San Francisco adds the defending NL Cy Young winner to the top of a staff that also includes last year’s runner-up, Logan Webb. A two-year deal certainly isn’t what Snell had in mind at the beginning of the winter. The 31-year-old hit free agency coming off an otherworldly finish to the 2023 campaign. Snell’s platform season actually started shakily, as he allowed 15 runs over his first 23 frames. From the start of May onward, he was the best pitcher in the majors. Snell allowed only 1.78 earned runs per nine through 27 starts and 157 innings after April.
Despite the tough first month, the southpaw finished the year with an MLB-best 2.25 ERA across 180 frames. He punched out 31.5% of opposing hitters, a mark surpassed by only Spencer Strider and Tyler Glasnow among pitchers with at least 100 innings. No other starter missed more bats on a per-swing basis. Opponents made contact on just 64.2% of their swings against Snell, narrowly better than Strider’s 64.3% figure for the lowest rate in the majors.
As a result, Snell cruised to the second Cy Young of his career. He received 28 of 30 first-place votes. He’d won the American League Cy Young as a member of the Rays five seasons earlier behind an AL-leading 1.89 ERA over 31 starts. He joined Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander and Jacob deGrom as active pitchers with multiple Cy Young wins.
The 2018 and ’23 seasons are, rather remarkably, the only seasons in which Snell has appeared on Cy Young ballots. That points to some amount of inconsistency over the course of his career, which is mostly attributable to scattershot control. Snell has walked nearly 11% of batters faced over his seven-plus big league seasons. Last season’s 13.3% walk percentage was the highest rate of his career. Snell led the majors with 99 free passes, the first pitcher to do so in a Cy Young-winning campaign in more than 60 years.
Snell has never been a bad pitcher, but the inconsistent strike-throwing has kept him from turning in ace production on an annual basis. He posted an ERA ranging from 3.24 to 4.29 in the four seasons between his award-winning campaigns. While Snell fanned over 30% of opposing hitters every year, working deep counts kept him from logging massive workloads. He has averaged a little less than 5 1/3 innings per start over the course of his career. He reached the 180-inning mark in each of his Cy Young campaigns but didn’t surpass 130 frames in any other season.
It seems the market didn’t value Snell as a clear-cut ace despite the strength of his platform year. The only other publicly reported offer which he received was a six-year, $150MM proposal from the Yankees back in January. When Snell didn’t accept, New York inked Marcus Stroman to a two-year deal. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets that the Yankees took their offer off the table last month and declined to reengage over the weekend.
Given that Snell ultimately settled for a two-year guarantee at a marginally higher annual rate, there’s a strong argument that his camp erred in not accepting New York’s offer. At the very least, he’s taking more risk in going with a short-term pact for the chance to retest the market next winter. Still, it’s not all that surprising he didn’t jump on a $150MM guarantee.
That’s well below the seven-year, $172MM deal which Aaron Nola secured from the Phillies earlier this offseason. It’s also shy of the six-year, $162MM pact that Carlos Rodón landed from New York a year ago. Snell and Rodón are broadly similar pitchers — power lefties with questions about their ability to consistently log huge innings totals — but the former was coming off a better year than Rodón posted in 2022.
It’s possible Snell received similar or better offers from other teams that went unreported. In any case, he clearly didn’t find the kind of long-term pact that he envisioned. That seemed increasingly unlikely the longer he remained unsigned. The incumbent Padres were never a factor as they sliced payroll this winter. Teams like the Mets and Red Sox jumped out of the market fairly quickly. As the offseason dragged along, more teams downplayed the possibility of making a top-of-the-market splash. Beyond the Yankees, Snell reportedly drew interest from the Angels. The Astros were a late entrant last week before balking at an annual commitment above $30MM.
Snell joins fellow Boras Corporation clients Cody Bellinger and Matt Chapman in settling for guarantees well below what most people expected entering the offseason. They’ll all have the ability to retest free agency next winter. Bellinger inked a three-year deal with opt-outs after 2024 and ’25; Chapman signed for two years with an opt-out following next season. Jordan Montgomery, the last unsigned member of the so-called “Boras four,” has reportedly continued to hold out in search of a long-term deal. With a week and a half until Opening Day, it remains to be seen if he’ll be able to find anything close to that.
It’s yet another huge free agent strike for the Giants, who have attacked the late stages of free agency with a vengeance. After a few offseasons of missing out on their top targets, San Francisco has successfully slow-played this year’s market. Since the beginning of Spring Training, they’ve added Jorge Soler, Chapman and Snell. Soler’s three-year, $45MM deal was around pre-offseason expectations. The latter two contracts were well below what the Giants could’ve envisioned in November.
Snell puts the finishing touch on a winter that also saw San Francisco shell out $113MM for KBO star Jung Hoo Lee and $44MM for reliever turned starter Jordan Hicks. The Giants also pulled off a major trade with the Mariners that sent Mitch Haniger and Anthony DeSclafani to Seattle for rehabbing starter Robbie Ray. The 2021 AL Cy Young winner won’t be a factor until around the All-Star Break, but he could eventually add another high-ceiling arm to the rotation.
