Giants agree to arbitration deals with Tyler Rogers, LaMonte Wade Jr., and Camilo Doval

All loose ends have been tied up as the Giants avoid arbitration hearings with their outstanding cases.

The deadline to exchange salary arbitration figures between players and teams passed at 10am, and the San Francisco Giants were able to come to terms with all three of their outstanding arbitration cases they faced this offseason. Per the San Francisco Chronicle’s Chronicle’s Susan Slusser:

And per the esteemed Baseball Jeff:

Doval comes in a little below MLB Trade Rumor’s $4.6 million projection for him that they posted back in October, while Wade comes in $300,000 over. Following the 1-year, $9.25 million deal with Mike Yastrzemski back in November, that’s about $18.78 million committed to these three players — they also tendered a contract to Austin Warren, signing him to a major league deal, but then designating him for assignment yesterday to make room for new backup catcher option Sam Huff. Rogers had a $5.5 million projection.

This past Saturday, Steven told us about Rogers’ importance to the team as a reliable reliever. This is a solid payday for a final year of arbitration and a real nice chapter in a career that might’ve seemed unlikely, just given his delivery and his lack of velocity. Doval gets a nice reward in his first year of arbitration; and, Wade gets paid in an amount that suggests he’s not some afterthought.

These guaranteed deals reflect reasonable prices for the types of players they are. To put it another way, that’s a quartet of players with a theoretical ceiling of 4.5-5.5 wins above replacement. That’s in the range of Willy Adames’s value in 2024, and he’ll make $26 million this year. This bunch comes in at $24.025 million. It’s all very fair, in terms of the market, even if none of these players excite and have been a part of the last three Giants teams that have disappointed. Still, they’re portable (as in tradeable) contracts with decent upside.

This puts the team’s current Competitive Balance Tax salary at $221,036,151, based on Cot’s reporting. In terms of actual dollars (remember: the CBT is based on AAV), it’s $181.93 million before you add in the player healthcare benefits ($17.5 million), the league-mandated contribution to the pre-arbitration bonus pool ($1.67 million). I mention these figures because the Giants had budget restrictions imposed on the team this offseason, and so it’s worth keeping tabs on these figures as we learn them just to see if we can get a sense of what the total baseball ops (major league, minor leagues, scouting & development) budget is year to year. Personally, I’ve been running with the $250 million figure for a while now.

It has been a tidy offseason for Buster Posey, and a far less dramatic one than recent years. No sensational free agent pursuit leading to embarrassment or staggering disappoint and no potential for a weird arbitration case. I’m a firm believer that organizations take on the personality of their leader, and these steady and deliberate Giants certainly remind me of Buster Posey.