Upgrades

I think the Giants should sign free agent right-hander Jack Flaherty to a short-term deal. (I'll take almost anyone on a short-term deal.) He's going to give you 25-30 starts with above-average results. Flaherty's market is depressed and he needs to prove himself with a good year and then opt-out. Think Kevin Gausman and Carlos Rodon. (He's not as good as those guys, but that's okay.) It's never bad to have a surplus of starting pitchers.

Right now the Giants are expecting the kind of performance I described for Flaherty from four guys: Ray, Verlander, Hicks, and Harrison. How many of those guys are going to deliver 2+ WAR? Ray did it last in 2022, Verlander in 2023, and neither Hicks nor Harrison pulled it off last year. After that they have a nice group of youngsters—by definition unproven—like Roupp, Birdsong, Black, Rodriguez, etc. I like this group of hurlers but there's a heapin' pile of uncertainty there! Even Flaherty, an eight-year veteran, has exhibited big swings in seasonal WAR totals. There are red flags with him, like declining velocity, but he'd be relatively cheap. He's not going to get the multi-year deal he wanted. And San Francisco is a great place for pitchers.

Really all of this is to say I'd like to see one more starting pitcher added to the mix. I don't believe free agent veterans "block" prospects and young players. It's a performance-oriented workplace. If you deliver the goods you get to play. If the youngsters want time on the field then they have to shine on the field. Am I right? And it's just money. The Giants have plenty. They can afford to take a risk on a veteran pitcher because they need the depth to compete with the other teams in the NL West.

I think they need another position player/DH type for some more thump in the lineup. Or at least some more competition in Spring Training. Somebody like Randal Grichuk is a free agent and he's actually been linked to the Giants. Austin Hays, Tommy Pham, Jorge Polanco, and Paul DeJong are other examples of low-cost free agent players available at this point. Alex Bregman, Ha-Seong Kim, and Pete Alonso are the "big names" left on the board. None would be a fit. Bregman because of length and cost, Kim because Adames and Fitzgerald are already at SS an 2B, and Alonso because he's too limited, and they have Wade and Flores as a platoon pair.

These aren't exciting propositions. We aren't buying a new car, just getting some upgrades on the old one. Right now the Giants look like they've looked for the last three seasons: fair-to-middling with an outside shot at being good enough to get a post-season berth. A couple of breakout seasons from the youth brigade and it's a different story. I know we'd all like to see that!

--M.C.

Baseball, We Have a Problem

Roki Sasaki decided to sign a MLB contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, because, of course he did.  Just like the last best pitcher available, Yamamoto, and that other pitcher, Snell.  Oh, and Ohtani.  Not to forget Betts, Freeman and all the other stars.  And thus, baseball gets to be a little less of a game and more of a race between merger and acquisition specialists to see who wins.  The game becomes incidental. And that's a problem, because while some Angelenos, even if they can no longer afford to go to a game, may think it's fine to watch their team pile up superstars and, maybe, trophies for years, they might not notice one-time fans of the sport slowly slipping away.

I see the sport devolving into a few oligarchs, the Mets, the Yankees, and the Dodgers, and a few teams who can make a splash on occasion, and maybe win it all, like Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, and probably San Francisco, but not sustain the level of investment that it takes to do this year in and year out.  Then there are the teams that are willing to spend money, but have to be selective, like Arizona, and St. Louis.  Below them are the teams that don't really stand a chance.  Sure, they might sneak into an expanded playoff format on occasion, but unless luck plays a much larger part than anyone who ever reads statistics imagines,  they aren't going to win.  Finally, at the bottom are teams that don't care about winning, they exist as developmental and feeder teams for other clubs and are making money from revenue sharing, like the A's and Rockies.

Major League Baseball probably doesn't care, but it should.  Tickets are expensive, but the better teams seem to sell tickets fairly well.  I spend money on entertainment of various sorts, but a fundamental principle of sports is that the outcome is not pre-determined.  And as soon as that premise, real or imagined, slips away, there is no point in bothering to observe the sport any more.  Or, to put it more accurately, as soon as that premise appears to be no longer valid, there is no sport anymore.  And it seems to me that, thanks to LA co-opting the WBC Championship team, that premise is definitely open to question.  I think the Giants have an interesting team of young players (finally).  But I'm thinking we could all save time by just giving LA the NL West title right now.  I will certainly be watching less.  And for someone raised as a baseball fan from my earliest memories, that's saying something.  Baseball should address these inequalities that are becoming more and more prevalent, or they will become a minor sport. 

