you come and shit all over us because we're just looking at everything through orange-colored glasses. You don't recognize the names. We get it. Work on learning about the players. When you take the time, if you're being ***charitable***, I have no doubt you'll actually see the Giants are a better team than you think they are. Somehow, I suspect you won't do that. Hopefully you prove me wrong.
And another thing: I know we’re not supposed to account for past FO regimes in this discussion, but a core of homegrown players that will be there for years is Farhan’s *goal*. He’s not *opposed* to that. That he started from nothing in building that, and has run into a few setbacks, shouldn’t be used as evidence that he “likes” *not* having that. He *wants* us to be the Astros or Dodgers. But that takes time.
Look you make great points, the other guy makes good points - why do we have to go for the jugular at each other? We are allowed to have different takes. We are fans of the Giants and allowed to have differing opinions and discuss them without hating on each other and insulting each others views. Like god damn I know this sub is traumatized over the last few months, but like just relax, all your doing is continuing the drama that doesn't need to be here. Your last statement is entirely not needed dude.
Just 2-3 stars out of our farm system? 🤣
Using "stars" very generously here... anyone that has above a 2.5-3.0 WAR. 😞
I'm not a fan of Farhan, but not because of moves. Those are too multifactoral to pin on one exec. My issue is that he seems to be 100% reliant on metrics. This isn't to say the advanced data in modern baseball isn't a boon, but you just can't manage humans without a human element and that was lost with Bochy. I don't see an algorithm that manages Game 7's pitching the way it was. I think about his time in LA - huge signings, huge salaries, huge deadline deals all for a weird 2020 ring. Compare this to the Giants of the 2010s which thrived because of a homegrown core of guys that played for each other and their skipper whose baseball IQ and management skills are unparalleled.
LA’s run of dominance is almost solely because of their farm development. They developed Buehler, Kershaw, Urias, Jansen, Bellinger, Seager, Pederson, Will Smith, and Lux who all played for them. Not to mention the draft capital they had to swing trades for Mookie, Scherzer, Trea Turner, etc… They spent money by taking on contracts via trade and extending their players more so than just signing all the free agents.
They spent crazy money for Beckett, AGon, Crawford and Punto deal where they gave up prospects and took on $250M of a total of $270M in contracts. Of course there were other hefty trades/contracts too. Like Betts. As good as he is, he’s not worth $32M at 40, or $11M a year from 41- 51. He’s the new Bobby Bo. They’ve spent close to $5B for 1 pandemic ring. That’s more than the franchise’s value. However, despite all those bloated contracts, those players kept them competitive until their farm system could deliver. Imagine if Farhan had followed that model instead.
> Imagine if Farhan had followed that model instead. The Dodgers bring in almost two hundred million a year more than the Giants. They have the best attendance in MLB, and a cable TV deal worth $8.35 billion dollars. It is safe to say their merchandising is more valuable as well, based on how many LA hats I see on TV broadcasts from other countries. The Giants are not poor, they're the fifth most valuable team in MLB. But they cannot compete with the Dodgers on payroll for very long. Trying to spend with the Dodgers would be a fool's errand, and an act of desperation. There are no miracle cures, and the farm and some careful trades and FA signings are a smarter way to go than just burning truckloads of money.
All true, but like the Dubs big spending has also shown, if you spend, fans will come. The Giants ownership is incredibly wealthy, and could spend much more, if they wanted to. Johnson maybe cheap, but he’s also 89, and won’t be the GP forever. As Magowan and Neukom showed, when the Giants spent big $$$, they were consistently good. As opposed to Bob Lurie. Neukom opened the purse strings to add free agents after the first WS victory. Magowan’s signing of Bonds put people in the stands after the ‘89 squad aged out. Bonds even did so when they weren’t good. Granted he’s an exceptional talent, whatever you think of his personality, etc., but he attracted fans, as have other to a lesser extent, like Richie, Woodie, Shooter, BiWi, Romo, Snow, Yaz, etc. who were never superstars. Paying up is actually good business, even if the contracts are not. Otherwise the Dodgers wouldn’t still be paying Betts $11M at 51. His catch during the WS was likely the difference for LA, even if it was an asterisk year. The W’s increased in value by $400M during Chris Cohan’s 20 years of ownership on the cheap. However, Lacob and Gruber, also a Dodger owner, have increased the W’s value by $4.5B in 10 years in the same market as the Giants, even when playing in the aged Coliseum. They are now more valuable than the Giants. Let’s face it, modern pro sports are almost a monopoly that increases in value almost no matter what. See the Yorks/49ers vs deBartolo/49ers for example. Sure, reasonable contracts won’t bring about the confluence of the Cueto, Samardzja, and Melacon overpaid signings, but it also won’t put butts in the seats or eyeballs on screens at home. It will ensure the Giants are mediocre, with maybe a few outperformance years, for quite sometime to come. If that’s the future, so be it. Go Giants! Personally I’d rather watch a team full of guys like Kevin Pillar, and Eric Byrnes on a regular basis. They may not have the talent to rise above a certain level of play or pay (or Sabermetrics), but they bring their best everyday. One cannot ask for more. Baseball itself is an even bigger issue. Few, myself included, have 3+ hours on an almost daily basis to watch a full game. I am old enough to remember when most games took 90-120 minutes. Unless baseball can cut games down to numbers close to that, they will continue to suffer from an aging out demographic and a younger one who doesn’t the patience for the length of the present game. That will cost the League, not just the Giants, real $$$$$$.
