4:16PM: Baggarly has the full breakdown (Twitter link) of Smyly’s available bonuses, including the note that Smyly can receive his $250K roster bonus if he spends 130 days on the active roster, not only if he makes the Giants’ Opening Day roster. Up to $3MM in incentives are available to Smyly based on the number of starts he makes, with at least 12 starts required to unlock his bonuses. $1MM in bonus money is available to Smyly as a reliever — $250K for 25 games finished and another $250K for 35 games finished, and $125K for reaching the 45-, 50-, 55-, and 60-game thresholds in terms of relief appearances.
2:55PM: Smyly will earn $4MM in guaranteed money, The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly tweets, and can also receive a $250K roster bonus. More bonus money is available based on the number of starts Smyly makes, and also (intriguingly) the number of games he finishes, though Baggarly notes that the Giants plan to use Smyly as a starting pitcher.
1:12PM: The Giants have signed left-hander Drew Smyly, as per an announcement on the team’s Twitter feed. Smyly, a Frontline client, has been signed to a one-year contract. Righty Trevor Oaks has been designated for assignment to create space on San Francisco’s roster.
Smyly becomes the second veteran pitching addition of the winter for the Giants, who also inked Kevin Gausman to a one-year deal back in December. The Giants’ rotation mix now consists of Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija and Gausman as the top three, with Smyly, Tyler Anderson, and younger arms such as Logan Webb, Dereck Rodriguez, Tyler Beede, and Shaun Anderson all vying for starts.
Smyly is the most experienced of the latter bunch with 684 1/3 Major League innings to his name, though the 30-year-old spent 2019 just trying to shake off the rust after missing all of the 2017-18 seasons due to Tommy John surgery. The southpaw posted an 8.42 ERA over 51 1/3 innings with the Rangers before being released, and then briefly caught on with the Brewers and Phillies on minor league contracts.
It was in Philadelphia that Smyly again appeared on a big league mound and somewhat stabilized his performance, posting a 4.45 ERA, 9.8 K/9, and 3.24 K/BB rate over 62 2/3 innings (over 12 starts). Smyly drastically reduced his walks and homers over the course of the season, though his 1.9 HR/9 as a Phillie was still troublingly high, if an improvement over his ungainly 3.2 HR/9 in Texas. To say nothing of possible changes to the baseball for the 2020 season, a move to a more pitcher-friendly environment like Oracle Park should help Smyly keep his home run issues in check.
Now more than two and a half years removed from his Tommy John procedure, Smyly will be looking to get what was once a quite promising career back on track. Smyly posted a 3.24 ERA over his first 395 MLB innings from 2012-15 with the Tigers and Rays, and was a major part of the trade package sent to Tampa Bay for David Price in the summer of 2014. After a somewhat shaky 2016 campaign, however, Smyly was traded from the Rays to the Mariners in the 2016-17 offseason, and ended up never throwing a pitch in a Seattle uniform due to injury.
The Giants’ offseason has been a pretty quiet one, as the team continues to straddle the line between a rebuild and a full push towards contention. The Smyly signing fits the pattern of short-term, fairly inexpensive signings that president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi has focused on (as well as a blizzard of waiver claims) since taking over San Francisco’s front office last winter. A bounce-back year from Smyly could make him a candidate to be flipped elsewhere at the trade deadline.
Oaks (who turns 27 in March) was claimed off waivers from the Royals in November. The groundball specialist made his MLB debut with 13 2/3 innings for Kansas City in 2018, though hip surgery sidelined him for the entire 2019 season. Oaks has a 3.26 ERA, 6.1 K/9, and 3.12 K/BB rate over 532 1/3 career minor league innings, starting 88 of 102 games.
The face of the franchise.
I’m disappointed that Zaidi did not sign Madison Bumgarner.
Bum wasn’t good enough for the money he made. he had a 5+ road era last year.
Waste of money – he was done 2 years ago
Smyly was awful the first half of last year but pitched pretty well after the Phillies picked him up in July. Remember he had Tommy John surgery so it took him a while to get back in a groove. I thought he was a much better option than Velasquez or Pivetta for the Phillies.
Only 30, pitches nearly 200 innings of sub 4 era ball, what a stupid comment.
Just because he’s not top tier doesn’t mean he’s finished
Smart move to let him.walk. and he wanted out.
Smart move to let him.walk. and he wanted out.
At least they will have a Smyly on their faces.
So Bumgarner has essentially been replaced by Smyly…
By Cueto.
That’s a strange question.
New ace
Incredibly depressing. They’re mailing it in for 2020.
