Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Giants Rumors

Yolmer Sanchez Turned Down MLB Offers To Sign With Giants

By | at

Before signing a minor league deal with the Giants, Yolmer Sanchez turned down some MLB contract offers from other teams, the second baseman told Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle.  His decision was partly for financial reasons — the other offers promised him guaranteed money but less than the $2.5MM Sanchez will make if he cracks the Giants’ roster — and partly for opportunity-based reasons, as other clubs wanted to use Sanchez in a utility role.  As Schulman writes, Sanchez preferred to “bet on himself…for a chance to be an everyday second baseman” in San Francisco.

It remains to be seen if Sanchez can become a regular amidst the Giants’ youth movement, or against a veteran like second base candidate Wilmer Flores, who did sign a guaranteed Major League deal with the team.  Aside from Flores, the Giants also have youngster Mauricio Dubon and utilityman Donovan Solano in the mix at the keystone, not to mention Kean Wong, Zach Green, and longtime Giants staple Pablo Sandoval in camp battling for infield jobs.

Zaidi: Ramos Could Debut In 2020

By | at

  • A knee injury shortened the 2019 season for Giants outfield prospect Heliot Ramos, but president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi believes that the 2017 first-rounder can “absolutely” ascend to the Majors in 2020, writes Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle. Ramos wasn’t invited to Major League Spring Training and has only played 25 games in Double-A, where he’ll likely open the 2020 campaign. But the Giants have a fairly wide-open outfield at the moment, with veteran Hunter Pence returning to join Steven Duggar and a pair of corner options with limited track records (Mike Yastrzemski and Alex Dickerson). Ramos, who hit .290/.369/.481 in 444 plate appearances between Class-A Advanced and Double-A when healthy in 2019, remains the organization’s top outfield prospect and won’t turn 21 until this September.

Sandoval Pleased To Return To Giants

By | at

  • Pablo Sandoval is excited to be back with the Giants, telling Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle and other reporters that though he received offers from other teams this winter, “I didn’t want to make the same mistake I made before” in signing somewhere other than San Francisco.  (i.e. signing with the Red Sox after the 2014 season.)  It seems as if the Giants also had their eye on re-signing the Kung Fu Panda, as manager Gabe Kapler invited Sandoval along to a December lunch with pitchers Andrew Suarez and Shaun Anderson in Miami.  “I think we envisioned [Sandoval] being a Giant,” Kapler said.  It will still be a few months before Sandoval officially dons the orange-and-black in a regular season game, as the veteran is recovering from Tommy John surgery.

A’s Acquire Burch Smith

By | at

The A’s have acquired reliever Burch Smith from the Giants for cash considerations, the club announced (h/t to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle). Smith was designated for assignment by San Francisco earlier this week. As the A’s noted, this is the first swap involving an MLB player between the Bay Area rivals since 1990.

Smith, 29, hasn’t found much success at the MLB level. In 99.1 innings with the Royals, Brewers and Giants over the past two seasons, Smith has just a 6.61 ERA with an underwhelming combination of strikeouts (20.9%) and walks (11.6%). He has continued to find 40-man roster spots around the league, though, suggesting teams are holding out hope for better results.

To create roster space for Smith, Daniel Mengden was placed on the 60-day injured list, tweets Martín Gallegos of MLB.com. Mengden underwent elbow surgery earlier this week.

Details On Giants' Pursuit Of Stephen Vogt

By | at

  • Stephen Vogt talked to Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle (Twitter link) about Vogt’s decision to sign with the Diamondbacks, with the catcher citing both logistical and contractual reasons.  Vogt liked being able to spend eight months in Arizona for both Spring Training and the season itself, and the D’Backs separated themselves from the Giants in contract talks by offering Vogt a vesting option for the 2021 season.  The Giants offered Vogt more in guaranteed money than the $3MM Vogt will receive from the D’Backs, though if his option vests and Vogt hits his contract incentives, he can earn up to $7MM over the two-year span.

Giants Sign Wilmer Flores

By | at

February 12: The Giants have announced the signing, adding that right-hander Reyes Moronta has been transferred to the 60-day injured list to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Moronta underwent shoulder surgery late in the 2019 season and is expected to miss substantial time in 2020.

Flores will earn $3MM in 2020 and 2021, tweets Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area. The 2022 club option is valued at $3.5MM and comes with a $250K buyout.

February 4, 7:00pm: Flores’ contract with the Giants is a two-year deal worth more than $6MM guaranteed, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. The Giants will also have a club option for a third season.

