The Giants announced a series of roster moves prior to tonight’s game, with third baseman Evan Longoria being placed on the injured list due to a thumb fracture. Left-hander Thomas Szapucki was also placed on the injured list, with a hip strain being the culprit in his case. To take their spots on the active roster, outfielder Bryce Johnson was recalled while left-hander Andrew Vasquez had his contract selected. To make room on the 40-man roster for Vasquez, lefty Alex Wood was transferred to the 60-day injured list.
Longoria suffered his injury yesterday when attempting to field a ground ball. X-rays revealed a fracture, per Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area, which will finish Longoria’s season. The veteran had another strong year at the plate, hitting .244/.315/.451, production that was 15% above league average by measure of wRC+. However, various injuries limited him to just 89 games on the year, as he previously went on the IL due to hand surgery, an oblique strain and a hamstring strain.
Going forward, it remains to be seen what the future holds for Longoria. He is in the final guaranteed year of the huge extension he signed with the Rays back in 2012. There is a club option for 2023, though Longoria has at least considered retirement, discussing the matter with Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle back in June.
After the IL placement was announced today, Longoria spoke to the media about his future, with Slusser and Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic among those to relay the information on Twitter. He says that his wife and kids want him to continue playing in 2023 and that his first choice would be to return to the Giants. The option for next year comes with a $13MM base salary and $5MM buyout, though Longoria says he’s open to renegotiating the terms if the team wants him back. The club’s president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi has already publicly spoken about a desire to run out a younger roster next year, which would seemingly be a point against bringing back Longoria, who turns 37 in a few days. However, if Longoria is willing to accept a lower salary, perhaps there is a price point where it makes sense for both sides to reunite. The surgery comes with a recovery time of about 4-6 weeks, per Slusser, meaning Longoria should have plenty of time to recover before Spring Training.
As for Vasquez, 29, he began the year with the Blue Jays but subsequently joined the Phillies and Giants on waiver claims before being outrighted about a month ago. He threw 6 2/3 innings with the Jays earlier this year but has otherwise been relegated to the minor leagues, pitching very well on the whole. In 32 1/3 innings in the minors on the year, he has a 2.23 ERA, 34.9% strikeout rate and 6.3% walk rate. He has less than a year of MLB service time and could be retained for next year if he holds onto his roster spot through the winter.
As for Wood, this today’s transfer is a mere formality as it had already been reported that he wouldn’t be returning this season.
Another guy that’s hard to believe is at the end of the line….SoCal local boy..Everyone loved Longoria coming up. Great career. My memory of him is as a dangerous TB slugger. The kinda guy you never wanna let your guard down with.
The Giants hold a $13MM team option with a $5MM buyout. I don’t see them letting him leave for what amounts to $8MM. He’s nearing the end of his career, but I suspect he has another season coming.
Cool. If he has another year left in the tank then awesome. Hope he goes out with a bang. Wasn’t following SF much this year.
He was still productive when he played. Just lots of injuries.
Agreed @RobM, when healthy, Longo has been productive. Not a bad DH/PH guy with an occasional inning or two at 3rd for $8MM. Decent value. Heal fast Longo!
I don’t think the Giants will pick up the option. I understand the difference is $8M, but it’s still paying a declining player, who has only been available half the time for the last two seasons a net of $13M.
If Longo is brought back, it’s because they bought him out, and then re-signed him for $3-$5M. Crawford is already on the 2023 roster, so if they’re going to get younger and more athletic, they can’t keep making exceptions, bringing back guys like Longo and Belt.
I can see a compromise of half of his option with a few incentives added in.
@tad: Agree. I wonder, though, if they buy him out if another team might take a chance on him at this point in his career.
Yea, a games played incentive makes a lot of sense for a guy like Longo who is solidly above average when on the field, or not on the field at all.
Longoria was on a HOF type trajectory. and looks like over 130$ in career earnings. Nice….
As a Phillies fan didn’t pay too much attention back in the day, other than he was in TB AND really good.
Guy still has skills @36, hope he can stick around for as long as he wants to…..
Really? What stats made him on HOF trajectory? Longoria was always an all around very good player but I don’t ever think he was that great
@Yanks 2 Maybe the multiple 7+ WAR seasons when he first came into the league? Perhaps the 3 all star appearances by age 24? Maybe the fact that you “never thought he was that great” has something to do with personal biases but I could be wrong. A bit surprising considering he also was a minority owner of the Yankees during his time in TB.
WAR is the most ridiculous and overused stat in baseball. Longoria has only hit over .280 three times and his career OBP is .334. Even his first few seasons you claim were making him a candidate for HF trajectory don’t scream Hall of Fame-type player to me
WAR is overrated but you still use batting average to assess how good a player is? Also I’m not arguing that his career numbers are bonafide HOF worthy, I’m saying he was one of the all around best and most consistent players in the game for a 4-5 year period at the beginning of his career, when offense as a whole was down across the league. You’re telling me if he kept that pace for another 4-5 years he wouldn’t be a HOF caliber player?
