The Giants Baseball Blog

 The Giants made a few crucial signings that barely beat the collective bargaining agreement's expiration at the start of December and they weren't the only ones. We've gotten used big named free-agents waiting things out over the past few years. Bryce Harper didn't pick his new home until a few days before spring training in 2019. This year however, players signed with much more urgency as both organizations and upper-echelon free agents wanted to have as much clarity as possible before the impending work stoppage. Gone are the top free agent starting pitchers, including Max Scherzer, Kevin Gausman, Robbie Ray and Marcus Stroman. Also off the table are many of the premiere offensive talents such as Marcus Semien, Corey Seager, Starling Marte and Javy Baez.  The good thing for teams still looking to improve before the '22 season is that this free agent class entered the offseason as one of the deepest in the sports history. Despite the flurry of expensive signings,

Bucking the trend of slower paced offseasons the MLB has gone through in recent years, this is maybe the busiest couple weeks I've seen in a while. With teams and players both wanting clarity on their future before a potential lockout later this week, we've seen big names sign much quicker than they have in years past.  Unfortunately for the Giants, that has included the departure of their ace over the last two seasons, Kevin Gausman. The 31 year-old inked a 5-year/$110M deal with the Blue Jays on Sunday, which got #SFGiants twitter in a frenzy I was definitely under the impression that the Giants had Gausman as their number one priority this offseason, but I think they became skeptical on matching the length other teams were offering. He's been great since dawning a Giants uniform in 2020, but giving a guy who's on the wrong side of 30 and has just one really good full season under his belt, that kind of deal is a big risk. Gausman's style of pitching doesn't

 We're a few weeks into the offseason, and while the return of Brandon Belt is the only thing of significance to happen on the player movement front for the Giants, things could be heating up soon.  The impending labor stoppage looming next week could slow things down for bit, but the Giants hope to get " at least one or two things done " before that happens. They've been connected to a few marquee hitters atop this free agent class and the one that could make the most sense is all-star second basemen, Marcus Semien.  Semien fits the Giants mold of what they like to do both offensively and defensively. He has the ability to play both shortstop and second base at high-caliber levels and he finished fourth in the AL in home runs last season with 45. He'd bring a premium power bat to the Giants and is a guy that's right in the middle of his prime. The Giants have Tommy La Stella slated to head up second base as of now, but I think the idea when they signed him la

The Giants offseason got started immediately after the World Series with a bit of a gut punch to the fan base. Buster Posey announced his retirement, which didn't surprise a lot of people close to the organization, but it certainly made this offseason a lot more complicated. First off, I can't really think of much to say about Posey that hasn't been said over the last week. I do, however, want to express my appreciation for the future hall-of-famer. He's been incredibly fun to follow and root for. He's also been arguably the most valuable asset to the Giants over the last decade-plus than perhaps any other player in baseball has been to their respective squad. He had a storied career and gets to go out on top and I'm happy for him. I had heard rumblings that this was a possibility and you could almost see the writing on the wall during his interview following the NLDS loss to the Dodgers... Good luck Buster, wish you the best in your next endeavor, and thanks fo

 We've had about a week to digest the rough loss to the Dodgers in the NLDS and it's about time to start shifting our focus towards the offseason. It seems like every winter we head into is a crucial one for the Giants but this one is easily the most important of the Farhan Zaidi era. Both Gabe Kapler and Zaidi spoke in a season ending press-conference on Monday at Oracle Park where they fielded questions regarding their priorities in the coming months. Before they can even delve into the free agent or trade market this winter, they have to first deal with their own impending free agents. Two of those guys are Brandon Belt and Kris Bryant, who were both talked about on Monday. In terms of Belt, it looks pretty clear that the Giants probably won't want to go too long with him, and he very well should get a bigger offer on the open market should he get there. Farhan did seem to hint that the Giants were leaning toward offering him the qualifying offer, which if accepted would

