The Giants Baseball Blog

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 ...

Although they've made a couple of more under the radar moves thus far, Farhan Zaidi and the Giants continue to scour free agency for that next potential steal. They got their big win with signing Kevin Gausman to a deal he vastly outperformed last winter. The year prior to that they won big by inking Mike Yastrzemski to a minor league deal for the 2019 campaign. So who will it be this year? So far the Giants have been operating very cautiously, as you'd expect, as it still unclear what rule changes instituted in 2020 will carry over to the 2021 season. However, regardless of what rules stay, they've been clear in their desire to add more pitching depth, both in the rotation and bullpen, as well as another left-handed option at the plate to play a utility role. They signed Jason Vosler to a minor league deal back in November, which is a very low-risk, potentially high reward type of signing. Vosler is still just 27 years old and has a terrific track record hitting for power ...

The Giants entered the 2020 offseason with the majority of their needs lying within the pitching staff. They need arms, both in the rotation, and relief, preferably late relief. So far, they've been just about as quiet as they could be in that pursuit. Luckily for them, so has the rest of the league. With the 2021 season's status of whether fans will be filling the ballparks in any capacity still very much up in the air, it's caused plenty of uncertainty throughout the league in terms of free agency. MLB free agency had already been trending toward a slower moving market in recent winters, but nobody really knows what's to come as this rough calendar year winds down. Without many marquee names in this free agent class to begin with and a possibly monumental class on the horizon next winter, I'd imagine this will end up being the slowest moving, lowest spending free agency period in recent history.  So what does that mean for the Giants? Possibly a lot. The Giants ar...

Two weeks ago, it appeared as if the Giants would be clear-cut sellers by the August 31st trade deadline. However, after they caught a hot streak and have moved back into playoff contention, it was unclear on exactly which way they would go. After the 1 PM deadline came and passed Monday, the only semi-significant Giants news to come out was that Dereck Rodriguez, someone who figured to fit into future plans as recent as last season, was claimed off waivers by the Detroit Tigers. Hardly earth-shattering news as the 28 year-old right hander had fallen behind numerous other arms on the organizational depth charge over the last 18 months. There was no big selling as it appeared there would be when this team sat at 8-16 halfway through August, and there were no additions at all, either significant or a small one, that would help aid in a possible playoff push over the final month of this truncated 2020 season. I wasn't entirely sure which way the Giants would lean heading in and I don...

After a couple of un-inspiring performances by both the offense and pretty much every arm to take the mound, the Giants got into the win column for the first time in 2020. While there still haven't been any earth shattering performances three days into this accelerated season, at least a couple glimmerings poked through on Saturday. First and foremost, even with each league expanding to 8 playoff teams, the Giants are nowhere near the top-8 in the NL. And since this season is a short one, they should really waste no time in getting the younger players out there to see what they can do during this 2-month tryout/experiment for 2021. That being said, I was very excited to see 23 year-old Logan Webb take the mound in LA Saturday. Without Tyler Beede and with Gabe Kapler insisting on trotting out lesser veteran arms to eat up the bulk of the innings early on, Webb is easily the most interesting pitcher on the roster, in my opinion of course. I'll always enjoy watching Johnny ...

In what's been the most exciting piece of baseball content in months, the MLB Amateur Draft took place this week, and the Giants ended up with five picks in the top-100. Today we'll talk a little bit about each player they selected. First Round, 13th pick: C Patrick Bailey, NC State The Giants could have went a number of different ways here. Many people, including myself, expected them to call Tyler Soderstrom, prep catcher out of Turlock who had committed to UCLA. There were some people also clamoring for high upside prep prospect arms like Mick Abel and Nick Bitsko. I personally really like Soderstrom's bat and figured there'd be a spot for him in a few years when the universal DH is expected to be implemented full time, but the Giants went with a little more polished talent in the switch-hitting Bailey. There is a lot to like about the 21 year-old who appears to be extremely polished behind the plate with a big arm. His throwing is a bit unorthodox for a ...

Instead of celebrating the opening week of the baseball season right now, baseball is probably the last thing on most peoples mind. I was gonna hold off on posting anything with so much uncertainty about the upcoming season as far as when and if it will even happen, but we're probably gonna be stuck in this limbo for at least several more weeks and maybe months. So I'm going to try and get things as back to normal while we wait. Without much to talk about as far as current events on the diamond, we still can look forward to a 2020 season that will hopefully start sometime in June, if all goes well. It seems like the consensus is that if the season where to start say, June 15th, the postseason could be pushed back and possibly bleed into December. All players and owners and certainly the fans would be open to this scenario, and although it would be a little strange watching playoff baseball while putting up Christmas decorations, there's been nothing ordinary about 2020 th...