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Melky Cabrera Announces Retirement

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Longtime major league outfielder Melky Cabrera announced his retirement this morning (h/t to Héctor Gómez of z 101). Cabrera last appeared in the majors in 2019 but had played winter ball in each of the past two years.

The announcement officially closes the book on Cabrera’s successful big league playing career. He broke into the majors with the Yankees halfway through the 2005 season, getting to the majors a bit before his 21st birthday. The switch-hitter emerged as a regular in the Bronx the following year, playing with the Yankees through their World Series-winning 2009 campaign.

The following offseason, New York traded Cabrera to the Braves. The Dominican Republic native struggled in Atlanta and was released after one year, but he bounced back after hooking on with the Royals the following season. After a solid year in Kansas City, he was traded to the Giants before the 2012 campaign. He’d only spend one year in the Bay Area as well, but that season proved to be the most productive of Cabrera’s career. He hit .346/.390/.516 across 501 plate appearances, earning his only All-Star nod in the process.

Down the stretch, however, Cabrera was suspended after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. That ban carried over into 2013, where he landed with the Blue Jays after signing a two-year deal over the winter. Cabrera struggled in the first season of that deal but bounced back with a very productive 2014 campaign. He proved a capable, high-contact bat for a good chunk of 30s, suiting up with the White Sox, Royals (for a second time), Indians and Pirates.

Cabrera’s run of productivity came to a close in 2019. Despite hitting .280 that year, his overall offensive output was 16 percentage points below the league average (by measure of wRC+) due to a lack of power and a minuscule 4.3% walk rate. Cabrera briefly caught on with the Mets in 2020 Summer Camp but was cut loose before the start of the season.

Altogether, Cabrera had a lengthy, impressive showing in the big leagues. He appeared in fifteen consecutive MLB seasons from 2005-19, donning the uniforms of eight different clubs. Over a bit more than 7,500 plate appearances, Cabrera hit .285/.334/.417, an overall slash line a hair above average by both wRC+ and OPS+. He hit 144 home runs, 383 doubles, drove in 854 runs and stole 101 bases. FanGraphs valued his career around 16 wins above replacement, while Baseball Reference pegged him around 21 wins. Cabrera tallied a bit more than $72MM in earnings, according to B-Ref. MLBTR congratulates the 37-year-old on a very fine run and wishes him the best in retirement.

Giants Sign Corey Oswalt, Luis Gonzalez, Joe Palumbo To Minor League Contracts

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The Giants have recently signed right-hander Corey Oswalt, left-hander Joe Palumbo, right-hander Sam Delaplane and outfielder Luis Gonzalez to minor league contracts, as reported by Baseball America’s Chris Hilburn-Trenkle.  All four players were minor league free agents, and thus eligible to be signed during the lockout.

Gonzalez and Palumbo are both back for what is technically their second stint with the Giants, as San Francisco claimed both off waivers in 2021 (Gonzalez from the White Sox in August, Palumbo from the Rangers in November) before releasing the duo back at the November 30 non-tender deadline.  There was speculation at the time that the Giants would look to re-sign both to fresh contracts post-deadline, and now both Gonzalez and Palumbo are back and clear of the 40-man roster.

Oswalt is the new face, joining the Giants after being outrighted off the Mets’ 40-man in October and opting for free agency.  A seventh-round pick for the Mets in the 2012 draft, Oswalt has spent his entire pro career with New York, including 94 2/3 innings over parts of the last four seasons.  The majority (64 2/3 frames) of that work came in Oswalt’s 2018 rookie season, and he has since been back and forth between New York and Triple-A Syracuse on multiple occasions.

The righty has a 5.89 ERA and a 17.2% strikeout rate during his MLB career.  Oswalt has worked mostly as a starter in the minor leagues, but the Mets experimented with him as something of a swingman or a multi-inning reliever.  Given the Giants’ success at unlocking potential in seemingly unheralded pitchers in recent years, Oswalt’s flexible usage could provide the team with an interesting weapon if the coaching staff can get him on track.

