The Giants Baseball Blog

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...

The Giants are set to report to camp early next week, with the first pitchers and catchers workout slated for the 12th followed by the positional guys getting their workouts underway a few days later on the 16th. A lot has transpired with the Giants' roster over the last handful of days, including perhaps the biggest splash of the offseason with the re-signing of Hunter Pence. In what has been an extremely quiet winter for the Giants up until this last week, Pence was easily the biggest asset to join (re-join actually) the team and we'll delve more into that shortly. However the 2019 AL All-Star was not the only player to join the team over the last ten days. Aside from Hunter, the Giants inked utility man 27 year-old Wilmer Flores to a 2 year/$6MM deal, an under the radar move that I really like. They also added 2019 AL Gold Glove second basemen Yolmer Sanchez and center fielder Billy Hamilton on minor league deals. These appear to be the Giants final significant additions...

The annual MLB Winter Meetings in San Diego came to a close earlier this week and the Giants have to feel pretty decently about what they were able to accomplish while in attendance. No, there was no Gerrit Cole or Stephen Strasburgh signing, and Nick Castellanos has not agreed to come aboard (not yet at least), but the Giants and Farhan Zaidi were able to make a couple of moves that will help them both in the upcoming season, and perhaps for many years to come. In their first notable move of the offseason, the Giants inked free agent starting pitcher Kevin Gausman to a 1-year/$9M deal with incentives added in that could push the deal into the $10M range. We'll talk more about Gausman and what he'll bring to the table in 2020 in a minute but first lets take a look at who they now have locked into their rotation. The Giants, as of now, only have 3 guys cemented into the 5-man rotation, led by Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija and now Gausman. Cueto, although he looked pretty g...

The Giants' most pivotal offseason in over a decade is in full force and with the departure of closer Will Smith, who inked a 4-year pact in Atlanta, marking the first big loss for the ballclub. The second departure from the '19 roster took place Tuesday after backup catcher, and a guy who really took well to this clubhouse and this fan base, Stephen Vogt, decided to take his talents to Arizona. In AZ, he'll be asked to backup and help mentor impressive young backstop Carson Kelly. Now don't get me wrong, the Vogt departure isn't anywhere near as impacting as losing ace closer Will Smith, but as painful and strange as this is to say, Vogt was the teams best catcher in 2019 so he too isn't someone Farhan and Scott Harris can easily replace. I mean, on a roster with a former MVP backstop and someone still relatively in their prime, Vogt was the more productive of the two, and by a good amount. The 32 year-old Vogt slashed a solid .263/.314/.490 over 255 at-bats....

Here we are, a month into the MLB offseason and movement is starting to slowly pick up in the hot stove arena and although things will slow down through the Thanksgiving weekend, you can bet things will heat back up early next week as the Winter Meetings are just a few weeks away. As I've stated many times here, probably as recently as our last post below, this is one of my favorite times of the year on the MLB front by far because this is the time when teams get a blank slate (or as close to one as they can have) and have multiple avenues they can take to improve their respective rosters. Today, since Will Smith was the first to depart from the club and open up a glaring hole at the end of games in the Giants' bullpen, I thought I'd delve a bit into what the Giants have coming back in 2020 while including some of the better options who are out there on the market, both trade and free agency. Before we delve into the more exciting potential positional players the Gian...

First off, welcome back to The Giants Baseball Blog! I took a bit of an extended hiatus and I'll talk a little more on that later, but I figured now would be an ideal time to return as the Giants enter arguably their most pivotal offseason in over a decade. It's one that's seeing them change the brass of the team, including bringing in a new general manager and new field general after the huge acquisition of Farhan Zaidi to take over baseball operations last fall. Finally, after what seemed like a very long search for their GM and manager, the Giants were able to fill both those spots within a couple of days of each other, and now the new hires will join Farhan as they try shift all the focus on getting the Giants back to being a perennial contender. Last week they plucked 32 year-old Scott Harris from the Cubs front office, where he had been a prominent part of their research and development and built a reputation for spotting young talent. Working under Theo Epstei...