Yeah, but they have to in order to start over. Hang in there.
that is exactly the kind of player they need to be signing. if you don’t understand that, you don’t get what’s going on. great job of getting him here.
He’ll have arm issues by Memorial Day.
and how exactly were they going to contend this year anyway?
@heinie, IMO, it’s a perfect signing for what Farhan is doing right now. Even tho the pundits nor anyone in the Giants’ brass will say it, they’re in a full rebuild.
They’re not “mailing it in for 2020.” They’re just getting out from all those veteran-dead-expensive contracts (Belt, Crawford, even Posey unless he bounces back). Then, they’ll have huge amounts of $, a solid farm, and will work to contend again. Be patient. 2021-22-23 will be much more fun!!
Another short term, cheap investment. Really hard to get excited by this. Giants playing the waiting game?? I think this gives even more indication that the only way they get a name FA is if someone like Castellanos is left standing near the end of the offseason and will take a high-dollar, one year deal. It doesn’t appear that the Giants are willing to go in long term for any FA left on the market at this point
A high dollar one year deal for Castellanos makes no sense from the Giants standpoint. So, he gives you 77 wins rather than 74, and then walks next offseason ? No matter what the Giants do this offseason, they’re not going to be good this year so a deal like that is a waste. Dont expect them to make significant moves until Bart, Bishop, Ramos, etc. are closer.
I don’t buy no moves – I think if they see value in a 3 or 4 year deal they will move on it to have a guy who lasts through the rebuild – which is why castellanos makes sense but I honestly never have optimism in the giants signing free agent hitters because the park plays so large – even in a liveball era
The Giants also make little sense from Castellanos’ perspective. As a guy trying to get paid like a run producing power hitter, the last place you go to increase your value is a pitcher’s paradise like SF. He was begging to get out of Detroit because he felt the park was affecting his power numbers. then he goes to Chicago and more than doubles his HR total within a month. If he takes a short-term prove it deal, it will likely be somewhere that satisfies one of 2 requirements: 1) a realistic shot at the post-season, 2) an offense friendly (or at least neutral) park. SF provides neither.
Sign him for 1 year with the idea that you move him to a contender that needs a bat at the trading deadline for prospects; in effect you’re basically buying prospects and speeding the rebuild.
How does this not make sense to the Giants, or any other team in a rebuild?
He is not signing a one year deal; but if he did it’s damn well not going to be with the Giants.
the excitement is – think pomeranz – they are getting a guy who’s value they can rebuild and hopefully flip – on smyly’s side he gets to go to a pitcher’s park for a year and try to reframe himself for a 2021 deal
Smyly has ridiculously high potential before TJ. That’s why the super savvy Rays traded for him.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Smyly becomes a Jim Johnson or Zach Britton level reliever this year and the Giants flip him for a great single A catching prospect.
Castellanos would ONLY be a long term signing. He’s young enough to be in prime when the youngsters mature. 2021-22ish.
Signing him for one year would make absolutely no sense…for both parties
Dangit! I had him going to the brewers… I have gotten 10 of my free agent predictions right so far, looking good.
the comments on this story are the reason people say Giants fans don’t know baseball. reclamation projects on the the pitching staff that have a chance to yield prospects. younger players with upside in the field on multi-year deals, and cheap vets to fill the bench with more tradeable pieces. that’s all we should want.
What does that have to do with anything I just said?
Nothing. Lol. You were just the last comment. Sorry man.
Granted, i’d like to go off of what you said, and say that I love what these rebuilding teams are doing this off-season. The Marlins, Tigers, and Giants are all picking up players that they can flip for prospects later, and get more value out of them. They will still hold the top 5 picks in the draft, but they will also be able to trade away their free agents for prospects. Like last year’s Pomeranz trade for Dubon, the Giants were bad, so they got value out of a good piece, and will still get a high pick in the draft. It is smart baseball.
Smart baseball would have been trading Bumgarner last season.
Bingo
He didn’t say “very smart baseball.” You’re right about Bum, he should have been traded. But we got draft pick compensation, and he and Bochy got to hang together until the last day of the season. Not super smart, but understandable.
#Big
Agreed, and I concede that a healthy Smyly’s numbers are remarkably similar to Bumgarner’s recent production. But as a Giant’s fan, it is hard not to want at least one exciting signing to look forward to in the coming season. I’m honestly not sure I can take another season of lifeless performances from so many of the team’s aging veterans.
This season, as a Giants fan, I’ll be looking forward to seeing which ugly contracts Zaidi can get rid of and next football season. Play ball !
We’ve got a full season of Yaz and hopefully a healthy Alex Dickerson.
