- With all of the economic uncertainty surrounding baseball, the Giants “will be better positioned than almost any team…to weather whatever 2021 brings,” The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly (subscription required) writes in a breakdown of the team’s overall solid financial outlook. This doesn’t necessarily mean the Giants will heavily spend on new players this winter, but it bodes well for the future — perhaps as soon as next offseason, once almost all of San Francisco’s expensive contracts are off the books.
Giants Rumors
Giants Sign Curt Casali
The Giants have signed veteran catcher Curt Casali to a one-year major league contract worth $1.5MM, Maria Guardado of MLB.com was among those to report. To make room for Casali on its 40-man roster, the team officially sold left-hander Andrew Suarez’s rights to the LG Twins of the Korea Baseball Organization. Casali is a client of Beverly Hills Sports Council.
Casali became a professional when the Tigers used a 10th-round pick on him in 2011, but he has so far divided his major league career between the Rays and Reds. He was a Red for the previous three years, during which he posted a productive .260/.345/.440 line with 18 home runs in 485 plate appearances. As a defender, the 32-year-old Casali has thrown out a respectable 27 percent of would-be base stealers, but the all-around package wasn’t enough for Cincinnati to keep him in the fold. The team non-tendered Casali before the Dec. 2 deadline instead of paying him a projected $1.8MM to $2.4MM in arbitration.
Now that he’s on his way to the Bay Area, Casali seems like the front-runner to back up returning starter Buster Posey, who opted out last season over COVID-19 concerns. Casali will now reunite with right-handers Kevin Gausman and Anthony DeSclafani, whom he played with in Cincinnati.
Along with Casali and Posey, the Giants also have fellow catchers Joey Bart and Chadwick Tromp, but those two have all three minor league options remaining. In the event the Casali pickup works out well for the Giants, they’ll be able to keep him around in 2022, as he’ll be eligible for arbitration through then.
MLBTR Poll: Who Will Sign Tomoyuki Sugano?
Tomoyuki Sugano arrived in the United States two days ago, according to The Hochi News (Japanese language link), as the right-hander and his agent Joel Wolfe plan for the final few days of Sugano’s 30-day posting window. January 7 is the final day of that posting period, and with at least six MLB teams known to have interest in Sugano’s services, the odds seem to be in favor of Sugano pitching in the big leagues in 2021.
A move to North America is not guaranteed, however. As noted in that Hochi News item, Sugano said earlier this month that he hadn’t yet fully decided on whether or not to make the jump to Major League Baseball, with the COVID-19 pandemic weighing as a factor in his decision. As we just saw yesterday with outfielder Haruki Nishikawa, it isn’t uncommon for Japanese players to reach the end of their 30-day posting period without having reached a deal with any MLB teams.
Beyond that uncertainty, it’s also possible that Sugano’s market has been somewhat reduced in number. Of the six teams linked to Sugano in rumors, two have made other significant pitching additions that may have removed them from the running. The Rangers already made one foray into the Japanese pitching market by signing Kohei Arihara to a two-year, $6.2MM contract. The Padres, of course, dominated headlines by swinging a pair of blockbuster trades for Yu Darvish and Blake Snell, and now headlines a rotation mix that also includes Dinelson Lamet, Chris Paddack, Adrian Morejon, Joey Lucchesi, and several impressive younger arms.
This isn’t to say that Texas or San Diego wouldn’t still have interest in Sugano, of course. Even with Arihara’s signing, the Rangers could still conceivably add to their rotation considering that Kyle Gibson, Jordan Lyles, and Kolby Allard all struggled in 2020. As for the Padres, they’re so clearly in win-now mode that they might see Sugano as another key piece for what they hope is a World Series contender. Adding another starting candidate serves as a further guard should Lamet have an injury setback, and it could allow the Padres to potentially float one of their younger arms as a trade chip in another trade.
The Red Sox also made a recent pitching addition in Matt Andriese, but while Andriese will be given a crack at a starting job, he might end up as a reliever or perhaps a swingman. Boston has enough questions in its rotation that signing Sugano would make sense even if Andriese did end up as a starter. Likewise, the Giants have retained Kevin Gausman via the qualifying offer and signed Anthony DeSclafani since the start of the offseason, but San Francisco’s pitching staff would certainly still use further reinforcement.
The Blue Jays and Mets have respectively been linked to almost every free agent this offseason, so it isn’t surprising that they’re both in on Sugano. Whether Sugano would be either team’s final major pitching addition is the question, as a case could be made that both Toronto and New York have enough arms on hand, or that another notable hurler (perhaps even Trevor Bauer) is required to really turn either rotation into a big plus.