Gonzalez underwent a season-ending shoulder surgery in August, which also triggered his release from the White Sox due to some 40-man roster machinations.  San Francisco jumped in to claim Gonzalez off release waivers, giving the Giants some extra outfield depth heading into 2022.  The 26-year-old Gonzalez was a third-round pick for the White Sox in 2017, and he has hit .266/.345/.414 with 32 home runs over 1539 minor league plate appearances.  Gonzalez has appeared in each of the last two Major League seasons, playing in nine total games in a White Sox uniform.

Palumbo is another longtime member of another organization, having been a member of the Rangers since being selected in the 30th round of the 2013 draft.  Splitting time between starting and relief duties, Palumbo has a strong 2.92 ERA and 28.4% strikeout rate in 363 2/3 career innings in the Texas farm system, though he was limited to only 6 2/3 frames in 2021 due to injury.  Palumbo tossed 19 innings over nine games at the Major League level in 2019-20 without much success, with a 9.47 ERA to show for that brief time in The Show.

Giants Deny Mets’ Request To Interview Andrew Bailey

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Following a frustrating weekend that saw the Padres refuse an interview with quality control coach Ryan Flaherty and Reds planning and outfield coach Jeff Pickler remove himself from consideration, the Mets’ search for a bench coach hit another snag today. As Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports, the Giants have denied the Mets’ request to interview pitching coach Andrew Bailey to be new manager Buck Showalter’s deputy.

Following his retirement ahead of the 2018 season, Mets GM Billy Eppler, then with the Angels, gave the 37-year-old Bailey — who pitched for the A’s, Red Sox, Yankees, Phillies, and Angels in a career that spanned eight seasons and was named the 2009 AL Rookie of the Year while serving as Oakland’s closer — his first coaching job, hiring him as the Angels’ replay coordinator and coaching assistant in 2018 before promoting him to bullpen coach in 2019. The Giants then hired Bailey as their pitching coach ahead of the 2020 season. He led San Francisco’s staff to a 3.25 ERA in 2021 (second only to the Dodgers) en route to a 107-win season and an NL West title.

While teams customarily allow coaching and front office staff to interview with other clubs when they’re up for a promotion — which made the Flaherty news something of a surprise — it isn’t exactly clear that a move from pitching coach to bench coach would represent a ’promotion’ as such (Rosenthal notes that executive opinion is mixed on the issue). Timing may have also played a role in the decision; big-league coaching staffs are usually filled out relatively early in the offseason, and Rosenthal previously reported that the Padres denied the Mets a chance to speak with Flaherty largely because they didn’t want to have to find a replacement at this stage in the offseason.

Of course, the Mets’ attempts to fill out their coaching staff were held back by delays at the top, with Eppler’s hiring coming on November 18 (less than two weeks ahead of the lockout) and Showalter’s on December 20. They’ve since hired three additional coaches — Wayne Kirby as first base coach, Joey Cora as third base coach, and Eric Chávez as hitting coach — but only Chávez had been tied to another organization (the Yankees let him interview for the job only a few weeks after hiring him as an assistant hitting coach). Pitching coach Jeremy Hefner is the lone holdover from the 2021 staff.

Despite the chaos in putting together a coaching staff, Eppler has hit the ground running on the player side, inking Max Scherzer, Starling Marte, Mark Canha, and Eduardo Escobar to free agent deals worth a combined $254.5MM in the days leading up to the lockout while Noah Syndergaard, Javier Baez, Marcus Stroman, and Steven Matz signed elsewhere. Indeed, having endured a second-half collapse and watching the division rival Braves ride a late-season surge to a World Series title, Mets fans will hope Eppler’s offseason isn’t finished regardless of the composition of the coaching staff. MLBTR’s Anthony Franco taps Kris Bryant, Carlos Rodón, and NPB star Seiya Suzuki as potential targets once a new CBA is reached.

