One final off-day mailbag

The last of the season!

It’s the regular season’s penultimate off day, so that’s a good time for a San Francisco Giants mailbag. I asked for questions about a week ago, so there are no questions about the latest bits of Giants news. But we covered quite a few topics nonetheless.

Thanks for the questions, everyone!

In a vacuum, Willy Adames is a better free agent signing than Blake Snell, for two very simple reasons: age and position. There’s a reason hitters usually get more money than pitchers, and it’s because they have an easier time staying healthy, and their future performance is easier to predict.

Teams — including the Giants — will feel more confident projecting the future health and performance of Adames than Snell, and that’s before we mention that he’s nearly three years younger. If I’m putting on my GM cap, Adames is the fairly easy choice.

But I don’t think it’s that easy.

First off, if I remove my GM cap and put on my fan cap, Snell becomes the easy choice. Have you watched him pitch over the last few months? Golly, is that an absolute joy. That’s just as fun as it gets. Add in his fun personality, the way his teammates love him, and his close friendship with Logan Webb, and he’s a guy I sure would love to see wear a Giants jersey for the next five seasons.

But second off, and more importantly, I’m a big believer in developing a strength as a team. If you have a carrying card it makes it easier to sustain success, in my eyes. Having an identity that you know you can rally behind when you need a win is valuable. A rotation of Snell, Webb, Robbie Ray, and some combination of Kyle Harrison, Hayden Birdsong, Jordan Hicks, Landen Roupp, Tristan Beck, Keaton Winn, Mason Black, Trevor McDonald, and Carson Whisenhunt has a chance to be special, and make people ease up on the “best rotation in baseball” jokes.

And what happens when you have that organizational strength? Well, it makes it easier to trade from that strength. Plugging your nose and trading Whisenhunt or Birdsong to help land Vladimir Guerrero Jr. becomes a lot easier to do when you have a top-five rotation with or without that outgoing piece. And it goes without saying that building a strong rotation only serves to make your bullpen a bigger strength.

So for those reasons — plus the value of signing players you know want to play for you — I lean towards Snell. But if I were ranking the free agents this offseason, I would have Adames ahead of him.

As for your second question, I don’t expect the Giants to sign both, but I do expect them to sign two big names.

My answer here is fairly similar. Adames is a better free agent than Ha-Seong Kim, but if I were the Giants I’d be more focused on Kim.

Just as I felt like Jung Hoo Lee was the most likely player to sign with the Giants last offseason, I feel like Kim is this year. I have a hard time imagining the San Diego Padres taking on more future payroll by retaining Kim, he openly adored playing for Bob Melvin, and he’s close friends with Lee. Add in the Giants’ need for a middle infielder — and the inherent value in becoming the MLB team with the strongest ties to Korea — and it feels like a no-brainer for both sides.

Adames is still the better player, but because of the offensive season he’s having, he’s probably going to get an absurd contract. I’d rather the Giants sign Kim and have extra money to throw around.

It figures to be a very quiet Rule 5 Draft for the Giants this year. The players eligible this year can basically be fit into two groups: players who were eligible last year, and the college players from the 2021 draft class. Unfortunately, that draft class is currently struggling something fierce for the Giants, and doesn’t have many names worth even considering for protection. First-round pick Will Bednar and second-round pick Matt Mikulski don’t warrant consideration. Third-round pick Mason Black is already on the roster. Fourth-round pick Eric Silva is neither eligible nor in the organization. And fifth-round pick Rohan Handa retired before ever debuting.

Looking further down that draft, we find some interesting names. Two years ago, you probably would be shocked to hear that 10th-round pick Vaun Brown doesn’t need to be protected. 12th-round pick Landen Roupp has already made the roster. 14th-round pick Tyler Myrick is intriguing, and 15th-round pick Brooks Baldwin is in the Majors for a different organization, after not signing with the Giants in 2021 and being drafted by the Chago White Sox a year later.

And so the one protection I expect is someone who came from outside the organization: right-hander Carson Ragsdale, whom the Giants acquired in the Sam Coonrod trade. Ragsdale’s numbers haven’t jumped off the page, but he looks like a guy who has a good chance of being a Major League starter next year, and I’d be very surprised if he goes unprotected.

He feels like the only player that’s even close to a lock. But I think they’ll have to consider fellow AAA righty Carson Seymour and lefty reliever Juan Sánchez, assuming the injury that kept him out for half a year isn’t expected to cost him time in 2025. Also, with Cole Waites likely returning from Tommy John surgery early next year, he might need to be protected.