No
It’s a good thing you don’t get a vote then.
The operative word being ‘was’. He hit the wall at age 31, and that was the end of his HoF pursuit. The Rays knew he was on the downside of his career when they dealt him.
We have Schmidt in the minors. When he is ready longo is long gone. The only way they sign him at any price is if they think they can drum up interest with a fast start next year
Giants hold a team option on Longoria. Good chance it’s exercised.
He’s toast in SF.
Team is going nowhere in 2023.
Give the at bats to the kids or new faces
Longoria is Too old, too brittle.
Give him the $5 Mil and let him hobble off into the sunset…..
Longo, prepared to renegotiate in order to stay for one more. Nice work. Got to respect that move, but I’d still like to see younger.
There’s a “day in the life” with David Villar on Giants YouTube. He attributes his better showing second time around to a chat he had with Longo. Not a bad watch. Follows him around on game day.
Zero chance the Giants pick up Longoria’s option for next season so we have probably all but certainly seen the end of his time in San Francisco. Maybe a team that can afford to give him DH AB’s next year will take a flier on him but if he has played his final game he had a pretty solid career with 331 HR’s, 1131 RBI’s, a Rookie of the Year award, 3 Gold Glovew, a Silver Slugger, and 3 All Star appearances. Not sure if he is Hall of Fame worthy, definitely Hall of Very Good though
He’s got my vote for that HOVG
Longo just announced that he will play next year and that he would be willing to renegotiate his option if the Giants want him back. His clubhouse presence alone is invaluable. I watched him all year. He still picks it at 3rd and crushes lefties.
Casey Schmitt is the heir apparent and rightly so but likely won’t make his debut until later next summer.. The Giants also have David Villar, Marco Luciano and Sean Roby in the wings at 3rd base. Many project Marciano to play 3rd.
I think Aeverson Arteaga is the heir apparent at short at this point. The Giants have some depth to trade from.
It’ll be a fun offseason for Giants fans because now the books are pretty much wiped clean with only 12mil on the books for 2024.
Last offseason the Giants stood pat offensively with Belt, Longo and Crawford coming off excellent years. But that did not work out very well. They’ve got the cash and they’ve got the trade chips.
Longo saying he’d renegotiate his option is quite interesting.
For one, he’s probably worth less than the $8M cost for the Giants (the $5M is already sunk). Even on the open market Longo probably doesn’t get $8M but just south with incentives. And there’s the rub: Longo can’t seem to stay healthy. A platoon would help keep him fresh and make a sub $8M salary palatable.
That’s what makes this fascinating. I figured the Giants would move on with Villar in the wings and Arenado out there. And Farhan loves a retread with value, even if it’s his own player. Keeping Longo might make sense, if the price is right.
Giants have a lot of other needs, so a stable (when healthy) if unspectacular Longoria who can be spelled by VIllar, who is still being evaluated, might make some sense to the FO. FWIW, always thought Arenado would look great in the Orange and Black.
You got there first, because I also think the Giants are a sleeper team on Arenado. He’s likely to stay with the Cards on a re-done deal, but the Giants have the payroll space to at least make it more costly for the Cards to do so.
I would not be surprised to see Zaidi attempt to strike quickly right after the World Series to try and snag a big fish or two (Judge, Correa, and/or Arenado) to show Rodon they are serious about ’23 before possibly losing him. If these attempts fail, I could see Zaidi bringing back some of the vets on lower-cost deals to fill gaps until the kids start showing up in late ’23 and 2024.
Next year, one truly will need to buy a scorecard to see who is on the Giants. Would not be surprised to see a dozen or more of this year’s team cast aside. Giants made the same mistake this year with aged and aging vets that the Phillies made back in 2010 when the held onto their aging core too long.
Good news is the Giants have big cheese to spend on FA players. Hope they spend often and wisely. Lots of holes to fill and not much in the minors ready for prime time.
Given how hefty the buy out is and how relatively cheap the option is, I could see the Giants picking it up, or buying him out and re-signing him to a 1 year/$1M deal or something like that so that he’d effectively be getting 1 year/$6M, which would be a very fair deal for his production while healthy and active this past season.
Longo is definitely not a Hall of Famer at this point however it is worth noting that based on WAR he’s better than any third baseman pre Eddie Mathews. His WAR is double some Hall of Fame 3rd basemen (Freddie Lindstrom) and his WAR is significantly higher than several others including Pie Traynor and George Kell. However in the modern era there are several former 3rd basemen with a higher WAR including Buddy Bell, Scott Rolen, Graig Nettles and Ken Boyer with Arenado and Machado overtaking Longo in the next 2 or 3 years.
Here’s the all time WAR leaders at 3rd base:
baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_3B.shtml
Anyone not familiar with Casey Schmitt should look him up. Apparently he has Arenado’s glove and hit better every level he played this year (A+, AA & AAA). So I don’t think 3rd base is someting the Giants need to worry about this offseason.
Thanks for the intel. Casey Schmidt has been added to the watch list. Cheers.