Latest On Giants, Seiya Suzuki

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The Giants’ interest in outfielder Seiya Suzuki was first noted back in November, and San Francisco has continued to be linked to the longtime Hiroshima Carp slugger.  As reported by Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic, the Giants were one of the teams who conducted video interviews with Suzuki (through Zoom) prior to the start of the lockout.

The 27-year-old Suzuki has a long list of known suitors, as the Rangers, Yankees, Blue Jays, Red Sox, and Mariners have all reportedly shown interest in his services.  Texas has been one of the offseason’s biggest spenders and the Blue Jays (with Kevin Gausman) and Mariners (with Robbie Ray) have also made some aggressive signings.  New York and Boston have stayed relatively quiet, perhaps in anticipation of some bigger spending after the lockout once the details of the new CBA are finalized.

That same tactic could be the Giants’ modus operandi for figuring out how to navigate the post-lockout world.  It’s not as if San Francisco hasn’t been making moves this winter — the club retained Brandon Belt via the qualifying offer, re-signed both Anthony DeSclafani and Alex Wood, and further augmented the rotation by signing Alex Cobb.  None of these signings broke the bank, however, and the Giants have only around $126MM committed to their 2022 payroll to date.

This doesn’t mean that the Giants will necessarily use their available payroll space on any huge signings, given the team’s reported reluctance to sign players to nine-figure deals.  However, there is still plenty of talent available for well less than a $100MM deal, and Suzuki stands out as one of the more intriguing options available for reasons beyond just cost.  MLBTR projected Suzuki for a five-year, $55MM pact, though his market is rather more difficult to project than most free agents, given his lack of MLB experience and now the unusual circumstances over his posting situation.

Like so much else in the baseball world, Suzuki’s free agency has been put on hold by the lockout.  The Carp officially posted Suzuki on November 22, so he got roughly ten days into the 30-day posting period before the lockout began.  While it’s safe to assume that the Giants and other teams laid some initial groundwork in their online meetings, the 20 days remaining doesn’t leave much margin for error for Suzuki and his reps to find an acceptable contract.

Given the uncertainty surrounding labor talks between the owners and players, it wouldn’t be entirely shocking to see Suzuki opt to return to Nippon Professional Baseball for another season if the lockout keeps dragging on.  As noted by The New York Times’ Brad Lefton, February 1 could serve as something of a deadline for Suzuki, since Japanese teams begin their Spring Training on that date.  It is extremely rare for Japanese players to miss any of their training camps for reasons other than injury, so Suzuki could need to decide between NPB or MLB by late January.

From an on-field perspective, there is plenty of logic in a Suzuki/Giants pairing.  He could immediately step into regular duty as an everyday right fielder, providing San Francisco’s lineup (and the outfield mix in particular) with a needed right-handed bat.  Suzuki has played only as an outfielder for the last seven seasons but he has some history as a third baseman, first baseman, and shortstop, so there’s even a small chance the Giants could experiment with using him around the diamond, as they have so many other versatile players on the roster.  Suzuki only turned 27 last August, so he should have plenty of prime years left to help a Giants team that now has designs on winning a World Series as early as next season.

The Giants Need A Right-Handed Bat

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While nothing about baseball’s future can be set in stone, the scuttlebutt coming out of San Francisco suggests pretty strongly that Kris Bryant will not be returning in black and orange. Concerns about his defensive efficiency and contract demands have the Giants looking elsewhere. If the price for Bryant drops, however, he still very much fits a need. Bryant and the retired Buster Posey brought the right-handed thump to balance a left-leaning lineup in 2021. Evan Longoria contributed as well, but the veteran third baseman is far from a sure thing, health-wise.

The hallmark of this Giants’ regime is discipline, so despite their need for a right-handed bat, they aren’t likely to overpay to bring Bryant back, writes Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports. The Giants appear most comfortable looking for match-up-based value adds, a department where they have succeeded recently with players like Darin Ruf, LaMonte Wade Jr, and Wilmer Flores.

