[DC 86]

Gausman says the Giants never made him an offer.  He signed for $110 million for five years.

https://twitter.com/KevinGausman/status/...ft4b4hzdcs

Wow.  That is concerning.  Giants ain’t gonna compete by being cheap. Don’t know if I’d have paid him $110 for 5.  But I would have taken a shot at signing.

IMO, $110 for 5 was a big overpayment.  No surprise there since overpayments are part of the free agent signing process.  You generally receive a fair return on the front half of the contract but take a big hit on the back half.  I believe Gausman fits that profile.  Therefore, I believe Zaidi made the right call.  He isn’t hoarding money because he is frugal.  He is just looking for that unique someone who he thinks will provide value over the length of the contract (good luck, Farhan…).

Too much for Gausman and in the second half Webb was the best pitcher in the league.

I don't understand these comments at all coming from a fan perspective.

1. From an ownership perspective it makes all the sense in the world to cut payroll as much as possible. Following last year's spectacular season attendance and sponsorship will be very strong, and the club is going to make a ton of money regardless of whether they reach the playoffs or not, regardless of whether they win the division or finish third with 85 wins. The revenue line is relatively inelastic so reducing costs is almost all pure profit.

2. Grant Brisbee at The Athletic predicted a $130 million payroll, presumably based on some internal insight. Fangraphs projects slightly less. That's roughly the level of the Twins and Reds payrolls last season. The Giants are one of the highest revenue teams in MLB, and the franchise is the fifth most valuable in the game (a reflection of projected future revenues and income) so it's ridiculous for their payroll to be in the 15th-17th range and for the team to be cutting payroll after such a successful season.

3. When teams don't re-sign their own players it's often a red flag. Possible medical issues or proprietary internal information that other teams aren't properly weighing. Maybe that's the case with Gausman. But SF made no effort (or only half hearted efforts) to pursue Ray, Rodriguez, Stroman, Gray, Garcia or Matz. They essentially signed Cobb in place of Gausman and saved $10 mm/year in the process. On a dollar-for-dollar basis I'm sure that signing Cobb is smarter than signing most of those others, i.e. Ray and Stroman probably aren't going to be more than twice as good as Cobb. But most of that group (and Gausman obviously) are all projected to be better than Cobb in absolute terms. So his signing is either genius (identifying the best available pitcher even though he's not projected as such by the industry) or simply saving money. More likely the latter.

4. A perfectly valid strategy which I would endorse is to spend money on position players while cobbling together a starting pitching staff from undervalued assets. Starters are less important than ever and prone to injury at some point when awarded a long term contract. This is what I assumed the Giants were doing when they essentially sat out the starting pitcher market. But they've also been inactive in the position player market. Their three best players last year were Posey (retrired), Crawford (35 years old coming off a career year that surely will regress) and Belt (will play at 34 years old this year and also likely to regress). But SF so far hasn't been involved in pursuing any position player free agents. Will SF operate at the top of that market (Correa) or near the top (Bryant, Castellanos, Story, Conforto)? All of those guys are going to be "overpaid" so the Giants may just pass and look for bargains (Pham?) and pray that they sign Suzuki.

When business re-opens I may be proven completely wrong and the Giants may move to aggressively improve the team. But right now it looks like SF is going to celebrate being $80 million or so under the luxury tax and I don't see why that's something that fans should be excited about. Signing Cobb instead of Gausman is "smart" and passing on free agents whose contracts are likely to age poorly is "very smart", but the Giants are a wealthy team owned by wealthy people who are capable of making some "not totally smart" moves and those would be a lot more fun for fans.

Each individual decision (such as not making an offer to Gausman) is entirely defensible but not something to cheer for if it's part of a master plan to reduce payroll substantially and just pocket the profits instead of investing them elsewhere.

[DC 86]

Gausman says the Giants never made him an offer.  He signed for $110 million for five years.

https://twitter.com/KevinGausman/status/...ft4b4hzdcs

Wow.  That is concerning.  Giants ain’t gonna compete by being cheap. Don’t know if I’d have paid him $110 for 5.  But I would have taken a shot at signing.

IMO, $110 for 5 was a big overpayment.  No surprise there since overpayments are part of the free agent signing process.  You generally receive a fair return on the front half of the contract but take a big hit on the back half.  I believe Gausman fits that profile.  Therefore, I believe Zaidi made the right call.  He isn’t hoarding money because he is frugal.  He is just looking for that unique someone who he thinks will provide value over the length of the contract (good luck, Farhan…).

Too much for Gausman and in the second half Webb was the best pitcher in the league.

I don't understand these comments at all coming from a fan perspective.

1. From an ownership perspective it makes all the sense in the world to cut payroll as much as possible. Following last year's spectacular season attendance and sponsorship will be very strong, and the club is going to make a ton of money regardless of whether they reach the playoffs or not, regardless of whether they win the division or finish third with 85 wins. The revenue line is relatively inelastic so reducing costs is almost all pure profit.

2. Grant Brisbee at The Athletic predicted a $130 million payroll, presumably based on some internal insight. Fangraphs projects slightly less. That's roughly the level of the Twins and Reds payrolls last season. The Giants are one of the highest revenue teams in MLB, and the franchise is the fifth most valuable in the game (a reflection of projected future revenues and income) so it's ridiculous for their payroll to be in the 15th-17th range and for the team to be cutting payroll after such a successful season.

3. When teams don't re-sign their own players it's often a red flag. Possible medical issues or proprietary internal information that other teams aren't properly weighing. Maybe that's the case with Gausman. But SF made no effort (or only half hearted efforts) to pursue Ray, Rodriguez, Stroman, Gray, Garcia or Matz. They essentially signed Cobb in place of Gausman and saved $10 mm/year in the process. On a dollar-for-dollar basis I'm sure that signing Cobb is smarter than signing most of those others, i.e. Ray and Stroman probably aren't going to be more than twice as good as Cobb. But most of that group (and Gausman obviously) are all projected to be better than Cobb in absolute terms. So his signing is either genius (identifying the best available pitcher even though he's not projected as such by the industry) or simply saving money. More likely the latter.

4. A perfectly valid strategy which I would endorse is to spend money on position players while cobbling together a starting pitching staff from undervalued assets. Starters are less important than ever and prone to injury at some point when awarded a long term contract. This is what I assumed the Giants were doing when they essentially sat out the starting pitcher market. But they've also been inactive in the position player market. Their three best players last year were Posey (retrired), Crawford (35 years old coming off a career year that surely will regress) and Belt (will play at 34 years old this year and also likely to regress). But SF so far hasn't been involved in pursuing any position player free agents. Will SF operate at the top of that market (Correa) or near the top (Bryant, Castellanos, Story, Conforto)? All of those guys are going to be "overpaid" so the Giants may just pass and look for bargains (Pham?) and pray that they sign Suzuki.

When business re-opens I may be proven completely wrong and the Giants may move to aggressively improve the team. But right now it looks like SF is going to celebrate being $80 million or so under the luxury tax and I don't see why that's something that fans should be excited about. Signing Cobb instead of Gausman is "smart" and passing on free agents whose contracts are likely to age poorly is "very smart", but the Giants are a wealthy team owned by wealthy people who are capable of making some "not totally smart" moves and those would be a lot more fun for fans.

Each individual decision (such as not making an offer to Gausman) is entirely defensible but not something to cheer for if it's part of a master plan to reduce payroll substantially and just pocket the profits instead of investing them elsewhere.