 It certainly wasn't the way you wanted to see it end, on a check swing that I think everyone, even Dodger fans, could agree that Wilmer Flores indeed checked his swing. However, as Buster Posey said postgame, "there's no good way to end it." The Giants hung with the Dodgers throughout this whole series and were a big hit or two away from taking it. They were able to come up with those big moments in the regular season to hold off and win the west, but they didn't get enough of them when it mattered the most. First off, once again, I want to mention how sick Logan Webb is. This guy came into this season just trying to crack the starting rotation and stick around. He figured it out pretty early on and was one of the best pitchers in baseball for the final four months of it. That did not slow down in the postseason, as the youngster held the Dodgers to just 1 run on 9 hits and a walk over 14 2/3 innings (with 17 punch-outs). He willingly placed his nasty sinker, his

 Both the Giants and Dodgers had historic regular seasons. They're long time heated rivals and they've never faced each other in the postseason. It's kind of storybook that their first series go the distance, and that's what we'll get Thursday night at Oracle Park.  The Giants and Dodgers will battle one more time, once and for all, to see which team really was the best in 2021 and for the right to move on to the NLCS and face the Braves. I mean, we all had to see this coming. These two teams were neck-and-neck all season long, all the way down to the wire to figure out who would win the NL West. It's been that way in this series as well, to an extent. While the Giants have played beautifully in their two victories so far, getting their timely big fly's and their tremendous pitching and defense, the Dodgers have looked straight up dominant in their wins. When they've been on, they've gotten their hits in bunches and they've kept the pressure on t

Well it certainly was a tale of two completely different games at Oracle Park to kick of the NLDS this weekend. Things couldn't have been drawn up any better in Friday's win while everything seemed to come unraveled a bit in game two. Before discussing what went wrong on Saturday, I just wanted to touch on Friday's game a bit. I think Giants fans have seen it all year long, so we weren't too surprised, but it's safe to say that Logan Webb solidified his spot as a legitimate ace with that performance. It was easily one of the best starts by a Giant in the postseason that I've seen and has been mentioned in the same sentence as guys like Tim Lincecum and Madison Bumgarner. That's pretty good company. Not only did he have great stuff, none of his pitches were straight, but most importantly he was putting the ball where he wanted to and was getting ahead of hitters. The Giants essentially did what they'd done all year to get them here on Friday. They got the

If you watched how this season transpired you knew it was only right if the Giants and Dodgers faced each other in the postseason. The teams with the two best records in baseball, that battled for their division neck and neck all year long, will get to truly see who the best in the west is. Of course both teams will enter the series without their first basemen, both of which were anchors in their lineup. The Giants lost Brandon Belt in the last week of the season to a broken finger and the Dodgers lost their all-star first basemen, Max Muncy on the very last day of the season. However, both these teams won over 100 games this season, and both have the talent to overcome the losses, so there will be no excuses. The Giants announced Wednesday that Logan Webb will get the ball in game one, and the Dodgers will counter with their young stud, Walker Buehler. In game two the Giants will hand the ball to Kevin Gausman, and that had to be a tough decision for Kapler and the staff. On one hand,

If I were to briefly sum up the Giants strengths throughout this incredible season, I'd say the Giants utilized the home run ball and their terrific pitching to cruise to 107 regular season victories. In the final game of the season with the division on the line, they got both of those things. Logan Webb, perhaps the most important man on that pitching staff moving forward, really had himself a day to finish off his terrific season. The 24 year-old righty pitched into the 8th inning, allowing just two runs (although he was charged with an additional 2 after leaving the game) to a very potent Padres offense. He punched out 8 and perhaps most impressively, didn't surrender a free pass all day long. He also helped himself out and really put the game out of reach with a 2-run big fly in the 5th inning. Webb has been putting forth performances like this one every since he really turned the corner back in May and he hasn't looked back. With the clutch outing Sunday, Webb caps off