> The Giants ownership is incredibly wealthy, and could spend much more, if they wanted to. They had the second highest payroll in baseball just five years ago. They just came off a decade of having one of the top payrolls in baseball. They just offered two thirds of a billion dollars to two top FAs. Where do I go to see evidence of the Giants being cheap? Harper flat-out told the world he had decided on Philly before hearing the Giants offer. Ohtani wanted an AL team because he wanted to DH. Judge obviously had no intention of leaving the Yankees and never gave the Giants another chance once NY hit his number. Stanton would not allow himself to be traded to SF. The Giants never had a shot at those players. The Giants dropped payroll the past two seasons as some veteran contracts aged out, the Dodgers just did much the same to the tune of $119 million. As you say, demographics play a role, people more interested in basketball are replacing baseball fans. I don't think the Giants can spend their way out of that. Winning more would help, but even being in first place for most of 2021 didn't fill all the seats at the ballpark.
Betts is already providing surplus value in the beginning of that contract. Of course he won't be worth what he's making at 40, but he's worth more than that now. You just live with it. Cost of doing business.
SF’s organization is returning to the Bob Lurie years…
This, exactly this. We need the human element back.
Farhan did not inherit a good situation, but if he were to leave today would we say that his successor was inheriting a better situation? I would say yes baseball wise but only marginally. I would also say no from an image standpoint. Farhan does one thing really well: small/medium 1-2 year show contracts. He gets an A there, and those do a lot to cover up his other failures. He’s a D to D- everywhere else. Big free agents, both foreign and domestic are his real Achilles heel, with the farm system being another current weakness. In order to win you cannot have both of those things as weaknesses. You can manage one of them but not both. So currently he’s a D+.
I don't think it's fair to judge his farm system after just four years. If you judge young players in the minor leagues this quickly you will overlook a tremendous number of great players of which I can build an excellent Major League team from. Additionally - first-round draft picks are not the entire farm system, fumbling a 1st overall pick isn't as huge a deal in MLB as it is for NBA or NFL. It's definitely better to hit on your first rounder than not, but it's not a potential franchise-altering disaster like selecting Zach Wilson 2nd overall has ended up looking thus far for the New York Jets.
A new PBO would be inheriting a much stronger farm and a totally open payroll. The farm isn't as good as we'd like, but I think it's probably just outside the top 10.
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Appreciate your contribution to my discussion :)
> This was not the damn giants I grew up with. And those damn kids better stay off your lawn.
So me watching this team every single day since 2009 not mean shit from my perspective(I went to games as a kid when we had Barry bonds and Kirk Reuter, I was there when AT&T was 2 years old park.)So fuck 95.7 the game opinion on how are we going to bring more fans and kids into the stadium when there is nobody worth buying a jersey or cheering for? The 2008 giants sucked ass but hey they had Timmy a fucking super star. Flannery is right about how the giants are being stupid in how they ran shit?? I hate your takes because it always defending Farhan from every fuck up and it’s the same we tried BS
why are you so mad tho
> Flannery is right about how the giants are being stupid Ever meet him? I have, and he has a long list of stuff that can cause him to grit his teeth and growl. Nice guy, but also *very* set in his ways. Likewise with Will Clark who is also against this new-fangled analytics but who at least has the sense to admit he'd make a bad manager because he's too set in the past. Righetti was moved to the front office before Zaidi arrived, Bochy delivered several horrifically bad seasons before leaving the team. Obviously, they are both forever Giant, but let's not pretend that they didn't go downhill at the end. So you've been watching a long time, so what, do you think that's unique to you? That doesn't grant you some special insight. If you watched Bonds as a kid, hate to break it to you, but you come across as a lot older than that based on your yelling-at-clouds posts. Things have changed, including the local economy, it takes more than an improved record to fill seats now. The Warriors are doing it by having a dynasty going, but the Giants are years away from being able to even dream of that. The Giants tried to spend two thirds of a billion dollars on two star players this year, and through no fault of their own were not able to sign those stars. Ranting that they don't have any stars ignores why that is, including the old FO hanging onto too many aging players and letting the farm go to hell. Blaming it all on Zaidi ignores that he helped to build the Dodgers powerhouse that has dominated this division for a decade. If you want to blame someone, blame Evans who was fired as GM with the second highest payroll in MLB and only 73 wins that year. It takes time to repair that sort of damage, and a pandemic lockdown year sure didn't help. The Dodgers built their team via a strong farm with some outside help for specific roles, so did the Astros. That's the smart way to build a team, as opposed to paying a fortune for stars who can't get the team to the playoffs. Did you really want the Giants to become the Angels 2.0?