It’s still a potentially top-heavy group, but there’s now a ton of upside. Snell and Webb should form an excellent 1-2 punch. Top prospect Kyle Harrison will occupy the #3 role. Giving Hicks a starting job despite his injury history and below-average control is a gamble, but his power arsenal at least makes that an intriguing flier. Veteran righty Alex Cobb could be back from last fall’s hip surgery by May. Prospects Keaton Winn and Mason Black are back-of-the-rotation depth options early in the year.
Snell’s late signing date could have him a bit behind schedule. He has been throwing and reportedly tossed four simulated innings in front of scouts last week. There’s not a ton of time to build rapport with catcher Patrick Bailey before Opening Day, but that shouldn’t be an issue too deep into the season. Snell is at least plenty familiar with manager Bob Melvin, his skipper for the last two years with the Padres.
San Francisco’s late-offseason aggressiveness has pushed them into luxury tax territory for the first time since 2017. While the delayed payment of the signing bonus reduces the team’s commitment in the short term, the $31MM average annual value is the relevant number for tax purposes. RosterResource calculates the club’s competitive balance tax number right around the $257MM line that marks the second tier of penalization. For teams that didn’t pay the tax the preceding season, the fees are fairly modest. In contrast to the Yankees (who would’ve been taxed at a 110% rate as a third-time payor that is in the top bracket), the Giants are only hit with a 20% fee on spending between $237MM and $257MM.
The Snell deal comes with a roughly $4MM tax bill. They’ll be taxed at a 32% clip for future spending up to the $277MM mark with escalating fees thereafter. While it’s likely this marks their last major investment of the winter, they’re surely hopeful of being in a position to add at the trade deadline.
Snell declined a qualifying offer from the Padres. The Giants already forfeited their second-round pick and $500K of international bonus pool space to add Chapman. They’ll lose their third-rounder (#87 overall) and another $500K from their international bonus pool for Snell. San Diego paid the CBT a year ago, so they’re limited to the lowest compensation for losing a qualified free agent: a selection after the fourth round. The Padres received the #135 pick for losing Josh Hader and will now get another selection in that range.
Paying the CBT and parting with draft capital are costs the Giants are happy to pay to get Chapman and Snell on short-term deals. San Francisco was comfortable with similar contract structures for Rodón and Michael Conforto in previous offseasons. Both players could walk next offseason for nothing — they’re ineligible to receive another qualifying offer in their careers — but that’s a risk worth taking to continue loading up in a division full of star talent with four legitimate threats to make the playoffs.
Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reported Snell and the Giants agreed to a two-year, $62MM deal with an opt-out. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reported the signing bonus and salary breakdown.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
]]>It’s not necessarily a surprise that the Astros would be worried about stomaching a $30MM annual commitment for Snell’s services. The club is already in unprecedented territory with regards to its player payroll; Cot’s Baseball Contracts notes that Houston has never entered a season with a projected payroll above their $187MM figure from the 2021 season, but RosterResource projects the club to blow that figure out of the water this year with a whopping $240MM payroll entering the 2024 campaign. That figure reaches nearly $256MM for luxury tax purposes, just over $1MM shy of the second, $257MM tax threshold.
Virtually any addition to the club’s payroll at any point this season would push them past that level, but a more significant addition such as Snell would leave the club at risk of going over the third threshold, which stands at $277MM for the 2024 season. While the first two brackets of the luxury tax come with only financial considerations, the penalties get stiffer when a clubs surpasses the third threshold. Those penalties most notably include the club’s highest pick in the following year’s draft being pushed back ten places, which is further compounded by an associated cut to the club’s bonus pool for signing their draft picks that year. Given the elevated costs involved with a pursuit of Snell, it was hardly surprising when GM Dana Brown suggested that the club wasn’t interested in pursuing additional starting pitching this spring, even name-dropping Snell specifically as a player the club would “love to have” but didn’t expect to sign.
Of course, it’s hard to overstate just how impactful Snell could be for the Astros rotation even in spite of those ancillary concerns. Right-handers Lance McCullers Jr. and Luis García Jr. are both set to open the season on the injured list and miss considerable time this season. They’ll also be joined at least for the early days of the campaign by veteran ace Justin Verlander, whose start to the season has been delayed soreness in his right shoulder. Those injuries leave the club’s rotation depth in an tough spot entering the season, and a recent injury scare regarding Jose Urquidy has only exacerbated those concerns. KRPC2’s Ari Alexander reported recently that Urquidy has been dealing with “forearm stiffness” per a source, while manager Joe Espada told reporters yesterday that the right-hander has flown back to Houston from the club’s spring complex in Florida to meet with team doctors.
Losing Urquidy could leave the club to rely on depth options such as Hunter Brown, J.P. France, and Ronel Blanco behind a front-of-the-rotation duo featuring Framber Valdez and Cristian Javier, at least for the start of the season. Adding Snell to that mix would not only give the club much-needed additional pitching depth early in the season, but would also add an impactful, playoff-caliber arm to a rotation that saw each of Verlander, Valdez, and Javier take steps back in 2023 from the 2022 form that saw the group stand among the very best starting trios in baseball that year. While Snell certainly has flashed inconsistencies of his own throughout his career, posting a relatively pedestrian 3.85 ERA and 3.44 FIP from 2019 to 2022, he’s nonetheless ranged from a dependable mid-rotation arm to an elite, front-of-the-rotation flamethrower throughout his eight years in the majors and would be a surefire upgrade to an Astros club looking to make an eighth consecutive postseason appearance this fall.
