The Giants, despite every rumor spread by the Bay Area Bob Twitter account, have not yet signed Matt Chapman. They haven’t really done anything this offseason other than sign Jung Hoo Lee and not sign Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. But they were supposed to! This was supposed to be the offseason when the Giants dropped as much money as it took to improve the team, and looking at the state of the roster, it’s sure gonna take more money.
Right now, the Giants have multiple glaring question marks in the rotation, desperately need one more hitter and could really use two more, are looking at starting an untested rookie at shortstop, and are still relying on platoons in two positions in the outfield, and for basically the entire infield.
So let’s fill those holes! With someone else’s money, naturally.
We’ll start by making this assumption: The Giants will absolutely not get more than two of the big free agents left over. Don’t take this to mean that I think they will get two, but more than that, for a team that has been wildly unsuccessful in signing big free agents, is simply not going to happen. If I end up being wrong about that, well, okay, I’ll refund the subscription fee for every one of my readers.
Of course, just a few free agent moves will not fix the Giants. They will also need trades, and smart minor league signings that work out, and development success stories. But as I have no idea whether Wade Meckler will put on 25 pounds of muscle that will give his hit tool the oomph needed to survive, or whether the Rangers would even be willing to discuss a package for Ezequiel Duran whose centerpiece is Carson Whisenhunt, I’m going to punt on the big picture.
Here’s the question I’m going to try to answer: Let’s say the Giants can sign any two free agents left on the market. Which two should they go for?
The biggest free agents remaining are, in no particular order, Shota Imanaga, Blake Snell, Cody Bellinger, Josh Hader, Jordan Montgomery, and Matt Chapman. Do you want to also include Jorge Soler or Teoscar Hernandez? I won’t, because I am not going to say the Giants should sign Jorge Soler, and I don’t think Hernandez is the best outfield option still available.
My feelings on Chapman are well documented, and largely unchained, even with him being the most likely target for the Giants. Will I immediately talk myself into it if he signs? Sure, but it’ll be pretty half-hearted. But for now we’ll call him a no. Josh Hader, who the Giants are not considering, is also a no; even disregarding the Bad Opinions that emerged when he was in the All-Star Game several years ago, he’s an aging reliever who walked way too many guys last year. At some point, the stuff stops covering for the mistakes, and I don’t want him on the Giants when that’s the case.
So that leaves us with Imanaga, Snell, Bellinger, and Montgomery. We already are not solving the shortstop problem, though it’s not like there’s anyone on the market who would solve it, so oh well. And since the Giants are absolutely desperate for more offense, that means they should roll the dice on Cody Bellinger.
Now, Bellinger presents a lot of risk. In his first three years in the league, he was phenomenal, with a 144 OPS+, a Rookie of the Year, and an MVP to his name. He slowed down a bit in the fake season of 2020, then got injured, wasn’t the same for the next two years in LA, and this year found himself rounding back into form in Chicago.
We really can’t know which Bellinger is real or will show up in 2024 and beyond, but if you’re going for upside and trying to improve the team as much as possible, then Bellinger is the answer. No available hitter has a higher ceiling, and the Giants need a high ceiling. Maybe he doesn’t hit it. Maybe the whole idea crashes and burns. But this is the move that has the best shot of making the Giants offense much better, and folks, the Giants offense desperately needs to be much better.
If you also would like to pair this with a small Rhys Hoskins deal so he can re-establish his value and hit the market in in November 2024, it’s a free country, I guess, but (especially after how Michael Conforto did last year) it’s hard to see a player choosing San Francisco for that specific purpose.
So we have Bellinger, and now we need to pick a pitcher. Imanaga is probably the most intriguing, since we’ve spent all offseason daydreaming about Japanese baseball players and he’s also a Japanese baseball player. He is the youngest of the three, as 2024 will be his age-30 season instead of age-31, but also completely unproven at the major league level.
Snell, of course, won his second Cy Young last year, but drastically overperformed his peripherals along the way. He has always been a strikeout machine (career 11.1 K/9), but he has also always been a walk machine (career 4.1 BB/9, and it’s at 4.5 since he came to San Diego).He doesn’t throw a lot of innings, but he throws a ton of pitches, and while the stuff seems like it’s holding up for now, he comes across as the type of pitcher who will just fall apart one day with no way to fix himself.
Montgomery was an above average pitcher with the Yankees, but as soon as he got traded to St Louis, he found another gear, which he sustained in Texas. His strikeout rate is good but not gaudy, while his walk numbers look good. He’s a solid pitcher, and would seem to be the one with the highest floor but the lowest ceiling as well.
So what do you value here? Novelty, ceiling, or floor? I think you could make an argument for any of the three, but for me, I’d go with Snell. It could go wrong. God, could it go wrong. I am this very second picturing it going catastrophically wrong with Blake Snell. But if it doesn’t, then the Giants have a dominant 1-2 punch on top of their rotation. It’s a similar risk to the Bellinger one, but the Giants are mired in mediocrity because they haven’t taken risks in a long time. If they want to have a competitive team, then they need to take those risks and see them pay off.
There are no guarantees here. But when you’re in Eyes On The Prize territory, well, the kind of small, incremental steps that Farhan is known for just won’t cut it. It’s time for big. It’s time for bold. It’s time for audacious. It’s time to go out and spent a bunch of rich people’s money.
Also they should trade Joey Bart and Heliot Ramos for a shortstop. I have all the best ideas!
This seems to contrast with one of your colleagues' articles entitled, "Maybe the Giants don’t have very much left to do this offseason after all." The article cites the ZiPS projections, which have the Giants at 80-85 wins, which is a good week away from the 3rd Wild Card. ZiPS has been overestimating the Giants for the last 2 years, so I would probably take the under on an 82.5 line, but if the Giants were to add 7 more expected wins, that would at least make me feel comfortable. Snell projects at 3.2 WAR, and while I can't find ZiPS projections for Bellinger and Montgomery, others like Steamer have them around 2.5 WAR and 3.2 WAR, respectively. So, Bellinger and Snell/Montgomery add 5.7 WAR. That's under the aforementioned 7, but the Giants aren't about making me comfortable; see 2010 torture description for reference.