There is one higher-profile free agent they could pursue. The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly wrote back in mid-December that the Giants are interested in Japanese import Seiya Suzuki, who should command a contract in a range wherein the Giants feel comfortable. There are many suitors chasing Suzuki, however.

Donovan Solano has been another one of those part-time players for the Giants, but Pavlovic notes that he’s probably “gone for good.” Solano had a productive three seasons with the Giants, even winning a silver slugger award in 2020.

His departure should make room to give Thairo Estrada a real opportunity. After slashing .273/.333/.479 across 132 plate appearances in 2021, there’s certainly reason to think that the 25-year-old Estrada can be a younger, cheaper version of the 34-year-old Solano.

Depth is key in the modern landscape, however. Since Estrada is out of options, the Giants need to be relatively certain about whether or not he can be the guy they need to fill out their bench. The Giants need a right-handed complement to Tommy La Stella at second and someone who can spell Evan Longoria at third. If Estrada is that guy, then the Giants can focus their post-lockout roster-building on adding potential rotation arms to fill out their depth on that end.

The Giants Picked Up A Productive Outfielder In An Under-The-Radar Deal Last Winter

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The Giants had quite a few unexpected contributors last year en route to a surprising franchise-record 107 wins. Among that group was a player quietly acquired a month before the start of Spring Training. An unheralded pickup at the time, LaMonte Wade Jr. turned out to be an impressive find who could be a valuable part of the San Francisco outfield for the next few seasons.

Last February, San Francisco picked up Wade from the Twins as part of a one-for-one swap that sent righty Shaun Anderson to Minnesota. Wade, 27, had briefly appeared in each of the prior two seasons for the Twins but had a grand total of 113 big league plate appearances under his belt. A .211/.336/.347 hitter in that time, he had an impressive strikeout and walk profile but little else on his MLB resume.

Yet the Giants saw something of interest in Wade, whether based on their scouts’ evaluations or his minor league numbers. He’d hit .246/.392/.356 in Triple-A in 2019. The left-handed hitter only popped five home runs, but his 14.4% strikeout rate and 16.8% walk percentage at the minors’ top level were both far better than the league average. It was an interesting showing, but Wade’s lack of power was concerning for a player whom most scouting reports suggested was best suited for the corner outfield.

It’s easy to understand why the Twins front office felt that moving Wade was subtracting a depth option from an area of organizational strength. They already had Byron Buxton and Max Kepler entrenched in the outfield, and top prospects Alex Kirilloff, Royce Lewis and Trevor Larnach all looked to be approaching themselves. (Kirilloff had debuted in the majors during the 2020 postseason). Wade wasn’t at the level of those other players, and he was entering his final minor league option year.

Yet the deal backfired for Minnesota essentially immediately. Anderson allowed 12 runs in 8 2/3 innings with the Twins before being designated for assignment. Claimed off waivers by the Rangers, he bounced around between a few organizations before finally clearing waivers last month. He’s a member of the Blue Jays now but no longer occupies a 40-man roster spot.

Wade, on the other hand, had a quality showing in his first extended MLB look. He hit .253/.326/.482 with 18 home runs over 381 plate appearances for San Francisco. He became a bit more aggressive at the plate, and his walk and strikeout numbers (8.7% and 23.4%, respectively) were actually fairly ordinary.

Instead, Wade hit for a surprising amount of power. In addition to the 18 homers, he rapped 17 doubles and three triples. That’s a 28-homer, 27-double pace over 600 plate appearances (roughly the equivalent of a full season’s worst of playing time). His .229 isolated power far outpaced the .171 league average. According to Statcast, his average exit velocity, barrel rate and hard contact rate were each a fair bit better than the league mark.

That’s not to say the Twins gave away a future star. The Giants deployed Wade almost exclusively against right-handed pitching, leveraging their strong depth to put him in position to succeed. As a result of the heavy platooning, his rate numbers were probably better than they’d have been had he been asked to play everyday and drawn more assignments against tough lefties. As scouting reports had suggested, Wade was also primarily limited to the corner outfield and first base, only picking up two starts in center field.