On the other hand, Snell would provide all those same benefits to the Giants. San Francisco has had a busy offseason, bringing in Bob Melvin to replace Gabe Kapler in the managers’ chair while adding the likes of Matt Chapman, Jorge Soler, Jung Hoo Lee, and Jordan Hicks in free agency. With that being said, the club has done little to address a rotation mix that delivered the least innings among all major league clubs last year. Hicks has moved from the bullpen into the rotation since joining San Francisco, and the club could also receive a boost from trade acquisition Robbie Ray midseason upon his return from Tommy John surgery sometimes this summer. With Ray, Alex Cobb, and Tristan Beck all set to open the season on the injured list, however, it leaves the club with minimal certainty in the rotation behind staff ace Logan Webb.
Given how much the club would benefit from another front-of-the-rotation arm to pair with Webb, it’s not a surprise that the Giants continue to be involved in Snell’s market. Despite comments from club chairman Greg Johnson back in February that suggested the club planned to rely on young rotation arms such as Kyle Harrison and Keaton Winn entering the 2024 season, reporting has indicated that San Francisco has remained in the mix for Snell in recent weeks, though the club has signaled that it did not anticipate further major additions after signing Chapman earlier this month.
While it’s unclear how far Snell’s price would have to fall for San Francisco to pounce, the club’s books figure to have far more flexibility than those in Houston. RosterResource projects the club for a payroll of just $177MM entering the 2024 season, likely leaving ample room for the club to fit Snell into the budget. While the club’s luxury tax payroll stands at a somewhat higher $226MM figure, even an AAV approaching Snell’s reported $30MM asking price would leave the club just a touch under the second luxury tax threshold.
]]>Per Harding, Monfort indicated that the club’s focus remains on preparing for the regular season, but that he nonetheless hopes that the sides will be able to reach an agreement. There’s certainly reason for optimism that the sides will eventually work out a deal in some capacity, as the veteran manager has inked one-year extensions in each of the past two springs and reporting in previous years has indicated that the Rockies and Black have a long-standing unofficial agreement on a rolling year-to-year deal where either side can walk away after any given season.
Black, 66, spent nine years as manager of the Padres from 2007 to 2015 (including a 2010 season that saw him win the NL Manager of the Year award) before joining the Rockies prior to the 2017 season. He led the club to back-to-back postseason appearances in his first two years with the club but the club has struggled badly under his leadership over the past five seasons, never winning more than 74 games in a season and even suffering the franchise’s first ever 100-loss campaign in 2023, when the team lost 103 games en route to a last place finish in not only the NL West but the entire National League; only the Royals and A’s lost more games last year. With that being said, Monfort is well-known for being loyal to his employees and valuing continuity in the organization, so it’s not necessarily a surprise that he would be interested in continuing the club’s relationship with Black beyond the 2024 campaign.
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Small, 27, is a former first-round pick of the Brewers who came over to the Giants in a trade last month. He only has 10 1/3 innings of major league experience thus far, with an earned run average of 8.71, but has impressed in the minors. Last year, the Brewers moved him from a starting gig into a primary relief role. He tossed 51 innings at Triple-A last year with a 3.18 ERA, striking out 28.5% of batters faced in the process. His 11.2% walk rate was a bit concerning but it was encouraging season nonetheless.
Small wasn’t slated to be the most important part of the San Francisco bullpen but he was arguably the club’s #2 lefty behind Taylor Rogers. The only other southpaw reliever on the roster is Erik Miller, who doesn’t have the first-round pedigree of Small and has yet to make his major league debut.
The move will add another question mark to a San Francisco pitching staff that has plenty. They have long known that they would be starting the season with starters Alex Cobb and Robbie Ray on the injured list, but this spring has seen each of Keaton Winn, Tristan Beck and Sean Hjelle deal with various ailments. Winn seems like he’ll avoid missing any time but Beck is already on the injured list and Hjelle is likely to join him.
The bullpen consists of a strong group of four for the high-leverage work, with Camilo Doval in the closer’s role, backed up by Rogers, his brother Tyler Rogers, as well as Luke Jackson. Beyond that, none of the relievers on the roster have much experience. Miller and Randy Rodríguez haven’t pitched in the big leagues yet while Small and Ryan Walker have less than a year of service time.
RosterResource currently estimates that non-roster invitees Spencer Howard and Daulton Jefferies will crack the Opening Day bullpen. Jefferies has missed most of the last two seasons as he underwent both thoracic outlet syndrome surgery and Tommy John surgery in 2022, while Howard has a 7.20 ERA in his 115 big league innings and a 4.43 ERA in Triple-A.
There’s a lot of question marks in a bullpen that could be important, considering their rotation isn’t overflowing with certainty right now. Ace Logan Webb figures to be backed up by Kyle Harrison, who is a notable prospect but with seven big league starts to his name. Longtime reliever Jordan Hicks is going to attempt to move to the rotation. Winn has less than 50 innings under his belt. Prospect Mason Black might crack the Opening Day rotation to make his major league debut.
There are many moving parts and the overall structure of the staff will likely be an ongoing storyline in San Francisco this year. If the club has interest in bolstering their pitching staff with external additions, there are options still out there. Brad Hand, Jarlín García and Aaron Loup are lefty relievers that are still unsigned here in mid-March and likely won’t command huge salaries. The Giants have Amir Garrett and Juan Sanchez in camp as non-roster invitees. Garrett has thrown 3 2/3 innings in the spring with four walks and six earned runs allowed, wherehas Sanchez has tossed six frames with only one earned run crossing the plate, striking out eight with no walks given out.