2:40pm: The Giants and free-agent infielder Wilmer Flores have agreed to a multi-year deal, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports (via Twitter). The Giants will need to make a 40-man roster move in order to create space for him.

"<strongWilmer Flores | Gregory J. Fisher-USA TODAY Sports” width=”200″ height=”300″ />

The 28-year-old Flores spent the 2019 season with the division-rival Diamondbacks but was limited to 89 games by a foot injury that sidelined him from late May until late July. When healthy, Flores turned in a strong .317/.361/.487 batting line with nine home runs and 18 doubles in 285 plate appearances. While most of Flores’ power output came against left-handed pitching (.337/.367/.615), the longtime Mets utilityman also hit for average and got on base against righties, albeit without much extra-base pop (.304/.358/.404).

The exact manner in which Flores fits into the Giants’ infield rotation isn’t clear. He can back up Brandon Belt at first base and Evan Longoria at third base, although it’s likely that non-roster invitee Pablo Sandoval will also be viewed as a backup at the corners. Flores could log semi-regular reps at second base, with Donovan Solano serving in a traditional utility role, although that doesn’t leave regular at-bats for young Mauricio Dubon at the position. Dubon, though, has been working out in the outfield and could earn himself a lengthy audition in center field, which would help to create additional playing time for Flores at second base.

Bringing Flores aboard on a multi-year agreement doesn’t bode well for 2019 Gold Glover Yolmer Sanchez, who agreed to a minor league contract with San Francisco just last week. Sanchez reportedly passed on big league offers for the chance to earn himself regular playing time at second base with the Giants, but the acquisition of Flores doesn’t help his chances any.

Looking further ahead, the Giants still have Belt, Longoria and Brandon Crawford all signed to guaranteed contracts through at least 2021, so there’s no creation of an everyday spot for Flores on the horizon. That’s nothing new for Flores, however. He’s typically appeared in more games and logged more plate appearances than your average bench bat but has also only topped 500 plate appearances once in seven Major League seasons.

Giants To Sign Trevor Cahill

By | at

The Giants are in agreement on a minor league contract with free-agent right-hander Trevor Cahill, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (Twitter link). The JBA Sports client will be in Major League camp during Spring Training in hopes of landing a roster spot. He can earn $2MM in the majors and double that through incentives, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today (via Twitter).

Cahill, who’ll turn 32 on March 1, scuffled through a brutal year with the Angels in 2019, pitching to a career-worst 5.98 ERA with 7.1 K/9, 3.4 BB/9 and a whopping 2.2 HR/9. The juiced ball that resulted in the league-wide home run boom surely didn’t do him any favors, but homer troubles that extreme can’t be solely placed on the abnormalities within the composition of the baseball.

A year prior, though, Cahill enjoyed a strong reunion tour with the Athletics, spinning 110 innings of 3.76 ERA ball with 8.2 K/9, 3.4 BB/9, 0.65 HR/9 and a 53.4 percent ground-ball rate as a member of the Oakland rotation. He’s been in an on-year, off-year cycle for the past four seasons that in some way mirrors the Giants’ own even-year dynasty from 2010-14, so perhaps he’s due for yet another bounceback effort. He’ll surely be comfortable with the coaching staff in San Francisco, which features first-year pitching coach Andrew Bailey — a former teammate of Cahill’s dating back to his first A’s run and his bullpen coach in Anaheim a season ago.

Cahill has extensive experience both as a starting pitcher and as a reliever, so while four of the Giants’ five rotation spots are spoken for — Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija, Kevin Gausman, Drew Smyly — Cahill can both compete for the fifth slot or for a spot in the San Francisco bullpen.

Giants Claim Jarlin Garcia, Designate Burch Smith

By | at

The Giants have claimed southpaw Jarlin Garcia off waivers from the Marlins. In a corresponding move, righty Burch Smith was designated for assignment.

It’s not surprising at all to see these two teams line up on a transaction of this nature. The Giants have claimed pitcher after pitcher under president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, quite often going on to attempt to slip them through waivers. And the Marlins have dropped a variety of interesting but not-yet-established relief pitchers this winter, with quite a few landing on other 40-man rosters.

Garcia was rather successful last year, compiling 50 2/3 innings of 3.02 ERA ball. He lacks eye-popping strikeout numbers, but does get a solid number of groundballs and was quite successful at limiting hard contact. Garcia also found equal success against right and left-handed hitters in 2019, though fielding-independent pitching measures suggested he was much more effective when facing southpaw swingers.