Also, I’m hoping Jaylin Davis put in some serious off season work to revamp his swing. He has the power just needs a better hitting eye. I have these dreams he went to see the same hitting coach that changed JD Martinez’ career and the Giants offense clicks on all cylinders.
Hey, I can dream!
Big glove, I agree with your criticism of THESE Giants’ fans baseball knowledge with a caveat. They likely are fans since 2010. For me, a fan since the 60s, I’ve seen tons of mismanagement and tons of losing seasons. And this organization is NOT being mismanaged.
I’m tired of reading the term “dumpster diving”. Their farm system, in one year, has risen from being 29th ranked to being ranked 14th. How many of these “fans” thought Yaz, Dickerson, Solano, pomeranz, etc were “dumpster” players?
They just acquired the first round pick of the angels..
We see the Dodgers bring up star prospect after star prospect. A’s too.
Zaidi was integral in both organizations. But apparently, Zaidi is suddenly clueless? I’m looking forward to the future and that the giants can be the next success story for Zaidi
Being invested through losing seasons are hard. Watching Giants baseball as a kid pre-Roger Craig was tough, especially when all my friends were A’s fans.
I really appreciate Zaidi finding value in other team’s roster/farm redundancy, the waiver wire, and these short term contracts. I have enough sentimentality to be hopeful for the aging core to hold the tide of regression plus the addition of a few lottery tickets to make this next season watchable/listenable.
I’m a Yankee fan from New Jersey. For work reasons I was transferred to Frisco.
I can state with absolute certainty that Giants fans collectively are the dumbest baseball fans I’ve ever been exposed to. Seriously. I’m taking low-information. And there is no nice way to say it. But it’s absolutely true. They hero worship old washed up players like Hunter Pence, Brandon Crawford and overvalue mediocre players like Duffy or now Alex Dickerson
They also embarrassingly live in the past. Everything is about the ‘championship years’ this of course happened well over a half a decade ago but they they speak of the organization in this weird sort of championship tone. Don’t get me wrong, I saw what they did from 2010-2014 and it was a hell of a run! But man, those days are long gone. I’m a Yankee fan. We don’t go around talking about our last World Series win. That would just be embarrassing. Yankee fans are concerned about the next season. Not the past. And mind you, no team in MLB has a more illustrious past than the New York Yankees
Part of the problem is the baseball writers here are just dreadful. No critical journalism. Just a fanzine like love fest for everything Giants. It’s sad. Subsequently, They’ve bread an uneducated baseball fanbase
Bread? Or bred? You spelled uneducated correctly, however.
@rightspecialist
Dude this comment is just unhelpul, unnecessary…and wrong. All fan bases are both wise and stupid. They’re diverse.
That escalated…..quickly!
no, the reason they say it is because they are jerks – just because a couple of guys don’t understand that it is a good thing despite others like me that see this as a positive and were actually waiting for a move like this to happen – still paint all of us giants fans as though we don’t understand baseball. The one difference with giants fans certainly is sentimentality but not everyone thinks that it should rule you into making bad decisions
As a Giants fan and a relatively intelligent person, I have to refute the constant (and frankly bewildering) Giants fan bashing in the comments sections.
I see just as many stupid and ridiculous things from fans of every team, not to mention many Giants fans making good points…just because some fans may be less informed doesn’t make the entire fan base a bunch of morons. Generalizations like that are just as ignorant as you claim Giants fans to be.
I could ask you what team you’re a fan of and constantly bash their fans, but as a decent person I realize that we’re all individuals and should be judged on our own merits, not those of whichever groups we happen to qualify as part of.
No fan base is in agreement on anything, let alone everything!
Bash the comments, maybe the commenter, but not a whole fan base…c’mon!
Please provide proof that you are a “relatively intelligent person”, thanks!
@ABS’s comment is exactly right. If you can’t see from his critical (as in “critical thinking skills,” not “critical as in bashing”) that’s he’s at a minimum “relatively intelligent,” you should go have lunch with Righty.
**critical analysis (sorry)
I like turtles.
Giraths are my favorites.
Smyly is decent enough. I thought he was ok as the Phillies backend starter.
He was. It’s shocking that Klentak didn’t bring Smyly back, but then there was no attempt to keep Charlie Morton around either.
So long Trevor, we hardly knew you. Someone else will probably take him off the waiver wire
This feels like last year’s Drew Pomeranz signing. Lefty starter who not long ago was a decent pitcher, but has fallen to injuries and underperformance the last few seasons. But hey, Pomeranz turned into Maurico Dubon for the Giants.
WORLD SERIES BOUND!