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]]>It’s a financially motivated move for the Giants, who bumped Davis from the starting lineup when they signed Matt Chapman. Their incumbent third baseman had previously prevailed in an arbitration hearing and was slated for a $6.9MM salary. Barring a surprising successful grievance on Davis’ behalf, the release means he’ll receive a fraction of that from San Francisco. The collective bargaining agreement provides that arbitration-eligible players released more than 15 days before the start of the season “for failure to exhibit sufficient skill or competitive ability” are entitled to 30 days termination pay — slightly more than $1.1MM, in Davis’ case.
The most recent CBA introduced a new provision that arb-eligible players who settle without a hearing would be entitled to their full salary in the event they were released before Opening Day. That does not apply to players who go to a hearing — the provision incentivizes players on the fringe of rosters to settle — which makes Davis’ choice to proceed with a hearing consequential in retrospect.
Davis’ agent, Matt Hannaford of ALIGND Sports Management, criticized the team’s process leading up to the exchange of filing figures — implying that the team didn’t leave the player with much choice. “In my 22 years in the business, I’ve never seen a club in arbitration make their one and only offer less than an hour before the exchange deadline that ended up hundreds of thousands of dollars below their filing number,” Hannaford told reporters (link via John Shea and Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle).
“The way the Giants negotiated gave J.D. no choice but to go to a hearing, which he did, and which we won. It’s unfortunate the club has handled things the way they have, but I’m confident in the player J.D. is and the value he will bring to his next team. I know he will end up in a better situation when all is said and done.”
The Giants’ official filing figure was $6.55MM. In response to Hannaford’s comments, president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi told Andrew Baggarly of the Athletic and other reporters the team first offered “just slightly under $6.4MM.” Zaidi indicated the Giants did not consider that the team’s best and final offer and said that Davis’ camp replied that the number for a settlement “has to start with a 7.” Zaidi did not address the timing of the team’s offer but said ALIGND’s response came roughly 10 minutes before the time when teams and players are required to submit filing figures.
“They then filed at 6.9, and several hours after the deadline, called looking to engage in a settlement,” Zaidi said of Davis’ camp. “We said that out of fairness to our other negotiations and to maintain credibility with our policy going forward, we were not in a position to negotiate once the exchange deadline had passed.”
Nothing in the rules precludes teams and players from continuing to negotiate a settlement beyond the filing deadline. However, as a matter of policy, virtually every team declines to discuss one-year arbitration terms after the exchange date. Clubs view this as a way to deter players from anchoring future negotiations by submitting a filing figure that is higher than what they might expect to win at a hearing. (Teams sometimes get around their own “file-and-trial” policies by discussing multi-year deals, but that’s not always the case.)
Whether there was room for further negotiation before the filing exchange date, Zaidi didn’t deny Hannaford’s assertion that the team’s lone official offer was indeed below the rate at which they eventually filed. That makes it easy to understand why Davis declined that proposal.
One can debate whether his camp should have been more motivated to settle based on the possibility that the Giants may look to get out of the contract in Spring Training, but that’s far easier to say with the benefit of hindsight. While San Francisco had clearly viewed Chapman as a target all winter, they didn’t land him until well into Spring Training. The signing of Jorge Soler to a three-year deal to serve as designated hitter, blocking another path to playing time for Davis, also occurred after the filing exchange.
In any case, the chain of events seems likely to cost Davis some money. All 29 other teams passed on the opportunity to take his $6.9MM salary off outright waivers over the weekend. Zaidi said the Giants unsuccessfully looked for a trade partner between signing Chapman and cutting Davis loose. Hannaford tells Shea and Slusser that he’s hopeful that Davis will sign fairly quickly, but it’s not likely that he’ll make up the nearly $5.8MM difference at this stage of the offseason.
It’s possible his camp and the MLB Players Association will consider a grievance in an attempt to recoup some of that money, essentially arguing that Davis hadn’t failed to demonstrate sufficient skill. There’s no recent precedent for a successful grievance of that ilk, however. Davis’ release was not tied to a work-related injury, which would have been the basis for retaining his full salary.
Cases like this are rare, but it’s possible the Davis saga becomes a point of contention in the next round of CBA negotiations. Giants outfielder Austin Slater, a member of the MLBPA executive subcommittee, tells Shea and Slusser that fully guaranteeing arbitration salaries was a goal of the union’s the last time around.
“That was something we fought for, and we got. However, the league wasn’t willing to guarantee it if you went to a hearing. That remained the same. It was technically a win. Obviously, this is a very odd situation. And so there’s maybe more light brought onto it than previous years,” Slater told the Chronicle. “You never want to see something like that happen, but if there was a bright side out of it, it’s that guys are engaged and noticed that’s something that shouldn’t happen from a players’ union standpoint. Obviously, we love to have Chappy here. We’re thinking of J.D. as a person.“
]]>Davis won an arbitration hearing over the Giants earlier in the offseason, which awarded him a $6.9MM salary. However, under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement, that sum isn’t fully guaranteed until Opening Day. By cutting him now, the Giants could potentially only owe him 30 days of termination pay — about $1.11MM. The CBA, however, explicitly states that this applies to players who have “failed to exhibit sufficient skill or competitive ability.” That hardly seems to apply to Davis, who hit .248/.325/.413 with 18 home runs during the 2023 regular season and is 6-for-15 with a pair of homers this spring (.400/.471/.800).
