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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.

Giants Sign Jon Duplantier To Minors Deal

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The Giants have signed right-handers Jon Duplantier and Gray Fenter to a minor league contracts, per MLB.com.

There is, of course a transactions freeze for members of the Players’ Union, but that does not preclude clubs from offering minor league contracts. They cannot, however, incentivize those contracts with offers to spring training or give 40-man roster spots. When the lockout ends, Duplantier is likely to receive an invitation to spring workouts with the Giants.

Duplantier was once a top prospect in the Diamondbacks organizations. The bespectacled 27-year-old had a solid debut in 2019 for Arizona, appearing 15 times (3 starts) and tossing 36 2/3 innings with a 4.42 ERA/3.95 FIP. He has struggled to stay healthy since then, logging just 21 combined innings in Triple-A and the Majors in the two seasons.

Fenter, 25, has yet to make his Major League debut. The right-hander was drated in the seventh round by the Orioles in the 2015 draft. He pitched last season for Bowie in Double-A, pitching o a 5.47 ERA in 77 1/3 innings over 21 appearances (13 starts).

Coaching Notes: Giants, Nationals

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Let’s kick off this Saturday morning by checking in on the latest happenings around the game…

  • The Giants are adding Jacob Cruz to manager Gabe Kapler’s coaching staff. Cruz will be an assistant hitting coach for the 2022 season, per Robert Murray of FanSided. Cruz returns to the organization that drafted him in the first round as an outfielder back in 1994. He was an assistant hitting coach with the Brewers for the past two seasons, the Pirates, Cubs, and Diamondbacks before that. Cruz joins assistant hitting coach Pedro Guerrero, hitting coach Justin Viele, and director of hitting Dustin Lind as offensive coaches on Kapler’s staff.
  • Managers and coaches are not included in the hiring freeze brought on by the lockout, so coaching hires should continue to roll in. The Nationals are one organization that figures to be relatively active in filling out their coaching staff and development teams. The Nats have seen a number of their front office staff leave over the past year. They’re also looking to fill the position of minor league hitting coordinator, writes Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post.

Giants Sign Alex Wood

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TODAY: The signing is official.  According to multiple reporters (including John Shea of The San Francisco Chronicle), Wood will get $25MM over the course of the two-year contract, with an even $12.5MM in each season.  Based on games pitched, Wood can also earn up to $2.5MM in additional bonuses.

NOVEMBER 22: The Giants are closing in on an agreement with free agent southpaw Alex Wood, reports Robert Murray of FanSided (Twitter link). The sides are discussing a two-year deal that would pay the ACES client more than $10MM annually, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN (on Twitter). Should a deal come to fruition, he’d join 2021 rotation mate Anthony DeSclafani in returning to San Francisco. The Giants announced a three-year pact with DeSclafani just minutes before news of Wood’s near-agreement with the club broke.

Wood signed with San Francisco for a $3MM guarantee last offseason and more than made good on the club’s fairly small investment. The left-hander worked to a 3.83 ERA across 138 2/3 innings and 26 starts, taking on his heaviest workload since 2018. ERA estimators were even more bullish on his performance, as Wood posted a 3.48 FIP and a 3.60 SIERA that are both a fair bit better than his bottom line numbers.

The deceptive southpaw punched out 26% of batters faced this past season, a mark that’s more than three points north of the league average. That came on the strength of an above-average 12.5% swinging strike rate, with Wood generating plenty of whiffs on both his sinker and slider. While he doesn’t throw especially hard, he’s consistently proven capable of missing bats based on his combination of movement, command and atypical look for hitters.

That impressive profile has also enabled Wood to post robust ground-ball numbers. He typically induces grounders on around half the balls in play against him (the average for starters is just under 43%), and that was again the case this past season. Wood racked up worm-burners at a 50.8% clip, a top twenty mark among the 129 hurlers with 100+ innings pitched. It’s rare to find pitchers capable of pairing that kind of strikeout and ground-ball proclivities, and Wood also owns high-end control. The southpaw has never had a season with a walk rate north of the league average, and his 6.7% mark in 2021 was more than a point lower than the league figure.

There’s little question about Wood’s effectiveness. Since debuting in 2013, he’s yet to post a season in which he’s exceeded 40 innings with an ERA north of 4.00. That’s supported by the underlying numbers, with the Georgia native typically offering the production of a #2 or high-end #3 starter when he takes the mound. At his best, Wood is capable of posting All-Star caliber numbers. He even earned a Midsummer Classic nod with the Dodgers in 2017, and his 152 1/3 innings of 2.72 ERA ball that year earned him some down-ballot Cy Young support.

The bugaboo throughout his career has been health. While Wood tossed 361 1/3 innings between 2014-15, he’s struggled to log full rotation workloads in the years since. The southpaw has only twice eclipsed 150 frames in the past six seasons, and his 2019-20 seasons were largely derailed by back and shoulder issues. He combined for just 48 1/3 innings over that two-year stretch, and those issues seemed to have a pronounced effect on his performance. Despite his typically strong track record, his ERA over those couple seasons was just under 6.00.

Wood mostly stayed healthy in 2021, although his season debut was delayed a couple weeks by a minor back surgery. Nevertheless, injury and/or workload concerns have kept Wood from cashing in on a long-term contract to this point in his career. The former second-round pick turns 31 years old in January, and his rate performance would seemingly warrant a strong three or four year deal were teams confident in his ability to consistently log 150+ innings.