I have a hard time answering these sorts of questions, because with what little information we have, it’s just impossible to know how much credit coaches in other organizations deserve for the work they’re doing. But I do expect we’ll see at least a little bit of a coaching shake up.

Yes, Melvin will definitely be back next year. Even with the Giants being disappointed in this season, they’re not going to have three managers in three years. That lack of continuity is a great way to mess with player development even more than they already have.

Besides that, Melvin is a respected and proven manager who has only been with the team for one year. If they’re wanting to make a change, it will be Farhan Zaidi, who has been here six years and has a much less-proven track record.

I try to avoid the “who should we trade for” questions because they’re impossible to answer. Who is available? What’s the cost? If a guy like Guerrero is available, the Giants should go all in. I’m fine with them trading anyone other than Bryce Eldridge.

I hate to be a downer, but I lean towards “no” being the answer.

First off, let’s start with Juan Soto. The Giants should absolutely give him $300 million, and that’s just in the first half of the contract. He’s a generational talent who is the same age as Heliot Ramos and Patrick Bailey. If I were the Giants, I’m calling Scott Boras on the first day of free agency and putting 10 years/$600 million and 14 years/$750 million on the table. Are they going to land Soto? Almost assuredly not. But it’s worth trying to win that bidding war, which means, quite literally, out-bidding.

But assuming they miss out, I don’t see them as very likely to chase another player in the corners. Anthony Santander or Teoscar Hernández would be great signings, but with Ramos and Lee locked into everyday spots, Mike Yastrzemski available for around $10 million, and Grant McCray, Luis Matos, Wade Meckler, and Jerar Encarnación all on the 40-man roster (not to mention a potential position switch for Marco Luciano), I think the Giants will feel that their money should be earmarked for a middle infielder and pitching.

It’s even harder to imagine them signing a first baseman. Pete Alonso is going to cost an obscene amount of money, and he’s not in the same tier as Guerrero or Bryce Harper. Will the Giants spend Boras prices on a single-position player who plays the same position as their top prospect, who they expect to debut next year? Seems unlikely.

Yes, it’s definitely realistic to say he could win a starting job. He’ll only get eight games in AAA this year, but the Giants intend to send him to the Arizona Fall League and, even more crucially, he’ll be in Scottsdale as a non-roster invitee to Spring Training. He’ll absolutely have a chance to earn a starting job.

That said, it’s still quite unlikely. That would be extremely aggressive and, unlike mid or late-season promotions, there’s no need to give the team a shot in the arm in March or April. The only reason to have Eldridge break camp with the team is if the Giants truly feel he gives them the best chance to win games right away.

In all likelihood, he’ll start the year in Sacramento, but given what we’ve seen from them in recent years, I’d probably put June 1 as the over/under date for his debut.

Oof. I’m a “judge the process, not the results” guy, but at some point enough is enough. A fourth consecutive year of missing the postseason? It’s hard to imagine Zaidi keeping his job after that (assuming he still has the job next year). As he’s been quick to admit this year, the team needs to be better about building reliable depth, rather than just hoping unproven youngsters can run with jobs. This year’s rotation is a prime example: the team was hurt by the fact that Blake Snell couldn’t stay healthy early and Alex Cobb’s rehab was delayed. But is that an excuse for the bad pitching early on? Or does it just highlight how much Zaidi and Co. failed to have a contingency plan for the inevitability that not everything would break their way?

At some point, bad luck ceases to be an explanation for mediocrity, and starts to be a data point for poor planning. I lean towards the upcoming season being when that shift is made, which means the Giants absolutely need to make the postseason for Zaidi (and probably Melvin) to keep their jobs.

That said, you can always make extreme cases. If the Giants suffer, say, early season-ending injuries to Webb, Ray, Bailey, and Matt Chapman, but still win 88 games and miss the postseason due to a tiebreaker, well … yeah, Zaidi’s job is probably safe. But if their bad luck and failures resemble the ones of this year? That’s gotta be it. It’s a results business, not an excuses business.

This is a good question, and rather than answer it, I’m going to use it as an excuse to talk about something: farm system rankings. Roger Munter has a saying (I hope I’m getting this right, Roger!) that I’d like to parrot: it’s worth paying attention to the top five and bottom five in farm system rankings, and everything in the middle is mostly just noise.

Volume vs. quality is a great way to display that, because the thing that really moves teams up in farm system rankings is potential star power. If the Giants could add two more Eldridges — or one Jackson Holliday — they would catapult up the system rankings. If they added three more Mason Blacks, three more Walker Martins, and three more Grant McCrays, they’re probably not rising nearly as much.