Under the previous collective bargaining agreement, no arbitration deals were fully guaranteed unless specifically bargained as such. The new set of rules fully guarantees the deals of players who agree to terms absent a hearing — but allows teams to move on from players who go to a hearing without being responsible for the full freight of the contract. A player released more 16 or more days before the season opener is entitled to 30 days of his prorated salary, whereas a player released with fewer than 16 days before the opener is entitled to 45 days of his prorated salary. Again, however, that’s contingent on “failure to exhibit sufficient skill or competitive ability.” Davis’ representatives at ALIGND Sports and the MLBPA ostensibly have cause to file a grievance on his behalf, claiming that his termination is not reflective of his skill (or lack thereof).
For much of the offseason, it looked as though Davis would be the Giants’ primary option at the hot corner. Matt Chapman lingered on the open market long enough that the Giants were able to scoop him up on a three-year deal at much more favorable terms than expected heading into the offseason. Chapman can opt out of that $54MM deal in either of the next two offseasons, but his price tag dropped to the point where the Giants felt they couldn’t pass on the deal — even it meant moving on from a productive player in the 31-year-old Davis.
The Giants unsuccessfully attempted to trade Davis after signing Chapman, president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said on a call with reporters today (X link via Slusser). The team placed Davis on outright waivers over the weekend, but by this point on the calendar, most clubs have used up the bulk of their offseason budgets. A $6.9MM salary isn’t a notable percentage of most teams’ payrolls, but it was hefty enough at this time of the offseason that no team felt comfortable claiming it. The fact that Davis could be signed for a lesser salary upon clearing waivers and becoming a free agent surely played into the calculus for interested clubs as well.
While the 2023 season was far from Davis’ best, it was still a productive one all around. He’ll immediately become one of the most intriguing bats on the market and could land with any team looking to add some right-handed thump to its lineup. Last year’s .248/.325/.413 slash was four percent better than average, by measure of wRC+, but from 2019-22 Davis turned in a much healthier .276/.363/.457 line — about 27% better than average, per wRC+. Davis has roughly even platoon splits throughout his career.
From a defensive standpoint, an opposite trajectory has played out — at least in the eyes of Statcast. Davis has been panned as a poor defender for years at the hot corner, but Statcast graded him five outs above average in 2023. Defensive Runs Saved remained quite bearish on him (-11). Most clubs likely view Davis as a below-average defender and thus as a limited player, but there’s little doubting he’s a major league bat who can improve nearly any club’s everyday lineup — or at least its bench mix.
For the Giants, if they indeed succeed in shaving nearly $5.8MM off the books in 2024, they’ll be about $10MM shy of the luxury tax threshold, per RosterResouce. Whether that opens the door for any further, late additions in free agency or via the trade market remains to be seen. Zaidi has suggested that his team is likely done with significant additions, but he made similar comments after signing Jorge Soler and then went on to sign Chapman as well.
]]>Ahmed, 34 later this week, spent the past ten seasons in Arizona as a regular fixture at shortstop, earning back-to-back Gold Glove awards for his superlative defense in 2018 and 2019. He’s struggled to stay on the field in recent years, drawing just 264 trips to the plate between the past two seasons, and in that time slashed a paltry .216/.258/.332. Rough as his last two seasons were, Ahmed’s non-roster deal with the Giants came with the opportunity to earn a regular role in San Francisco, and the veteran has made the most of that opportunity by slashing an incredible .556/.667/1.222 in his 12 trips to the plate this spring without recording a strikeout across his four appearances.
Luciano, by contrast, has hit a paltry .071/.188/.071 in six games this spring, striking out in 56.3% of his plate appearances without recording an extra-base hit. While numbers during Spring Training must be taken with a grain of salt for a number of reasons and it’s worth noting that Luciano was slowed by a hamstring issue early in camp, it would nonetheless be understandable if the Giants felt that Luciano’s weak results this spring indicated that the 22-year-old needs more development time at the Triple-A level. Luciano made his big league debut with San Francisco last year but struggled at the plate in his cup of coffee, hitting just .231/.333/.308 with a 37.8% strikeout rate in 45 trips to the plate.
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With Chapman now at third base, Jorge Soler at DH, and LaMonte Wade Jr. and Wilmer Flores slated as a platoon tandem at first base, there wasn’t much room for Davis to find everyday playing time, making him something of an overqualified bench piece. Chapman’s contract came after months of speculation that he would eventually land in San Francisco to re-unite with his former manager Bob Melvin, so really, trade rumors have been surrounding Davis for much of the offseason.
The waiver-wire move indicates that a trade couldn’t be found, yet that doesn’t mean that there isn’t interest in Davis’ services. It could be that rival clubs weren’t willing to meet whatever asking price Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi was seeking, and were content to wait and see if Davis would just end up available to be claimed. By that same logic, it seems possible that Davis might also clear waivers entirely if no team wants to assume the $6.9MM salary he is owed for the 2024 season, after an arbitration panel ruled in Davis’ favor at a hearing last month.