As for Smith, he was added through the waiver wire last August. The 29-year-old had some effective outings last in the year with San Francisco but has obviously yet to show he’s a reliable MLB relief option. Over 135 2/3 career innings at the game’s highest level, Smith carries a 6.57 ERA with 9.5 K/9 and 5.0 BB/9.

NL Notes: Dodgers, Cubs, Giants

By | at

The Mookie Betts trade is in the books, but now that Joc Pederson is no longer headed to the Angels, the Dodgers will have to sort out their 40-man roster, tweets Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register. The Dodgers have 42 players on their 40-man roster at present. Finding a new trade partner for Pederson and/or Ross Stripling might be the most obvious answer, but the Dodgers may prefer not to rush a transaction of that magnitude. Speculatively speaking, Tyler White could find himself on the chopping block, with Kyle Garlick, Zach McKinstry and Edwin Rios other non-established big leaguers whom the Dodgers may need to consider moving or exposing to waivers. While we wait for the final confirmation of this deal to go through, let’s check in elsewhere around the National League…

  • Theo Epstein saw the writing was on the wall long before the Cubs’ current financial strictures so severely limited their transactional flexibility, per Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun Times. Epstein references a pattern – the Cubs, Astros, Red Sox – of teams reckoning with their young stars graduating into the arbitration process. After years of supporting homegrown cores with free agent additions in efforts to win a World Series, the Red Sox, Astros and Cubs, for differing reasons, have entered new phases. Sure enough, the Astros had to let Gerrit Cole walk in free agency, the Red Sox just shipped Mookie Betts to the Dodgers, and the Cubs are said to have been shopping Kris Bryant for most of the winter. Of course, the Cubs haven’t yet moved their young stars, but their value has declined. Epstein and company are stuck choosing between trading the stars from the cursebreaking Cubs at lower than peak value and watching them depreciate into a mediocre ballclub. Of course, there’s always the possibility of a bounceback for this Cubs core, but even a return to prominence in the NL Central would not provide the answers Epstein needs when it comes to the futures of Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, Willson Contreras, Kyle Schwarber and company.
  • The Giants have extended a non-roster spring training invitation to catcher Ricardo Genoves, per Kerry Crowley of the Bay Area News Group. Given the timing, it’s safe to assume Genoves inclusion in the spring cohort comes as a result of the injury that will keep Aramis Garcia out for most of next season. That said, his inclusion is more about gaining a learning experience, and he’s not actually in the running for the Giants’ backup catching spot, per The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly. Still, it seems a good opportunity for the 20-year-old Venezuelan backstop, and perhaps one that will put him on the radar of league officials league-wide. He was signed by the Giants at the open of the international signing period in 2015, but he tapped into real power at the dish for the first time this past season. Genoves managed a .265/.335/.469 line with 9 home runs in 51 games with Salem-Keizer of the Northwest League and Augusta in Low-A. 

Latest On Yasiel Puig

By | at

TODAY: Negotiations between the Giants and Puig are “all but dead,” according to Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area.  Puig isn’t a priority for the team now that Pence and Billy Hamilton have been added to San Francisco’s outfield mix.

FEBRUARY 7: Yasiel Puig has been the top dog on the free agent market for over a week now. His market situation remains largely unclear, though a few new tidbits of information have emerged today.

Both the Rays and Giants have given some indication of interest in the 29-year-old outfielder, per reports from Jon Heyman of MLB Network (Twitter link) and Robert Murray (via Twitter). It’s not clear in either case just how extensive the interest is.

Trouble is, both teams face some rather clear limitations on paper. The San Francisco club made quite a bit more sense before they reportedly struck a deal today with Hunter Pence. It’s still possible to imagine a fit, but that’d mean crowding out some of the players to whom the team has seemingly wished to provide opportunities.

Down in Tampa Bay, chasing after Puig would presumably represent a value-driven proposition. After all, there’s no need from a roster perspective. The Rays already have two righty bats in their corner outfield mix in Hunter Renfroe and Jose Martinez. No doubt the budget-conscious club would only move on Puig if it gets a bargain and/or has other machinations in mind for making a late tweak to its roster mix.

As we covered in the above-linked post, there are some other conceivable fits on paper. But as yet we haven’t heard of keen interest from many of the teams that could possibly match. With only a week or so left until camps open, it’ll be interesting to see how this situation develops.

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

hide arrowsFOX Sports Engage Network scroll to top