So in terms of ranking systems, I’d say quality matters much more than quantity.

But of course, prospects are lottery tickets, and the more lottery tickets you have, the better your chances of hitting. And while there’s certainly a correlation between prospect status and MLB success, it’s not always direct. Patrick Bailey was never a top prospect, and he might be the best catcher in baseball. Hayden Birdsong was never a top prospect, and he looks like a rotation staple. Heliot Ramos is many years removed from being a top prospect, and he was an All-Star this year. Tyler Fitzgerald was never a top prospect, and he might’ve been an All-Star if given an earlier opportunity.

So there’s a lot of value in volume, assuming we’re still talking about guys in the top 20-30 of the system (because, it needs to be reminded, all teams have essentially the same quantity of prospects, as MLB caps the domestic reserve at 165 players). But star power still reigns supreme.

I don’t think there will be an overhaul, but I do expect there to be some changes. I would expect Justin Viele, whose contract is expiring, to be gone (or perhaps signed to a Minor League position, as players like Ramos have given him a lot of credit for their development).

I would say, on the whole, there have been more wins than losses with the Giants development of pitchers this year. And the pitching staff seems to really like Bryan Price. It’s hard to analyze a coach based on one year, without knowing what changes really reflect back on them.

I’ll admit I’m in the minority here, but I have kind of liked what I’ve seen from Luciano at second base in his limited time there. I’m curious to see what he can do at the position with a full offseason and Spring Training dedicated to it, rather than trying to learn on the fly mid-season in AAA and the Majors.

Two things: I’d say first base (as well as third base) are off the table for Luciano right now, given how those positions seem set for the organization. And, whatever the Giants do with Luciano, they need to tell him at the end of the season rather than waiting until Spring Training. The team needs to make a decision, and they need to make that decision before the offseason work gets started.

And finally: part of Luciano’s issue this year, to my eye, is that he lost some of his athleticism. He didn’t look as fluid or as explosive as in prior years. He’s too young for that to just be aging, so he and the Giants need to figure out what’s going on there, as it could determine his defensive position.

Offseason efforts: A-

In-season efforts: D-

I’d say it’s much more likely to happen than to not happen. The Giants are high enough on Eldridge that, unlike with a Luciano or a Matos, they’re not going to keep him in Sacramento if they think he’s ready for the Majors, just because there’s a veteran ahead of him. And yet he’s polished enough that he could also arrive the way that Bailey and Casey Schmitt did: to fill a hole on the roster.

In my eyes, Eldridge is a two-to-three week hot stretch in AAA away from a debut, and he’s a LaMonte Wade Jr. injury away from a debut. And both of those things seem likely to happen early in 2025.

In the strictest sense, no, because Luciano graduated this year and is technically not a prospect anymore.

But, if I’m not being pedantic … yes, I do. I think Luciano is the subject of a whole lot of prospect fatigue. It’s undoubtedly been a poor and concerning year for him, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s still a fairly polished hitter with a whole world of potential. If he were still prospect eligible, I’d almost surely have him as the team’s second-best prospect, behind only Eldridge. If he were in college this past year, I’d expect him to be a first-round pick.

He’s still one of the most talented players in the organization, it’s just that some of the concerns are more brightly displayed now than they used to be. And outside of Eldridge and maybe Dakota Jordan, he might have the highest ceiling in the farm.

It depends on whether Guerrero is a rental or if, a la Sean Murphy’s trade to the Braves and Mookie Betts’ trade to the Dodgers, there’s an understanding that an extension will be agreed upon. If it’s the latter, I’d put damn near everything on the table for Vladdy.

Guerrero has more trade value than Eldridge, but that doesn’t mean Eldridge needs to be included. The Giants surely value Eldridge more than other teams do, so they could likely replace him in any trade offer with a few other prospects. If Guerrero were available, I suspect it would take a few of the team’s best prospects, and a few MLB players, too. Maybe two players from the Matos/Luciano/Whisenhunt/Black/Winn/Roupp/McCray/Meckler/Joe Whitman/James Tibbs III bucket, plus Wade and Camilo Doval. Something along those lines.

It would obviously take more if Guerrero isn’t being shopped.

I fully expect Eldridge to be the starting first baseman at some point next season. But as much as we’re all excited for it, there’s no reason to rush it. Development is important, and the Giants shouldn’t rush their top prospect just because they don’t have any other intriguing opportunities. Eldridge should be in the Majors when they think it’s best for his development.

I’m gonna hand this one off to the comment section. Best answer wins a year-long subscription to McCovey Chronicles Premium.