The fact that Davis went to a hearing provides an interesting wrinkle to his salary situation, as per the terms of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement. Salaries for arbitration-eligible players are not fully guaranteed until they make the Opening Day roster, or (as noted by Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area) unless they agree to a salary without going to a hearing — your standard “team and player have avoided arbitration” situation.
However, in going to a hearing, Davis could be subject to the CBA clause stating that San Francisco can part ways with him for a prorated portion of his $6.9MM salary. That prorated sum will be 30 days’ worth of termination pay if Davis is released earlier than 16 days prior to the start of the Giants’ season (their first game is on March 28), and 45 days’ worth of pay if he is released after that 16-day checkpoint. Davis might well have grounds for a grievance if the Giants try this tactic, as he has been tearing it up at the plate in Spring Training, and could therefore argue that he isn’t being released “for failure to exhibit sufficient skill or competitive ability,” as detailed in the CBA wording.
Barring a potential grievance, the Giants would save roughly $5.793MM by releasing Davis before the 16-day threshold. It isn’t an insignificant sum, especially for a team that is approaching luxury tax status. RosterResource projects the Giants for a tax number of just under $231.3MM, leaving the club with only a little breathing room before hitting the $237MM tax line. Given how the Giants have pursued several high-salaried stars in recent years, paying the tax altogether probably isn’t seen as a huge barrier for ownership or the front office, yet naturally the team would ideally like to pay as little tax as possible. San Francisco could potentially still be adding another big salary to the ledger before Opening Day, as the Giants remain linked to top starters Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery on the rumor mill.
Davis hit .248/.325/.413 with 18 homers over 546 plate appearances with San Francisco in 2023, as hot starts and finishes to the season bookended a pretty severe slump over the summer months. The offensive production translated to a 104 wRC+, which is drop from the 118 wRC+ Davis posted over his first six MLB seasons with the Astros, Mets, and Giants.
While Davis’ bat has long been pretty solid, he has been something of a man without a defensive position. The public metrics give him decent grades over 287 2/3 innings as a first baseman, though Davis’ work at third base has generally been considered subpar. His 2023 performance drew at least mixed reviews, as Outs Above Average (+5) and UZR/150 (+0.8) had a positive view of his third base glovework, while the Defensive Runs Saved (-11) metric was much less impressed.
On paper, the Cubs, Brewers, Blue Jays, Rays, Nationals, Rangers, Guardians, Mariners, White Sox, Athletics, and Padres are teams that all have clear or hypothetical needs at either corner infield position or at DH, so any could potentially fit as Davis’ next landing spot. Even a relatively modest $6.9MM salary could provide an obstacle in some of these situations, and the presence of such other free agents (such as J.D. Martinez, Brandon Belt, or Evan Longoria) who could fill at least one of Davis’ positions might further complicate his market.
]]>San Francisco has been frequently tied to top remaining starter Blake Snell, in part because of injuries to some of their in-house options. Robbie Ray, Alex Cobb, Tristan Beck and Sean Hjelle are all likely to begin the season on the injured list. However, Cobb appears slightly ahead of schedule as he works back from last year’s hip labrum repair.
The veteran righty got through a 25-pitch bullpen session yesterday and will throw live batting practice early next week. Manager Bob Melvin told reporters that while the team will be cautious not to push Cobb too quickly, they’ve “probably sped (the timeline) up a little bit” based on his progress (via MLB.com). The team announced a six-month recovery timetable for Cobb to log game action of any kind when he underwent surgery on Halloween.
It now looks as if he could be on track for a minor league rehab assignment earlier than that. To this point, the Giants have kept him off the 60-day injured list — a move that would prevent him from pitching at the MLB level before May 27.
The Giants also provided an encouraging update on Hjelle, who was diagnosed with an elbow sprain earlier in the week. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle tweets that he’s on track to begin a throwing program in one week after receiving a second opinion. The team had announced on Tuesday that Hjelle would be down for two weeks before going for reevaluation. The injury almost certainly still rules him out of the season-opening rotation mix, but it’s a positive development that his complete shutdown won’t last too long.
San Francisco has three locks for the Opening Day rotation: Logan Webb, Kyle Harrison and Jordan Hicks. Righty Keaton Winn is the frontrunner for the #4 job. He was delayed early in camp with what seems to be minor elbow soreness and is still expected to be ready for Opening Day. Unless the Giants dip into free agency for someone like Snell, Jordan Montgomery or Michael Lorenzen, the fifth spot will be up for grabs.
Andrew Baggarly of the Athletic tweets that former third-round pick Mason Black “appears poised” to take a season-opening rotation job. The Lehigh product was scheduled for his third start of Spring Training this evening, but the game was rained out. He has logged five innings over his first two appearances, allowing three runs on six hits with three strikeouts.
Black, a 24-year-old righty, is not on the 40-man roster and has yet to make his MLB debut. He split last season almost evenly between the two highest levels of the minors. Black combined for a strong 3.71 ERA while striking out an excellent 30.3% of opposing hitters across 123 2/3 innings. He issued a few too many walks in a very hitter-friendly environment in Triple-A but hasn’t handed out a free pass yet this spring. Baseball America recently ranked him the #8 prospect in the organization, crediting him with a plus sinker/slider combination and fine if unexceptional control.