The good news, no matter what happens tomorrow, the Giants will be participating in playoff baseball next week. However, whether that's needing to go through the Cardinals in a Wild Card game, or heading right into the division series will be decided on Sunday. The Giants held their destination in their hands Saturday and it looked like things were going to go their way with Kevin Gausman turning in one of his vintage performances and mowing down the Padres. Unfortunately though, the Giants just couldn't get enough offense going vs. Joe Musgrove and company and wound up on the short end of a 3-2 nail-biter. Of course, a Dodger loss at any point over the next couple of days would seal the Giants' fate as the NL West champs but the Dodgers are comfortably leading Milwaukee on Saturday night. They also have their best young arm, Walker Buehler, going Sunday so they have to feel confident about their chances. The Giants will be throwing a young potential ace of their own though

After a busy finish to the offseason, that included the signing of potential fifth starter Aaron Sanchez, the Giants officially kicked off their spring training schedule with a game against the Angels.  It felt like a special exhibition opener for a couple different reasons. For the first time in nearly a year, the team got to play in front of their fans again, as roughly 1,000 people were able to gather at Scottsdale Stadium to watch Giants baseball live. Also happening for the first time in nearly a year, manager Gabe Kapler got the opportunity to pencil in Buster Posey to the starting lineup. And just like that, we finally have actual on-field baseball to talk about again! First off, getting Posey back in the lineup was a victory in itself. I talked a little bit in the previous post at just how much of an improvement the Giants lineup could be getting if Posey's year off maybe refreshed his bat. Catcher was the team's biggest offensive inconsistency in 2020, and if the Giant

After a winter littered with quiet, under the radar signings, the Giants are finally set to assemble in Scottsdale this week to kick off the spring.  With the opener slated for April 1st in Seattle, Gabe Kapler and company will have 6 weeks to figure out their best 26 to break camp with, but I'd say we have a pretty good idea as to how the majority of the roster will be constructed. While Farhan Zaidi did mention the team is still actively seeking additional rotation help, the heavy lifting for the offseason is pretty much finished after the Jake McGee signing last week.  A few arms the Giants have been linked to throughout the winter are still sitting on the market, including Cole Hamels, Julio Teheran and Jake Odorizzi, but I'm not expecting anything that big at this stage. If they do grab an arm, I could see someone like Gio Gonzalez or Brett Anderson, who could come in and play the Tyler Anderson role and provide depth to a rotation that doesn't have any. Heck, it could

Coming off the heels of their biggest positional acquisition of the winter, Tommy La Stella, it was rumored that the Giants had added Joc Pederson to the list of outfielders they were looking into. That list included Eddie Rosario and Jackie Bradley Jr. However, as we kick off February, the month in which Spring Training is "supposed" to start, two of those three outfield options have signed elsewhere. First off, I wanted to talk a little about the Tommy La Stella singing, as I haven't posted since that move was announced last week. It's still unclear what the exact value of the deal is, but we do know it is for 3 years, and I think we have a pretty good idea that the total worth will be in the $18-21 million range. That would fall right in line with the deal Farhan Zaidi gave Wilmer Flores last winter and La Stella compares very well to Flores. He's a left handed bat that can play all over the diamond, granted you probably don't wanna trot him out at shortsto

Even with the signing of Alex Wood last week, the Giants continue to navigate this free agency through a slow and methodical approach. None of their additions this winter have been huge signings or names that necessarily jump out at you, but if all goes well, they could be some of the biggest bargains of the winter. Wood's one-year, $3 million guarantee, plus incentives, could line up to be one of the biggest steals on the free agent pitching market if he makes it through 2021 healthy. Just compare this deal to the one the Braves just gave Drew Smyly. Yes, Smyly was more effective in 2020, but if both guys are healthy, I'd take Wood out of the two for sure. And then you see that the Braves gave Smyly $11M guaranteed for essentially 7 pretty good outings for the Giants in '20 and Wood's $3M guaranteed for a terrific postseason with the Dodgers looks even better. Wood is a year younger, has a better career track record than Smyly and it's not like Smyly has been much