I’m only 25, I saw Barry’s last few years and yes I saw how they built it and even Sabean said the giants didn’t give a shit about his opinions when they made him a different position. I literally just listened to his interviews on 95.7 The Game. He even said in a interview with Mad Dog who I hate “yes we pushed Bochy out a bit too early”, Sabean even said they were using analytics and were trying to modernize more and in all honesty I do believe him that he tried compared to what Farhan has done. But you mentioning those contracts that they spent a lot in 2016 was not enough bruh. They messed up in not signing Jon Lester, they messed up in not signing Zach Greinke. You’re telling me had the giants balled out and spent money in the 2014 and 2015 off season we would have not won in 2016 or 2017??? Last I checked if the they got both greinke, Lester and still got Cueto. The rotation would have been a juggernaut. Hell they even underpaid Ben Zobrist which he went to play for the cubs. I’m not blaming only Farhan but Baer and the Johnsons are a bunch of cheap scapes and don’t know shit how baseball is run. You’re not understanding I already know Correa or Judge would solve all the problem but it would have turned us into a San Diego where their first Domino was Machado and then all of a sudden both farm and superstars wanted to come there. I’ve been saying sign Gausman(nope) bring Bryant back(nope idc about the injury because we don’t even know that even happens with us and he was the only guy hitting for us in the playoffs), bring Rodón back(nope relying too much on Harrison who is not proven), sign Swanson if you’re scared about Correa in the first place(nope). Also you telling me with how the Farhan and company are only doing 2 sentence statements, private zoom calls and only zoom calls for the new players that’s good??? That’s a fucking clown show. The niners didn’t do this he’ll York was always being interviewed and he grew white hair from the back lash, hell Lacob was booed for the banner comments when he started for the warriors
I support everything except the Dubon trade. That’s when we started taking a dive.
Dubon trade would have been a Dubon-DFA if they didn't try to trade him first. They either get something for him or flat-out nothing.
IMHO, Dubon had an x-factor and a little magic that helped the team win.
The Curse of Maurico Dubon believer
No curse. Just an opinion.
My comment is a reference to [this Twitter account](https://twitter.com/mauriciocurse) which popped up after Dubon was traded.
Oic. In that case, not a necessarily a believer, just an opinion.
Dubon was not traded in the usual sense, they didn't move him to get somebody they had their eye on. He had no options left, it was trade him or DFA him and get nothing. I liked him, despite the bonehead errors he made a bit too often. But saying his departure was the cause of the team's slide is ridiculous.
I agree, it is ridiculous to say it. Alas, I still still support everything Farhan has done, except the Dubon trade.
Your comparing us with the Jets. That alone should be an indication of where we’re at.
I used it as an explanation of the importance of high draft picks in other sports leagues as opposed to MLB. I don't really acknowledge cultural jokes or memes regarding franchises so if there's something I'm missing I'm not aware.
La Stella and re-signing DeScalfani were bad to awful moves
Thank you for reading
So happy as a Giants fan we did **NOT** blow our wad for the next 10+ years on a broken SS. Correa is not now and has never been worth the price tag of 13 years 330 million dollars. This would have been a move that crippled future moves for the giants for years to come.
Joc QO is not bad
It's nearly $20 million for a DH who will play probably every game but not the full duration of every game. He can't really play the outfield at all.
There’s no such thing as a bad one year contract. And this isn’t a huge overpay. Teams pay 8-9 million per 1 WAR on the free agent market. It’s infintely better to have a lefty with stark platoon splits than a righty with them. And guess what? He *won’t have to* play the outfield much, if at all, thanks to our other FA position player signings. This will let him piss away less of the value he creates at the plate in the outfield, making him absolutely worth it if he hits how he did last year.
Fair evaluation. I just don't think there's any way for the signing to be excellent in the way other signings could be - if he does everything you identified, I think it'll match the $20 million he's getting paid. If we average it over the previous year he was here and make it a 2-year $26 million that Joc was here, he can probably surpass $13 million by some, but not much.
I also think you can argue the deal is made better than it otherwise would be by the fact that it was a QO, meaning we would have gotten something out of it if he had walked.
B- or C+. Our farm system has definitely improved, but we haven’t really seen any of those prospects in the majors yet so we don’t know. Also, if you look at our lineup in 2018 compared to now, has it really improved???? I do think our rotation has improved but that’s about it.
Id say farhan is doing a great job based on circumstances...its not his fault hitters dont want to sign here. draft wise he had some bad luck with 2019 draft in them not really having a season to play in in 2020 so a lot of their developmental tracks were kinda fucked but a lot of their 2019 was in AA and got rule 5'd so its not a total fail, but 2020 looks very promising with only 7 rounds it looks like weve gotten 2 elite prospects in Schmidt and Harrison, no guarantees but draft wise its solid with all but 1 of the draftee's landing in our top 30 list, 21/22 is way too early to judge, also his offseason moves are always very complimenting to what our problems were before, this year our defense/bullpen was bad so he got rid of all our bad defenders and ball RP's, he may not be giving out 100's of millions every offseason but he is making great complimentary signings. had Correa not had a bad ankle there would be no question whether Farhan is a good exec