]]>That indicates Garza won’t be on the radar for a spot in the Opening Day bullpen. He’ll presumably start the season at Triple-A Sacramento and seek a midseason call-up. The Fullerton product has pitched in the majors in two of the past three years. He logged 21 appearances in Cleveland in 2021. After spending the ’22 campaign in Triple-A, he returned to the big leagues with 17 outings as a low-leverage arm for the Red Sox last season.
Garza has yet to find much success against big league hitters. He posted a 4.71 ERA in his rookie season and allowed 7.36 earned runs per nine for Boston. Garza managed only an 18.7% strikeout percentage and walked upwards of 13% of batters faced for the Sox. He has given up a lot of hard contact in each of his MLB stints.
Things have gone a bit more smoothly in the upper minors. Garza owns a solid 3.98 ERA over parts of three Triple-A campaigns. He has fanned an above-average 27.7% of opposing hitters at that level. Throwing strikes consistently has still been an issue, but the 29-year-old (30 later this month) has shown the ability to miss bats against upper level hitters. He has averaged just under 95 MPH on his sinker in his big league work.
Garza has two minor league options remaining. If the Giants call on him at any point, they could move him between Oracle Park and Sacramento without exposing him to waivers.
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]]>The Giants signing Chapman doesn’t seem to have been conditional on a Davis trade, as the latter remains on the San Francisco roster five days later. Davis is probably overqualified for a bench role. He has played fairly regularly over the past five seasons between the Mets and Giants. Davis has turned in above-average offensive numbers in each of those seasons, although last year’s .248/.325/.413 slash line was his weakest since he established himself as a regular.
Davis has received some criticism for his glove. Public metrics had almost unanimously graded him as a below-average defender until last season. There was a split in his defensive grades in 2023. Defensive Runs Saved still considered him among the worst third basemen in the league, grading him 11 runs below average. Statcast, by contrast, viewed his work as four runs better than par. No one would consider Davis comparable to Chapman with the glove, but pairing average or better defense with his power potential would make him a good everyday player.
That alone doesn’t mean the Giants need to trade him. San Francisco could keep him on hand as a quality depth option for this season. It’s not an ideal roster fit. Beyond Chapman, the Giants have Wilmer Flores as a righty-hitting corner infielder and will use Jorge Soler at designated hitter.
While Davis would have the ability to pursue an everyday third base job in free agency next winter, he doesn’t have much recourse right now. He said over the weekend that he’s willing to do “whatever the team needs,” even as he called the signing “definitely surprising” and stated he was unaware the team was adding Chapman before it was reported publicly (comments relayed by John Shea and Shayna Rubin of the San Francisco Chronicle).
Carrying Davis in a limited role is a suboptimal outcome for the Giants. He’s making $6.9MM after winning an arbitration hearing. That’s a lot to commit for a player used sparsely off the bench. Yet even if the Giants decide they’d prefer to offload Davis’ salary, Chapman’s late signing date could complicate those efforts.
A number of teams have publicly declared they’re near or at the level at which they’re willing to spend. Some clubs might view Davis as a slight upgrade over their in-house third basemen but not want to add a near-$7MM salary less than three weeks before Opening Day. Free agent spending on infielders was down all offseason and has gone particularly cold in recent weeks. Players like Tim Anderson ($5MM), Amed Rosario ($1.5MM) and Gio Urshela ($1.5MM) inked one-year pacts for salaries below what Davis will command. The Urshela contract, in particular, doesn’t point to a robust demand for third basemen.
Where will that leave the Giants? Will whatever trade interest they receive in Davis over the next few weeks be strong enough that they deem it preferable to keeping him?
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It’s already been known that Beck would be facing a long absence after testing late last month found the aneurysm. The Giants placed him on the 60-day injured list this week when opening a roster spot for newly signed Matt Chapman. An eight-week shutdown period would stretch from now until April 30. Beck would then need to slowly ramp up, starting with light throwing on flat ground, to pitching off a mound, to facing live hitters and eventually pitching in minor league rehab games.
That process would require more than a month, in all likelihood, putting a potential return date somewhere in June, at the earliest. Of course, that’s all contingent on avoiding any setbacks and on Beck’s body recovering as hoped. The Giants will surely have updates along the way.
The news on Hjelle likely subtracts another depth option who could’ve stepped up to help fill Beck’s spot early in the season. Hjelle, a towering 6’11” 26-year-old, posted strong numbers in Double-A back in 2021 but has since struggled both as a starter and reliever in Triple-A and in the big leagues. The former second-round pick worked primarily as a starter in Triple-A Sacramento last year, struggling to a 6.00 ERA in 19 starts (plus three relief appearances) in that ultra-hitter-friendly setting. He made another 15 relief appearances with the big league club, posting 29 innings with a similarly disheartening 6.52 earned run average.
Hjelle sports an unsightly 6.17 ERA in 54 MLB innings but his 23.2% strikeout rate, 8.3% walk rate and huge 56% ground-ball rate all portend better results over a larger sample. He’s been plagued by a sky-high .399 average on balls in play despite yielding just an 89 mph average exit velocity. Metrics like FIP (3.89) and SIERA (3.35) feel Hjelle has been far, far better in his limited big league time than his ERA would indicate.
Giants skipper Bob Melvin had already called out Hjelle as someone who could perhaps move into a rotation role to help compensate for the injury to Beck and provide some insurance in the event that right-hander Keaton Winn’s elbow issue flares back up. (Winn was briefly shut down earlier in camp due to a nerve issue but has since resumed throwing without issue.) Instead, it appears quite likely that Hjelle will also open the season on the injured list. A two-week period without throwing will conclude with just over a week to go until Opening Day. Even if Hjelle were able to immediate pitch in games — which seems unlikely — it’s hard to imagine him ramping up to the point where he could be a viable rotation option.
