Aaron Boone grabbed a huge opportunity to leave as San Francisco Giants offer $91.3million on
The Giants have memorably come up on the losing end of several close calls in recent years. On the field, they lost to the Dodgers in 2021 NLDS despite winning 107 games and topping LA in an epic division race. Off the field, they lost out to the Yankees in the Aaron Judge sweepstakes after briefly seemingly like they had stolen away the now Yankee captain. They then did reel in a big fish that winter in Carlos Correa, only for the Giants to cancel the deal after concern about the shortstop’s physical.
Besides that, on almost any big name player signing or trade in the recent years, the Giants have emerged as having interest, but have often come up short. While they have made some other important moves in that time, it’s left them in an interesting spot going into 2024.
San Francisco Giants
2023 record: 79-83 (4th in NL West)
2024 FanGraphs Projection: 81-81 (4th in NL West)
At time of writing, there’s still some late-breaking news around the Giants. Just last night, it was reported that they signed Blake Snell to a two-year, $62 million deal with an opt-out. That will go some ways to shoring up their rotation, which as mentioned later, does have some iffy parts.
Another big news item surrounding the Giants going into 2024 is their change in manager. After a couple down years after their incredible 2021, the Giants parted ways with Gabe Kapler. In his place, they brought in veteran skipper Bob Melvin, recently of the Padres and of the Athletics prior to that. While last year didn’t go ideally in San Diego, Melvin still has a good reputation in baseball, and it’s understandable why they chose to go in that direction.
Melvin is back in the Bay Area and will be reunited with one of his former A’s players and the Giants’ big-name offseason move. After going unsigned for much of the offseason, San Francisco added third baseman Matt Chapman a couple weeks ago. In addition to being caught among the mess of unsigned big names, there are some questions about Chapman after the way he ended last season. After an incredible start to the year, he was below average in the second half, OPSing just .663. Despite that, he still adds to their lineup and brings a stellar defensive reputation even if he never gets back to his best at the plate.
Besides Chapman, San Francisco made another intriguing addition in outfielder Jung Hoo Lee. A star in the KBO, Lee is the son of a former Korean great, Lee Jong-beom, who was nicknamed the “Son of the Wind,” leading to the younger Lee to be known as the “Grandson of the Wind.” In seven season in the KBO, Lee hit .340/.407/.491, and was named the league’s MVP in 2022. Obviously, there’s always some amount of risk in a player making the jump to MLB, but the Giants gave him a long-term deal, so there’s also plenty of potential there.
On the pitching front, besides Snell, San Francisco’s rotation is headlined by Logan Webb, who is coming off a second-place NL Cy Young finish last year. He’s rounded into an excellent pitcher in recent season and there’s no reason to expect that he won’t keep that up this year.
Elsewhere in their rotation will be Jordan Hicks. Another free agent signing, Hicks has mostly been a reliever in his major league career, but the Giants are planning on using him in the rotation this year, which should be an interesting experiment. Even with the addition of Snell, they will need some rotation production from somewhere. On paper, it’s not the strongest right now, as they are missing some folks due to injury, although Alex Cobb could be back soon.
In the era of expanded playoffs, it’s not impossible to squint and see this Giants’ team grabbing one of the last couple spots. However, it’s very hard to see them competing with the Dodgers at the top of the NL West this season.