[DC 86]

I'm not going to be an apologist for the Giants not spending more on their roster, but will play a little devil's advocate.

The Giants have the oldest position player group in MLB. The Giants also have a lot of good prospects in the pipeline. Now let's look at one position, Right Field.

Farhan Zaidi believes Darrin Ruf will provide as much production this year as anybody he could have signed as a Free Agent.  Let's say they signed Kris Bryant or Nick Castellanos (who went to Philly and was guy I had my eye on) to play that spot. They would have been paying $25M for a few years to them. That would prevent the Giants from plugging in say Heliot Ramos in 2023, who will be making less than a $1M, and also getting this productive year from Ruff, and they'd have to pay what, $125M for that pain?

If Ramos stalls out his development in 2022, the Giants can look at a free agent RF next year. But if Ramos rakes, not signing Castellanos will prove the smarter decision.

I'm sensitive to the possibility the Giants are being too frugal, but am not ready to die on that hill just yet.

I understand you're playing the devil's advocate, but I'll offer a few obvious rebuttals nonetheless:

1. Having too many good players is never a problem The addition of the DH alleviates the issue of two players who play the same position. You can move a right fielder to left field or move around your infielders if necessary. Not to mention the fact that the Giants lineup consist of so many over-30 players that significant time lost to injuries is almost a certainty. In the worst (or best) case scenario then an excess of good players means that you have valuable trade assets.

2. Darin Ruf turns 36 years old in July. He hit very well last year but was also used prudently to maximize his strengths; he only had 312 plate appearances. Will he be as productive as one of the prime free agents available? doubtful.

3. Heliot Ramos is a very good prospect but far from a can't-miss. He was ranked as the #70 overall prospect by The Athletic, #94 by Baseball America, and didn't make the top-100 by Fangraphs or Baseball Prospectus. Projects to be a regular but not a star that a team should be concerned about blocking or moving.

4. And in any case right field is far from the best example of a clear free agent upgrade. How about second base (Tommy LaStella, 33 years old, one season in his entire career in which he's been much more than a replacement player) or third base (Evan Longoria, 36 years old, only was able to play 81 games last year and already injured this year). Wouldn't Trevor Story be a significant upgrade? And if you want to dream what about Carlos Correa or Corey Seager?

Bottom line, the Giants have made a smart business decision to operate with a mid-market payroll - they can still contend for a wild card while maximizing profits. But from the standpoint of maximizing the number of games won or maximizing the chances of winning the division there's no rational argument for not signing better players that were available.

My assumption is the following, speaking in the presumed voice of Giants ownership: "Unfortunately we're in the same division as the Dodgers. In order to compete with them we would need to spend $100 million more per year. With the addition of another wild card we can maintain a mid-market payroll, reach the playoffs more often than not, and then try to get hot/lucky the way we did in 2010, 2012 and 2014. Fans will come out either way and sponsors will sign up either way. It doesn't make sense to almost double our payroll for a 45% chance of winning the division when we can pocket the profit and still have a good chance to reach the playoffs. If we were in the NL central spending an additional $30 million per year probably makes us the favorite to win the division, but in the west we still would be way behind the Dodgers on talent. So why spend the money to win six or seven more games and still face an enormous gap vis a vis LA."

[DC 86]

I'm not going to be an apologist for the Giants not spending more on their roster, but will play a little devil's advocate.

The Giants have the oldest position player group in MLB. The Giants also have a lot of good prospects in the pipeline. Now let's look at one position, Right Field.

Farhan Zaidi believes Darrin Ruf will provide as much production this year as anybody he could have signed as a Free Agent.  Let's say they signed Kris Bryant or Nick Castellanos (who went to Philly and was guy I had my eye on) to play that spot. They would have been paying $25M for a few years to them. That would prevent the Giants from plugging in say Heliot Ramos in 2023, who will be making less than a $1M, and also getting this productive year from Ruff, and they'd have to pay what, $125M for that pain?

If Ramos stalls out his development in 2022, the Giants can look at a free agent RF next year. But if Ramos rakes, not signing Castellanos will prove the smarter decision.

I'm sensitive to the possibility the Giants are being too frugal, but am not ready to die on that hill just yet.

I understand you're playing the devil's advocate, but I'll offer a few obvious rebuttals nonetheless:

1. Having too many good players is never a problem The addition of the DH alleviates the issue of two players who play the same position. You can move a right fielder to left field or move around your infielders if necessary. Not to mention the fact that the Giants lineup consist of so many over-30 players that significant time lost to injuries is almost a certainty. In the worst (or best) case scenario then an excess of good players means that you have valuable trade assets.

2. Darin Ruf turns 36 years old in July. He hit very well last year but was also used prudently to maximize his strengths; he only had 312 plate appearances. Will he be as productive as one of the prime free agents available? doubtful.

3. Heliot Ramos is a very good prospect but far from a can't-miss. He was ranked as the #70 overall prospect by The Athletic, #94 by Baseball America, and didn't make the top-100 by Fangraphs or Baseball Prospectus. Projects to be a regular but not a star that a team should be concerned about blocking or moving.

4. And in any case right field is far from the best example of a clear free agent upgrade. How about second base (Tommy LaStella, 33 years old, one season in his entire career in which he's been much more than a replacement player) or third base (Evan Longoria, 36 years old, only was able to play 81 games last year and already injured this year). Wouldn't Trevor Story be a significant upgrade? And if you want to dream what about Carlos Correa or Corey Seager?

Bottom line, the Giants have made a smart business decision to operate with a mid-market payroll - they can still contend for a wild card while maximizing profits. But from the standpoint of maximizing the number of games won or maximizing the chances of winning the division there's no rational argument for not signing better players that were available.

My assumption is the following, speaking in the presumed voice of Giants ownership: "Unfortunately we're in the same division as the Dodgers. In order to compete with them we would need to spend $100 million more per year. With the addition of another wild card we can maintain a mid-market payroll, reach the playoffs more often than not, and then try to get hot/lucky the way we did in 2010, 2012 and 2014. Fans will come out either way and sponsors will sign up either way. It doesn't make sense to almost double our payroll for a 45% chance of winning the division when we can pocket the profit and still have a good chance to reach the playoffs. If we were in the NL central spending an additional $30 million per year probably makes us the favorite to win the division, but in the west we still would be way behind the Dodgers on talent. So why spend the money to win six or seven more games and still face an enormous gap vis a vis LA."