At the moment, the Giants’ rotation consists of Logan Webb, top prospect Kyle Harrison, reliever-turned-starter Jordan Hicks and the aforementioned Winn. A competition for the fifth spot could include trade acquisition Ethan Small, prospect Kai-Wei Teng (already on the 40-man roster) and perhaps in-house nonroster pitchers like Carson Whisenhunt and Mason Black.
It was a perilously thin group even when all of Winn, Beck and Hjelle looked healthy. The Giants have been banking on this mix to carry them into the middle portion of the season. Alex Cobb will open on the injured list while rehabbing from October hip surgery but could be back within the first couple months of the season. Trade acquisition Robbie Ray is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and will be out until the final third of the season or so. Injuries to Beck and to Hjelle have only further called into question whether such an unproven group can steady the course until the Giants’ more veteran reinforcements arrive.
The Giants have been active in free agency late in the offseason, with signings of Chapman and Jorge Soler both completed after the beginning of spring training. Even with that pair of additions — plus their earlier pickups of Hicks and center fielder Jung Hoo Lee — reigning Cy Young winner Blake Snell is reportedly still a consideration. Fellow southpaw Jordan Montgomery is also still on the market, as are lower-tier arms like Mike Clevinger, Michael Lorenzen, Eric Lauer and others.
San Francisco currently projects for a payroll just under $182MM, per RosterResource. Their projected luxury tax ledger currently sits at $231MM — just $6MM or so shy of the first threshold. Signing Snell or Montgomery will assuredly put the team over that line, and Snell would require further forfeitures in the amateur draft and international free agency. The Giants already punted their second-highest pick and $500K of next year’s international bonus pool space to sign Chapman; Snell would require surrendering their third-round pick and an additional $500K of international spending capacity. Both players would also result in the Giants paying a 20% tax for the first $20MM by which the luxury barrier is exceeded, plus a 32% tax on the next $20MM.
It’s possible that even Lorenzen or Clevinger could push the Giants into tax territory, although there are other moves that could be made to counteract that. The signing of Chapman, for instance, could make J.D. Davis and his $6.9MM salary more expendable. If the Giants were able to move Davis and some/all of that salary, they could create as much as $13MM in breathing room between themselves and the $237MM tax line.
]]>“I’ll say what I said last time we talked after we signed [Jorge] Soler — the offseason is really over as far as we’re concerned,” Zaidi said. “We’re more in in-season mode, which doesn’t mean you can’t make additions, but it’s a different dynamic because we’re really focused on the players that we have and how they’re all going to fit together.”
It was a little over two weeks ago that Zaidi also spoke with the media after Soler’s signing, when the PBO noted that “It’s a little bit more disruptive to add at this point. Anybody who’s a free agent, we’ve theoretically had three and a half months to figure out a deal and if it hasn’t happened yet, at some point organizationally, you just need to turn the page and focus on the players you have….At this point, the calendar makes any further additions unlikely.”
Of course, as Pavlovic observed, Chapman was then signed in the aftermath of those initial comments, so Zaidi’s statement today could and probably should be taken with some natural skepticism. Multiple reports surfaced yesterday that Blake Snell was still a target for San Francisco even in the aftermath of Chapman’s arrival, and Zaidi didn’t deny that talks had closed off on Snell or any other possible additions. “The easiest thing is to say we can’t rule it out,” Zaidi said. “We don’t have some planned sequence of moves here and don’t feel like anything is imminent there, but we’re going to continue to look for ways to improve the team.”
In the absence of any more newcomers, the Giants’ rotation continues to look like Logan Webb, converted reliever Jordan Hicks, and then a host of prospects with little to no Major League experience. The highly-touted Kyle Harrison (34 2/3 career big league innings) will be getting an extended look at a rotation job, Keaton Winn (42 1/3 career innings) projects as the fourth starter, and a whole host of pitchers could now get a shot at the fifth starter’s role since Tristan Beck will begin the season on the 60-day injured list.
Despite this lack of proven starting depth, Zaidi is excited to see what the in-house arms can do. “Our plan all along has been to give our young pitchers opportunities and to try to create a defense that would support them in their transition and that’s one of the reasons Matt was such a priority….We want to elevate our young pitchers. There’s uncertainty that comes from the fact that there’s a lack of familiarity. Young pitchers are definitionally not household names, but we think that the more they get a chance to prove themselves, you sort of have to take the leap with them at some point and this is something we’ve been planning for a couple of years, to get younger in our rotation and give these guys the opportunity to win jobs.”
Beyond just the prospects, Robbie Ray and Alex Cobb are expected to bolster the rotation when the two veterans return from the injured list. Ray’s recovery from Tommy John surgery will keep him out until at least midseason, and Cobb underwent hip surgery at the end of October and was given an estimated return timeline of roughly six months.
Cobb has already been working out in spring camp, and it seems as though the right-hander is on track to at least meet if not better that timeline. Zaidi said that Cobb is expected back “relatively soon in the year,” and Pavlovic noted that the Giants haven’t put Cobb on the 60-day injured list, which would rule him out until the end of May.
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