With these options in mind, it’s time to open the floor to the MLBTR readership. Where do you think Sugano will pitch in 2021? (poll link for app users)
Giants Interested In Tomoyuki Sugano
The Giants are the latest team to be connected to Tomoyuki Sugano, as MLB Network’s Jon Morosi tweets that San Francisco is keeping an eye on the right-hander’s market. This makes at least six teams known to have interest in Sugano, as the Giants join the Mets, Red Sox, Padres, Blue Jays, and Rangers. Notably, Morosi omitted the Rangers from his list, so it could be that Texas is out of the running for Sugano after signing Kohei Arihara.
As with all of these pitching-needy clubs, Sugano would be a nice fit in San Francisco’s rotation. The Giants’ pitching staff was bolstered when Kevin Gausman accepted the qualifying offer, and the club made a further addition in signing Anthony DeSclafani to a one-year, $6MM contract. Sugano will require more money and a multi-year commitment, but it wouldn’t represent that big of an outlay for a Giants club that doesn’t have much payroll committed beyond the 2021 season.
Codify Helping Giants Hurlers
- Michael Fisher is helping pitchers take a proactive approach to retiring hitters through his data-analytics firm called Codify, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle writes. Rather than telling pitchers what they’re doing wrong, he creates heat maps to help pitchers find the right areas to target. He focuses on where they should throw the ball instead of where they shouldn’t. Fisher’s approach works for a number of Oakland A’s pitchers like Jake Diekman, Jesus Luzardo, and Sean Manaea, Giants’ hurlers Tyler Beede and Logan Webb, as well as free agent closer Liam Hendriks.
Giants Sign John Brebbia
The Giants have signed right-handed reliever John Brebbia to a major league deal worth $800K for next season, Kerry Crowley of the Bay Area News Group reports. It’s fully guaranteed, per Jeff Passan of ESPN.
Brebbia came available when the Cardinals non-tendered him earlier this month. They would have owed him a projected $800K in arbitration had they kept Brebbia, but after he missed all of last season because of Tommy John surgery, the Cardinals decided to go in another direction. He could be a member of the Giants for the next three seasons, as he’s under arbitration control through 2023.
Because he went under the knife in late June, Brebbia will not be able to help the Giants for at least the first couple months of next season – if it starts on time or anywhere close, that is. But the Giants are nonetheless taking a low-risk chance on a pitcher who posted terrific numbers out of the Cardinals’ bullpen from 2017-19. Brebbia, now 30 years old, combined for 175 innings of 3.14 ERA/3.39 FIP ball with 10.18 K/9 and 2.79 BB/9 during that span. Despite a paltry 28 percent groundball rate, Brebbia has allowed just 0.98 home runs per nine during his career.
Giants Sign Anthony DeSclafani
DEC. 18: The Giants are deferring half of DeSclafani’s salary, including incentives, to the first quarter of 2022, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today.
DEC. 16, 4:06pm: The Giants have announced the signing. The deal comes with up to $250K in performance bonuses based on innings pitched, per Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area.
3:27pm: The two sides have agreed to a one-year, $6MM contract, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets. That comes in north of MLBTR’s one-year, $4MM prediction for DeSclafani.
3:08pm: The Giants and free-agent right-hander Anthony DeSclafani are nearing a deal, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports. DeSclafani is a client of VC Sports Group.
This figures to be a buy-low pickup for the Giants, who are set to add a starter who has gone through an up-and-down career since it began in 2014. DeSclafani was a member of the Marlins during his first season, but he moved on to the Reds after that in a trade that sent fellow righty Mat Latos to Miami.
Cincinnati received rather impressive production from DeSclafani from 2015-16, during which he accrued 308 innings and notched a 3.74 ERA/3.79 FIP with 7.48 K/9 and 2.48 BB/9. DeSclafani missed the next season because of elbow problems, though, and didn’t return until June 2018. His production from then through 2019 was fairly respectable, but DeSclafani fell on hard times last season. Despite posting a career-high 94.9 mph on his fastball, the 30-year-old logged personal worsts in ERA (7.22), FIP (6.10), K/9 (6.68) and BB/9 (4.28) across 33 2/3 innings. He also had a rough year by Statcast’s standards, ranking closer to the bottom of the league than the top in most of its categories.