Not all deals have to bring back All-Stars, though. The Giants have already gotten the better end of the swap, and Wade looks to have a good chance of being a quality contributor within the San Francisco outfield mix over the next few seasons. If that proves to be the case, the deal will be a nice feather in the cap of president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and his staff — an example of a team successfully pulling from another organization’s area of depth to unearth a valuable addition to their roster.

Giants Unlikely To Pursue Free Agents With Nine-Figure Asking Prices

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Prior to the lockout, the Giants worked quickly to revamp a rotation that appeared poised to lose as many as four members to free agency. Right-hander Anthony DeSclafani returned on a three-year, $36MM contract and was joined by lefty Alex Wood, who inked a two-year deal worth $25MM. Right-hander Alex Cobb was add to the mix on a two-year, $20MM deal.

That gives San Francisco three veteran arms to slot in behind burgeoning ace Logan Webb, but the Giants also allowed top 2020-21 starter Kevin Gausman to depart, declining to match the five-year, $110MM contract he received from the Blue Jays. The decision to let Gausman walk is of extra note now, as ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel reports in his latest look at what to expect throughout the league, post-lockout, that there’s a belief the Giants aren’t keen on pursuing any targets with nine-figure asking prices.

That serves as a potential explanation for why the team ultimately let Gausman leave, and it could also be instructive when forecasting what’s on the horizon for president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, GM Scott Harris and the rest of the front office. Zaidi has already thrown some cold water on the idea of re-signing Kris Bryant, for instance, and if the Giants are indeed averse to $100MM+ commitments, his return would seem highly unlikely. San Francisco didn’t seem like a great match for most of the remaining free agents with that type of asking price in the first place (e.g. Carlos Correa, Freddie Freeman, Trevor Story), though eschewing contracts of this magnitude could take them out of the running  not only for Bryant but for Nick Castellanos, who has reportedly sought a seven- or even eight-year deal.

An aversion to lengthy deals of this magnitude would align with the approach employed by the archrival Dodgers during Zaidi’s time as general manager under L.A. president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman. Like the Dodgers, the Giants are a major-market team with huge payroll capacity, but we’ve yet to see them dole out the type of long-term arrangements that were more common under the prior Giants front office regime. That’s not to say Zaidi’s Giants definitively won’t sign a $100MM+ deal at some point — they reportedly pursued Bryce Harper when he was a free agent — but thus far, indications point more toward the shorter-term, higher-annual-value deals that are increasingly popular as many teams seek to mitigate long-term risk.

Whenever the transaction freeze finally thaws, the Giants still have some work to do. In addition to another proven rotation piece, at least one outfield upgrade would make sense, and there’s always room for a contending club to bolster its bullpen. The Giants have about $126MM in 2022 commitments and about $135MM worth of luxury-tax obligations at the moment, per Roster Resource’s Jason Martinez, which ought to leave ample room for spending. Michael Conforto, Kyle Schwarber and Seiya Suzuki are among the notable free-agent alternatives still on the outfield market, and the likely implementation of a DH in the National League would give the Giants further runway to explore creative options. As for the pitching needs, Carlos Rodon is seeking a multi-year deal but probably won’t command an especially lengthy deal after ending the season with shoulder concerns.

Beyond the free-agent market, the Giants (and other teams) have myriad trade opportunities to consider. The A’s and Reds are known to have starting pitchers available. The Mets’ recent wave of free-agent spending pushed some notable bats to the bench. Speculatively, San Francisco could swing for the fences and try to pry Ketel Marte from the D-backs or even Cedric Mullins from the Orioles. There’s no real limit to what paths the Giants could explore, particularly since the team’s farm system has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years (landing No. 5 among MLB clubs on Baseball America’s mid-August rankings).

Giants To Sign Alex Blandino To Minor League Deal

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The Giants are signing infielder Alex Blandino to a minor league contract with an invitation to big league Spring Training, reports Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle (Twitter link). Blandino was outrighted off the Reds’ 40-man roster at the end of the season, making him eligible to sign a minors deal during the lockout.

