Again?
Yesterday, our own Bryan Murphy wrote an article. I recommend you read it. You can do so here. In it, Bryan talked about some of the tidbits revealed in the latest article by The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly. I recommend you read that, too. You can do so here.
I want to talk about one of the things that Bryan and Baggarly talked about. And while it’s worth noting that it’s impossible to ever really know the truth when it comes to what goes on behind the curtain with a baseball team, the thesis of my article relies on Baggarly being the most trustworthy Giants reporter in the game. That’s something I believe; if you disagree that’s certainly fine, but it might make my whole argument fall apart, and don’t come crying to me if that’s the case. Don’t be the ding dong who leaves a one-star Yelp review at the taco shop for not selling pizza.
Farhan Zaidi’s tenure with the San Francisco Giants was arguably defined by his inability to land The Big Fish. Setting aside the failed attempts to sign Carlos Correa and Yoshinobu Yamamoto for varying reasons, the Zaidi-era Giants openly made runs at arguably the three defining stars of this era of baseball.
Even when squinting after seven beers and a frustrating day, I can’t find any way to fault the team for failing to land Shohei Ohtani, who fairly overtly wanted to continue living in Los Angeles while playing for a team better than the Angels.
But the empty swings for Bryce Harper and Aaron Judge are less easy to overlook. The Giants made decent runs at both sluggers, but ultimately failed to offer enough money to make those players look past the opportunity to join a team better situated for success. I’m not sure whether to blame Zaidi for thinking that he could talk those players into joining the Giants for the same amount of money as much-better teams were offering, or whether to blame ownership for not allowing Zaidi to simply go above and beyond what the other franchises were willing to pay. I’m not sure assigning blame is important here, though it certainly makes it easier to pit the current front office against the past one.
It was almost refreshing, then, when the Giants never earnestly entered the Juan Soto sweepstakes this winter. I was more frustrated by it than most — why the Giants didn’t seem willing to throw endless buckets of money at Soto is a very good question that never got even a half-good answer — but I could understand the beauty in it. There would be no drawn out failed courtship, like a bad season of The Bachelor (and yes, the “bad” qualifier suggests that there are good seasons of The Bachelor, which there most certainly are). There would be no second place finish. The Giants just quietly excused themselves from the table before sitting down, and our emotions thank them for that.
And then Corbin Burnes came along. Mind you, I have no problems with the Giants missing out on Burnes, who signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks for six years and $210 million, with an opt-out after the second year. That’s a tough contract pill to swallow, and while I would have gulped it down, I don’t blame the Giants for thinking their resources could have been distributed more effectively. That, combined with the fact that Burnes is not on the same level as Ohtani/Harper/Judge, made it hurt a lot less when the Giants came up short.
But then Baggarly’s editor hit the “publish” button, and now we have a whole lot of new news. Most critically, this tidbit:
Any lingering hopes the Giants had for an agreement with Burnes likely vanished the moment news broke at the Winter Meetings that the New York Yankees had agreed to a whopper of an eight-year, $218 million contract with left-hander Max Fried.
To which I say: Huh???
In the paragraph prior, Baggarly notes that the Giants didn’t want to give Burnes an opt-out in his contract. Add that to the quoted sentence and I say, again: Huh???
When the offseason began, ESPN, The Athletic, Fangraphs, and MLB Trade Rumors all projected Burnes to receive a seven-year contract, ranging between $196 and $225 million. Fried’s contract was, indeed, a touch rich (both literally and figuratively), but if the Giants didn’t realize until then that Burnes was going to cost plural hundreds of millions, then I’m at a bit of a loss for words.
More bizarre, however, is that the Giants continued to be in the running for Burnes for weeks, at least in the public eye. It’s become clear that Buster Posey’s approach is to hold his cards close, and perhaps that has allowed agents to use him as a bluff. Assuming Baggarly’s reporting is accurate (and a few other reporters had hinted at similar things), the Giants had known for quite some time that they were all but out of the Burnes running, yet we continued to get report after report of the Giants being favorites to sign the former Cy Young winner.
For years, the Giants chased star players openly, and came up short. Then they switched it up with Soto and didn’t even bother chasing the star player, knowing they had no shot. And then, with Burnes, they seemingly chased the star player with what appears to be a completely unrealistic understanding of what that player would cost, then pretended to still be chasing that player when they weren’t, and then, you know … came up short.
Didn’t really enjoy that, to be honest.