The 2025 Giants: starting pitching

It all starts with Logan Webb, of course. He's penciled in for 4+ WAR and if he doesn't do that then the Giants are in a world of hurt. He's started 33 games in back-to-back seasons while throwing 200+ innings in both. He gets guys to hit it on the ground, keeps the ball in the yard, and doesn't give away freebies. He's one of the best pitchers in the game. He's 28 and signed through 2028.

The next guy in line is Robbie Ray. He's probably the most important person on this list! The Giants need something from Ray. They need length. He needs to start lots of games and throw lots of innings. He made 32 starts in both 2021 (193 IP) and 2022 (189 IP) before his surgery. He's 33 now and won't likely top those numbers ever again but he should be healthy and able to pitch a full season. FanGraphs projects him for 28 starts and 161 IP with a 3.95 ERA (his career mark is 3.98). That's about 2 WAR. Ray is a high-K pitcher but struggles a bit with the long ball. If he can keep his walks down he can stay in games and give the Giants some quality innings.

Kyle Harrison and Jordan Hicks fill the next two spots. Both are hard to project. Harrison is only 23. He was one of the top lefty prospects in MLB when he made his debut. We saw some flashes of that talent in an up-and-down year for the youngster (24 starts, 4.56 ERA). He gave up too many hits and too many long balls but he has the strikeout stuff to succeed. With more experience and maturity he has a good chance to evolve into a top starter. There's lots of upside with Harrison. Hicks suffered a Tale of Two Seasons last year. He was very effective as a starter early on, then struggled badly and was used in relief. He's the perfect swingman—think Yusmeiro Petit—but it seems guys don't like that role. Hicks threw a career-high 109-2/3 IP in 2024. Can we expect him to push that up to 150? Hard to know.

So it is easy to see why the Giants pursued Corbin Burnes and ultimately signed Justin Verlander. Last year the starters didn't get it done and the bullpen got over-worked. They need innings! Lots more innings from the rotation.

The Giants have a pool of guys who could have filled the fifth starter spot and may ultimately do that before the season is out. Hayden Birdsong is the obvious leading candidate—he had 16 starts last year and showed some real potential. Keaton Winn had 12 starts and Mason Black had 8 starts. There's Landen Roupp and Tristan Beck in the mix. There are the three young Carsons in the high minors: Ragsdale, Seymour, and Whisenhunt. It feels like there is a lot of pitching talent in the organization right now and that bodes well for the future.

--M.C.

Justin Verlander

So for half as much money as the Diamondbacks are paying Corbin Burnes the Giants will take a flyer on 42-year old no-doubt-future-HOFer Justin Verlander. He had a 5.48 ERA in 17 starts (90-1/3 IP) last season. You can see this as a desperation move. Buster and The Gang lost out on Burnes and they went to Ye Olde Vintage Shoppe and came back with JV. Hey, it's MLB economics, an entire discipline in itself, who can understand what things cost anymore?

Or, you can see this as an upgrade on Robbie Ray. No disrespect to Robbie, a former Cy Young awardee himself, but this is his role. Dispenser of Leadership and Veteran Savvy Clutchness. Showing the bevy of young arms how to be a major leaguer. Ray, I should note, is getting $25M both this year and next. (Once again it is that goofy Baseball Econ 101.) Both guys will probably put up 2+ WAR and be solid #3-starter types. Alex Cobb put up back-to-back 2.5 WAR seasons with the Giants. Maybe Verlander captures a little of that gritty old-guy-in-a-new-place magic and gives the team a couple dozen starts.

I expected something along these lines when the Burnes thing didn't happen. This is the kind of thing, once again, that the Giants have to do. They can afford to blow $15M! The Dodgers do it all the time. The Giants have to plug the holes and they can't be afraid to make a choice and go forward. The worst outcome is that some young pitchers will have to work a little harder to prove they should push aside established veterans. That's got to make them better players! If they have any brains at all they'll realize having a real superstar in their midst will only help them. Verlander's reputation is that he's "not an asshole" despite his stature in the game and is an approachable teammate. He's got to know as much about pitching as anyone does, don't you think?

Go Giants!

--M.C.