Blandino has appeared in three of the past four seasons with Cincinnati, tallying 279 cumulative plate appearances. He’s a .226/.339/.291 hitter with a pair of home runs in that time. The right-handed hitting Blandino has been exceptionally patient at the plate, only offering at 34% of pitches he’s seen. That’s around 13 points lower than the league average, a plan of attack that frequently sees him working deep counts.

It’s little surprise that he’s walked in a strong 11.1% of his career plate appearances, but that patience has also caused some fairly significant strikeout problems. Despite possessing decent bat-to-ball skills, Blandino has punched out in a very high 29.7% of his trips to the dish because of the frequency at which he’s taken pitches both inside and outside the strike zone.

Blandino doesn’t bring much power to the table, but he owns a .235/.374/.369 line across parts of four Triple-A seasons. He’s also capable of bouncing all around the infield, having started games at all four spots on the dirt during his time with the Reds. The former first-round pick also made cameos in the corner outfield and occasionally in mop-up relief during blowouts.

As Slusser points out, Blandino is a Santa Clara County native who played his college ball at Stanford. The 29-year-old will look to return to the Bay Area by playing his way onto the Giants’ active roster next spring.

Giants Acquire Tanner Andrews From Braves

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The Giants have acquired minor league right-hander Tanner Andrews from the Braves in exchange for cash, the team announced to reporters (Twitter link via Kerry Crowley of the San Jose Mercury News). Atlanta had selected Andrews from the Marlins in yesterday’s Minor League Rule 5 Draft.

Major League transactions are on hold during the ongoing lockout, but yesterday’s Rule 5 Draft, this trade and a series of minor league free-agent signings around the league this week serve as a reminder that minor league transactions (for non-40-man players) are alive and well even as MLB and the MLBPA remain locked in a contentious set of collective bargaining negotiations.

[Related: 2021 Minor League Rule 5 Draft results]

Andrews, who recently turned 26, pitched just 5 2/3 innings this season. He landed on the IL early in the year with an elbow injury that led to him undergoing Tommy John surgery on July 7. He’ll miss a large portion of the 2022 season as a result, though if all goes well, he should be able to get some innings under his belt late in the year.

While the elbow injury will put his development on hold for awhile, Andrews still gives the Giants a 2018 tenth-rounder with a career 3.78 ERA, 21.6% strikeout rate, 6.7% walk rate and a 42% ground-ball rate through 164 1/3 pro frames. Most minor league Rule 5 selections prove to be depth options, but every so often, a name or two eventually breaks through to the Majors. Andrews will hope to add his name to that list, but he has a fair bit of rehab ahead of him before starting back down that road.

Giants Sign Mauricio Llovera To Minor League Deal

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The Giants have signed reliever Mauricio Llovera to a minor league contract, according to his transactions log at MLB.com. The right-hander elected minor league free agency at the end of the season after being outrighted off the Phillies’ 40-man roster in August, making him eligible to sign a minor league deal during the lockout.

Llovera’s stint in San Francisco will be his first outside the Philadelphia organization. The 25-year-old has appeared briefly at the big league level for the Phils in each of the last two years, tallying 7 2/3 combined innings of relief. Llovera didn’t find much success during his six MLB appearances this past season, but he averaged a solid 94.5 MPH on his four-seam fastball.

The Venezuela native hasn’t amassed much of a track record in the majors, but Llovera’s coming off a 2021 campaign in which he logged 52 Triple-A frames across 32 appearances. His 3.46 ERA with the Phillies’ top affiliate in Lehigh Valley was solid, but his 21.4% strikeout rate and 10.7% walk percentage at the level were both a bit worse than average. Nevertheless, the Giants will take a no-risk flier to see if Llovera can pitch his way into the bullpen mix over the coming months. He has one minor league option year remaining, so San Francisco can shuttle him between the majors and Triple-A Sacramento next season even if he earns a spot on the 40-man roster.

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