Like Matt Chapman, the Giants have been linked to Blake Snell for the entire off-season. Like Matt Chapman, it wasn't just talk. Today it became official. Snell signs a two-year, $62M deal that pays him $15M for 2024 and a $17M bonus down the road if he takes $30M for 2025. It's a crazy Zaidian thing, I know, but it's just fine by me. The Giants needed to beef up the rotation and they signed the best player they could get. Snell is a wild card: when he's good he's the very best; when he's not, he's ordinary. But the reigning NL Cy Young Awardee joins second-place finisher Logan Webb to make a dandy tandem at the top of the rotation. Does this make us contenders?
It's all about Snell's health, of course. If he can pitch he's a dominant presence. Like a lot of today's aces (Jacob deGrom comes to mind) he is often unavailable. That's the risk you take. But it's a worthwhile risk in my mind.
This is the craziest off-season ever, I think. It's a heapin' pile of FNGs!!
Go Giants!
--M.C.
7 comments:
Nice guy. Super expensive. Who knows what kind of season that he'll have without Ruben Niebla.
Wow. I read where Melvin talked about what a great guy he was and urged him to go somewhere that makes him happy. Maybe he was happy with Melvin. In any case, it's a significant addition (well, hopefully). The dbacks and Pads and doggers all also improved, though.
It's going to be a very tough division. Giants had to improve just to keep up.
"Does that make us contenders?"
Here's a thought exercise: Can there be four teams from one division in the playoffs? I'm going to say yes. There are now 6 teams in the playoffs, so the question is really, could 3 teams in one division compile a good enough record to make the playoffs as wild card teams? They changed the schedule last year to make it less heavily intra-division, so each team could play all the teams in the other league. Now, each team plays other teams in the same division only 13 times, not 18 or 19. Say each team, the Goo, the Pads, the Snakes and the Giants, each split those 39 games (let's make it 40) against each other. That's 20 wins. So to win 90 games (last year the Marlins were in the playoffs with 84 wins) you'd need a team to win 70 more. That's 70 out of the remaining 122 games, or just over .570. Seems do-able! That would equate to an overall average of .555. There are of course, other tough teams that would also like to be in the playoffs, like the 104-win Braves, the Phils, Chicago et al. Still, it does not seem impossible.
Giants missed the playoffs by five games last year and six games the year before. So they are pretty close. Let's hope the improvements are enough! It seems like they ought to be.
It is certainly possible for the West teams to be good enough to grab all the WC spots but it seems really unlikely. Philly will get one of the spots (assuming Atlanta wins the East).
The West is really more open. The Dodgers are loaded but they are not as invincible as they seem. SD has a really strong club. I think the Giants edge out the DBacks as of right now, but that is still four good teams.
You can't ask the F.O. to do much more than they did this off-season. Now it is up to BoMel and the Boys to deliver the wins.
It is unlikely that the top 4 teams in the N.L. west will have equal splits in 39 games they play vs. each other, and who is to say that Colorado will be as bad as they were last year. Anything can happen in Denver. There is organic chemical smoke in the thin air of Denver. Giants were in playoff position for quite some time last year, until they collapsed in Sept. They had a lot of injuries, but one would have thought with all the platooning, that the players would not have been so tired and lackluster, but that did not turn into an advantage. The giants did have way more than their share of injuries though. Wonder if they significantly increased the team speed this year. Lee seems relatively fast and adds another dimension, Estrada has decent speed, but unless one of the young guys becomes a utility player this year like Fitzgerald or Meckler, etc. the speed seems to be lacking once again. Slater has ok running speed, but his constant injuries seem to make the giants want to hold back on his running and stealing bases. Yaz, Conforto, and Wade are just average speed, do not know much about Chapman in that regard. Matos and Luciano may just be slightly above average speed but are not blazers. Speed was a big factor last year for the Dbacks.
AZ had a middling offense as far as OBP and SLG, they enhanced what they had with speed, and they had a lot of bunts and sac flies as well.
Giants aren't going to be a big hitting team and as you point out they have not really addressed team speed. The fielding should be better and so should the rotation, that's where they really have to see the improvements.
Ahmed will be the weakest hitter in the lineup, assuming he's the starting SS. The top of the lineup is good. All the other hitters are average or a hair above average. So it is a solid bunch but not a scary one.
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