Although last season was no doubt a disaster for DeSclafani, the Giants have done well recently in signing starters to low-risk contracts. They added one of DeSclafani’s former Reds teammates, Kevin Gausman, on a one-year, $9MM pact last offseason. That couldn’t have worked out much better for the Giants, who were so impressed that they issued Gausman a qualifying offer a few weeks back. Gausman accepted that $18.9MM offer and will be atop their rotation in 2021. Along with picking up Gausman a year ago, the Giants signed Drew Smyly to a $4MM guarantee. Smyly also exceeded expectations, though he left for a raise with the Braves earlier this winter.
Assuming DeSclafani is part of the Giants’ rotation next year, he should join a group that will include Gausman, Johnny Cueto and likely Logan Webb. The other spot will probably be up for grabs, especially with Andrew Suarez nearing an agreement with a team in the Korea Baseball Organization.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Zaidi On Giants’ Pitching Plans
While they’ve already done a fair bit of heavy lifting in the pitching arena, the Giants may not be done yet. President of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi told reporters, including Alex Pavlovic of NBC News Bay Area (Twitter link) and Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic (via Twitter), that the team is still looking for arms.
The rotation just picked up a new piece when the club inked Anthony DeSclafani to a single-season pact. He’ll join Kevin Gausman, who made good on his own one-year deal with the Giants and ultimately elected to accept the qualifying offer extended by the club.
Despite those additions, Zaidi says the Giants still “have room to add another guy” to the starting staff. That’s not exactly surprising, as the rest of the unit comes with questions. Diminished veteran Johnny Cueto will take one spot, while Connor Menez, Logan Webb, and Shaun Anderson are the current 40-man options to fill out the staff. Tyler Beede could challenge for a role, but he’ll first need to polish off his Tommy John rehab.
It’s certainly possible that the Giants could still pursue a significant player to buttress the rotation. The organization is said to have kicked around the idea of pursuing top available free agent Trevor Bauer. The market still contains a variety of hurlers with differing profiles and there are some interesting trade possibilities as well.
In the bullpen, it seems there’s less reason to wonder about a big strike — at least on the right-handed side. Having already plugged in one piece with Matt Wisler, Zaidi suggests the Giants will primarily be looking for value opportunities. The right-handed relief market is “probably an area where we seek to be more creative and out of the box,” he says.
Andrew Suarez Close To Joining KBO’s LG Twins
The LG Twins of the Korea Baseball Organization are close to signing left-hander Andrew Suarez to a one-year contract, according to Daniel Kim of ESPN and DKTV (Twitter link). It’ll be a $600K pact, Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News tweets. The deal would have to be tied into a purchase of Suarez’s rights from the Giants, as Suarez is still controlled by the San Francisco club.
Suarez was a second-round pick for the Giants in the 2015 and seemed to be emerging as a rotation candidate during a 2018 rookie season that saw him post a 4.49 ERA, 2.89 K/BB rate, and 7.3 K/9 over 160 1/3 innings. That debut was followed up, however, with only 32 2/3 frames of big league work in 2019 (at a 5.79 ERA), as well as some unimpressive numbers at Triple-A, albeit in the very hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. This past season, Suarez made several trips back and forth from the Giants’ alternate training site to the active roster, posting a 3.72 ERA over 9 2/3 innings of relief work, but with more walks (six) than strikeouts (five).
Since Suarez is out of minor league options and seemed to becoming an afterthought in San Francisco, it isn’t surprising that he and his representatives explored opportunities elsewhere. Pitching in the KBO League would allow the left-hander to both earn more money than he would have as a pre-arbitration player in the big leagues, and also presumably give him a chance to start games and re-build his value. Suarez only turned 28 last September, so there is plenty of time for a potential future return to North American baseball.
Buster Posey To Return As Giants' No. 1 Catcher
After a year off, Giants icon Buster Posey will return as their “primary catcher” in 2021, manager Gabe Kapler told reporters (including John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle) on Tuesday. Posey opted out of last season over family health concerns (he and his wife had just adopted twin girls who were born prematurely), and he discussed his decision this week with Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic. The 33-year-old told Baggarly he’s “comfortable” with the choice he made because of the unknowns at the time, including whether Major League Baseball would even be able to get through its season. Posey added that he’s “confident” he’ll play next year, which will be the last guaranteed season of his contract. The Giants may have an heir apparent in Joey Bart, but he and the rest of their catchers had rocky seasons in 2020. It now appears they’ll take a backseat to Posey for at least one more year.