Tijuan Walker is literally the only free agent starter left that has a realistic chance to open the season in a big league rotation. Maybe Jason Vargas. Wouldnt be terribly surprised if the Giants deal Cueto or Shark in the next 30 days.
Returns on starting pitchers are greater in July so don’t think those guys are getting moved before the season starts.
Drew Smyly… Didn’t he write that self-help book “Deep Thoughts”?
Drew Smyly… Jack Handey… same thing.
Rickey O:
You’re thinking of (Daily Affirmations With) Stuart Smalley. “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”
Is the FA contest # of correct pick totals leaderboard posted somewhere? Recall Smyly was the 50th/last ranked one for people to guess.
At the top of this article go to the search bar in MTBTR, and seach free agent leaderboard. There will be all the names of the people in the contest, and if you click on a name, it will show the list of FAs.
Thanks
It’s too bad the leaderboard doesn’t include each person’s handle. It’s interesting to see Aaron Sapoznik there near the top, but I didn’t really identify any other regular commenters on the first couple of pages because all you see are there real names, which in most cases aren’t recognizable as commenters.
I truly don’t get Giants fans that are complaining why the Giants aren’t trying to be competitive this year. They could sign five free agents and still find themselves 10 games behind the Dodgers, and their team would have even more old veterans playing instead of getting young guys ABs.
For the last three years all I heard was ‘rebuild rebuild rebuild’ and ‘quit signing old vets’ and now that it’s being enforced some of you are complaining they didn’t sign Rendon or Cole for a gazillion dollars.
Fact is Zaidi didn’t want to fight the Dodgers this year, didn’t see a Wild Card opportunitiy with the NL East so strong, and has too many veterans underperforming already. It’s a massive transition year as they ride out some more contracts, continue to build up the farm, and see if any of these guys riding the bus between Sac and SF can actually pan out.
2021 will be a huge year as some of these prospects will reach the majors and the majority of these contracts will be heading to pasture. It’s 2022 or bust for a big dip back into free agency and a Wild Card berth.
^THIS
I’m interested in this team. I wanna see smyly, Ross, and gausman give us some good innings. I wanna see yaz, dubon and Dickerson for a full year. I wanna see and fa signing of someone that may need a change of scenery. Someone with pop. I wanna see what we get back in July. I wanna see what zaidi’s “dumpster diving” will bring us this year. Even a losing season of baseball is a season of baseball. And there is always something to watch.
@jekporkins…your mom called in and has disowned you, sorry!
Nice depth signing and good July trade fodder.
Giants aren’t trying to win this year but be just competitive enough not to alienate the lay fan.
Diehards know they’re rebuilding and with our capital of recent hardware we’re not going to suddenly start rooting for the A’s.
Smyly, Gausmann and Anderson could have nice seasons and bring back some much needed prospects in July. The rebuild might happen sooner because of that.
The grandson did well, hope he can continue it.
Probably takes them out on Happ but who knows most people probably never thought they take on Cozart for a prospect.
“The Giants’ offseason has been a pretty quiet one, as the team continues to straddle the line between a rebuild and a full push towards contention.”
I’m not sure the Giants can even see the line let alone get close enough to straddle it. I am fine with a quiet off season and a view toward a rebuild, but I see nothing that would even remotely approach a “full push toward contention”,
Zaidi is embarrassing the Giants fans with his constant 40 man swaps that amount to nothing more than a guy that is chasing the next scrub on the waiver.(Yes I’m aware this was a signing).He’s running this organization like it is small market team. This is a top 5 franchise that’s alienating the fans that filled that stadium religiously. He can go play fantasy baseball somewhere else as far as I’m concerned.
You sound like a fool
No he isn’t. Some of us see the bigger picture and appreciate he is willing to do the hard work to rebuild the franchise into a player development powerhouse.
I’m also looking forward to those ticket prices coming down.
The only Giants fans who are looking like fools are the ones that dont get moves like this.
“He’s running this organization like it is small market team”
As he should be doing right now because their are still too many bad contracts left on payroll atleast another 2 seasons. You don’t add to that problem during a rebuild. That’s completely shortsighted.
@spooky…orioles fans ask what exactly is embarrassing about this approach???
Make Baseball Great Again!
jekporkins has it right.
Makes no sense to swim upstream against a torrent of Dodger talent.
And please don’t go calling it ‘tanking on purpose’.
It’s simply common sense. Setting the table for a future feast.
DFA Zaidi
Giants fans Lol. They just don’t don’t get it. Zaidi was hired to do a full blow organizational rebuild.
