During the winter meetings in San Diego, Scott Boras said during his annual scrum near a Christmas tree that the San Francisco Giants were ready to pursue “premium players, premium pitchers, on many levels,” and other agents agreed the team was looking to spend .
So far, that has translated into outfielder Mitch Haniger, who’s from the South Bay. Joc Pederson, who is from Palo Alto, accepted the Giants’ qualifying offer.
Is San Francisco a tough sell for those from outside the area? The Giants missed out on Aaron Judge, who is from Linden, but it was apparent that a last-second effort from owner Hal Steinbrenner helped lure Judge back from the Yankees, and many of those close to the outfielder had said throughout that he wanted to return to the Bronx.
“I don’t know if we would say San Francisco is an idiosyncratic market, but I do think maybe it is more that way than it was 20 years ago,” president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said at the GM meetings last month. “I think it’s a little bit of a polarizing place among players in terms of the desire to play there. This is sort of totally independent of the competitive situation, but geography, politics, whatever.
“When we’re doing our research on free agents and we find that players aren’t really that happy even coming into town for a three-game series, they’re probably not going to be that excited to play there for a long time . So I think that’s part of what fueled our strategy of targeting guys with Bay Area ties. … Free agency is really, really competitive especially at the top of the market. Even when you think you can sign a player, you’re probably not, that’s just how it works. So when you don’t think you’re going to sign a player, you’re definitely not going to sign him.”
In recent days, Giants have also missed out on Brandon Nimmo, who went back to the New York Mets — another team with an aggressive owner in Steve Cohen — and they’ve watched two of the high-profile free-agent shortstops, Trea Turner and Xander Bogaerts, sign 11-year deals with two other teams that have been unafraid to hand out long, pricey contracts. Pitcher Kodai Senga signed with the shopaholic Mets.
San Francisco, meanwhile, has spent the past week being constantly reminded about failing to sign Bryce Harper, Shohei Ohtani, Giancarlo Stanton, Max Scherzer and so on.
What gives? Are the Giants unwilling to go as long in years? To date, the longest deals Zaidi has given out are three years, to Tommy La Stella and Anthony DeSclafani. The highest value deal was Carlos Rodón’s $44 million before last season; Rodón opted out of the second year and San Francisco is trying to win him back — but it would take at least seven years and well over $100 million.
The Giants are terrific at finding mid-market pitchers and maximizing their abilities, and they do have a No. 1 starter on their staff in Logan Webb. If the team is hesitant to commit that many years to a pitcher, which can be risky, perhaps they look elsewhere. Rodón, though, is a known quality for the team, and he’s familiar with the city, which could help.
When it comes to position players, there’s no getting around the fact that it will take double-digit length in years and whopping contracts to lock down the top free agents. The Giants have made no secret of the fact they’re interested in that fancy crop of shortstops, and there are only two remaining, with Carlos Correa clearly the top man left on the market. If San Francisco really wants to make a splash, as indicated, waiting around won’t help, nor will trying to save some bucks here or there.
The 11-year deals for Turner and Bogaerts mean Correa, who is two years younger, will want at least 12 years at, conservatively, $30 million per year. That’s Aaron Judge territory in terms of money, albeit with three extra years, but Correa is more likely to be productive at that late stage of his career.
That kind of deal is not for the faint of heart, but if the Giants really are determined to make a statement in free agency this winter, if they want to have any shot at sticking near the Dodgers and Padres in the NL West, they’ ve got to go for it. Agent Scott Boras is known for saying he doesn’t go to teams, they come to him, and if they really want the player and understand the market the deal will get done. Cohen sets the market, the Padres are setting the market, and the Giants must follow suit and not try to play the margins or find some sort of analytics advantage, not when it comes to top-tier players.
If there’s a perception among non-Bay Area natives that San Francisco isn’t a good place to play, or isn’t an optimal spot for non-pitchers, or if state taxes are an issue (which doesn’t seem to be a problem for the Dodgers or Padres), then maybe the Giants have to pony up even a little more. Once they start landing some upper-echelon players, any such perceptions will be less of an issue. Or the team will have to improve its roster via trades, and would weaken its stock of younger players in doing so. A blend of free-agent signings and a few targeted trades seems a better way to retain some homegrown talent.
“There is no doubt the Giants have the money to spend,” one agent said this week. “And they have a lot of holes to fill.”
The two Carloses would go a long way towards resolving that, assuaging fan concern, and setting the stage for other big names to follow when, say, Ohtani is a free agent (next year) and Juan Soto potentially on the market again (two years ).
Susan Slusser covers the Giants for The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @susanslusser