The process will take 3-5 years minimum. No exceptions
Zaidi will not be signing any big name free agents until 2022-2023. Adding big ticket free agents will be the LAST thing he does. And it will only happen when his 26 man roster is stacked w/ young talented cost controllable players. Period.
The Giants are going to be really
bad this year and next year. This is just the way it is
Zaidi was hired to do a full organizational rebuild and he started from the bottom up as the contractual situation at the MLB roster didn’t allow him to start there. Roster churn at the bottom of 25/40 man adding depth was step one. He also did what I thought was the unthinkable, trade Melancon and his contract AND get something resembling a lottery ticket prospect back.
You think ATL wishes they had the $ committed to Melancon back so they could have sweetened their offer to Donaldson? What they should have done was paid the trade deadline prospect price for Will Smith last summer and resigned him, he wanted to go home.
Where you (others) miss the boat on SF is while they don’t have LAD/NYY $ they are no doubt a very wealth franchise. Their stadium owned and paid off, they own a piece of their local cable TV station, this ownership group has been in place for 25 years and doesn’t have the debt that for example Chicago Cubs have AND also unlike the Cubs they have plenty of payroll/CBT space
Trade market is opening now and before SF get’s into the free agent market I expect them to use their financial strength to take on production on over priced contracts. Plus this off-season to date has re-ignited the price of starting pitching and Cueto/Shark’s contracts are health permitting up for trade consideration. I’m high on Cueto and his new elbow, it worked for Will Smith and certainly got Wheeler paid and his track record prior doesn’t touch Cueto’s. You heard it here first, Cueto to MIN this summer.
SF gets full years from Yaz, Dubon, Dickerson, play almost 50% of their games against the NL West where the LAD continue to get worse, COL is a tire fire, SD has a dumpster fire called the Myers/Hosmer contracts. Only the DBacks are arguably better. I am not even sure they are lock to lose 90 with this roster. Now if they sell big in July then that’s another story on where they might finish.
I still feel like SF might flex those $ when it comes to Castellanos who due to age/bat fits but I think he really wants to back to CHI, unfortunately the Cubs are broke LOL.
Gausman, Anderson, and now Smyly are this year’s Pomeranz. If Zaidi gets to flip two of them at the deadline for another team’s 45 or 50FV prospects, these deals were worth it, when you add this year’s 5 draft picks in the Top 100 to the pool.
And I doubt he’s done. It’s only January. But it’s a certainty that the Giants’ farm system will look a good deal better after the trading deadline than it already does now.
Not Zaidi ‘s fault the rebuild is a year behind because Bochy needed to be pampered with a “Goodbye Tour”. Zaidi was handcuffed to give Bochy his “last chance” when reality was there was no chance. Baer and Bochy will be responsible for an extra year of rebuild.
Maybe Zaidi values draft pick compensation more than he does another teams prospects ? The Giants sold more than they bought at the last deadline, and the two pieces that they didn’t sell garnered them draft pick compensation. Coincidence ?
One mildly significant factor is this is the first signing by Zaidi of a player who played with Kapler in Philly. Being a Giants fan I thought that it might be a barometer of how players felt about playing for Kapler.
Smyly started strong in Philly and had a pretty solid September. His fastball at the end of 2019 was the best it had been since early 2016. He sucked in DFW but overall I think it’s a good signing.
Yawn!!
Giants continue to churn their 26/40 man rosters, maintaining payroll flexibility and building depth. Top tier free-agents made ZERO sense for SF and players even considering going there without a ridiculous overpay.
Castellanos was likely waiting for Donaldson to sign and the only reason SF has interest is in him as he is a roster fit due to his age, offensive profile and no QO. I also wonder if he’s waiting for the CHC to clear some payroll in an attempt to resign him if that is his 1st choice.
So crazy that Chicago team is likely only going to get 1 ring, wtf is that ownership thinking?
Seems like a stretch to give this guy anything more than a minor league deal with a spring invite.
I’m a Pirates fan but will admit those Philles powder blues from the 70s/80s were the greatest mlb unis of all time, along with the Pirates mustard yellows.
Don’t forget the Astros 1980 popsicle onesies.
Here comes the Giants 100 loss season.
🙂 🙂 🙂
Why give up oaks for smyly? Oaks is gonna give you the same productivity at a much cheaper price and have control for 5 years?
Giants have no shot at playoffs in 2020 — SF signed Smyly just to have more pitching and if he pitches decent he will be trade fodder at deadline — as will a number of SF players and the rebuild will begin — to me I thought bringing bk Madbum and keeping Pillar and Will Smith in the pen plus signing maybe Ozuna the team had a good shot at the playoffs but they didnt —