Instead, it seems he’ll land a two-year pact to return to the Bay Area. That’s shy of the three-year, $30MM deal MLBTR projected entering the offseason, although he’s seemingly in line to top that estimated average annual value. The Giants can certainly afford to take on that kind of eight-figure investment over the next two seasons. San Francisco currently has just $106MM in commitments for next season, in the estimation of Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. That number dips to $45MM in 2023, when only three players (Brandon Crawford, DeSclafani and Tommy La Stella) have guaranteed deals on the books.

The rotation has been a priority for president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, general manager Scott Harris and the rest of the front office. The need to rebuild the starting staff this offseason has been evident for a while now, as Logan Webb was the only one of San Francisco’s top five starters remaining under club control entering the day. DeSclafani’s return locks in a second member of that group, and Wood would have a spot lined up as well if/when his deal is finalized. Susan Slusser of the S.F. Chronicle reported this morning the club was also making a strong run at free agent Alex Cobb. It remains to be seen whether those talks will result in an agreement, but there’d certainly be room in the rotation and on the payroll for such a move.

Of course, it also stands to reason the Giants would still like to hammer out a long-term agreement with Kevin Gausman. While a Webb – DeSclafani – Wood trio would make for a solid top three, reinstalling Gausman behind Webb and knocking DeSclafani and Wood into the mid-rotation roles in which they thrived in 2021 would make San Francisco’s rotation one of the more formidable units in the league on paper. The front office has worked to retain as much of this year’s 107-win team as possible, signing Crawford, DeSclafani and likely Wood to multi-year deals and bringing back Brandon Belt via the $18.4MM qualifying offer.

Image courtesy of USA TODAY Sports.

Minor MLB Transactions: 12/01/21

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Some recent minor moves from around baseball:

  • The Rockies have signed right-handed reliever J.D. Hammer to a minor league deal, according to Thomas Harding of MLB.com. In 23 2/3 innings at Triple-A this year in the Phillies’ organization, Hammer managed an ERA of 3.80 with a hefty 34.3% strikeout rate but also an elevated walk rate of 12.4%. At the big league level, he logged 20 innings with an ERA of 4.95, 23.4% strikeout rate and 11.7% walk rate. The Phils outrighted the 27-year-old at the end of the season and he elected free agency.
  • The Diamondbacks announced that they’ve returned infielder Jake Hager to the organization on a minor league deal. Hager started 2021 in the Mets organization and then was designated for assignment and claimed on waivers three times, bouncing to the Brewers, Mariners and Diamondbacks. Arizona then outrighted him in September. The 28-year-old didn’t hit much in the big leagues this year, but in a tiny sample of 30 plate appearances over 14 games. He played 82 Triple-A games in 2021 between those four organizations, hitting .240/.311/.461.
  • The Giants have agreed to a minor league deal with right-handed reliever Trevor Hildenberger, according to the MLB.com transactions tracker. Hildenberger logged 2 1/3 MLB innings for the Mets this year before being claimed and outrighted by the Giants. In 23 Triple-A innings for Sacramento River Cats, the 30-year-old put up an ERA of 4.70 with a strikeout rate of 22.5% and walk rate of 12.7%.
  • The Nationals have signed infielder Richard Urena to a minor league deal, per the MLB.com transactions tracker. The 25-year-old has played in 91 big league games in his career but hasn’t cracked the majors since 2019. In 2021, he played 92 Triple-A games in the Blue Jays’ system, hitting .272/.310/.438.
  • Outfielder Henry Ramos is joining the KT Wiz of the KBO, as relayed by Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net. The 29-year-old had an unbelievable Triple-A season in 2021, slashing .371/.439/.582 over 294 plate appearances. He was selected by the Diamondbacks in September and got into 18 games, hitting .200/.255/.300 over 55 plate appearances. He was outrighted by the DBacks in October.

Giants Sign Alex Cobb

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The Giants have continued to build their rotation by signing right-hander Alex Cobb.  The Beverly Hills Sports Council client signed a two-year contract worth $20MM in guaranteed money, and Cobb is set to earn $9MM in each of the 2022 and 2023 seasons.  San Francisco also holds a $10MM club option on Cobb for 2024, with a $2MM buyout.

Cobb spent the 2021 campaign in Orange County, after the Angels acquired him from the Orioles last winter. It was an eyebrow-raising move at the time, since Cobb had struggled with both injuries and underperformance over his three seasons in Baltimore. The ten-year big league veteran rewarded the organization’s faith, though, tossing 93 1/3 innings of 3.76 ERA/3.83 SIERA ball across 18 starts.

Along the way, Cobb generated more whiffs than he ever had before. His 11.2% swinging strike rate and 24.9% strikeout percentage were both career-best marks, each checking in a touch above the respective league averages for starting pitchers. Cobb paired that uptick in whiffs with his typically robust ground-ball tendencies (53.3%) and solid control (8.4% walk rate) en route to a nice season.

Cobb’s run prevention numbers were partially propped up by one of the league’s lowest home run rates (0.48 per nine innings). It’s unlikely he’ll continue to be quite that successful keeping the ball in the yard moving forward. But Cobb’s blend of average or better whiffs, control and grounders should allow him to be a solid back-of-the-rotation option even if his homer rate regresses. The bigger concern might lie in his health, as he had separate injured list stints this past season due to blisters and right wrist inflammation. Cobb didn’t seem any worse for wear after returning from his time on the IL, though, with the velocity on all of his offerings remaining intact during his final few outings of the year.

The Giants entered the offseason known to be targeting rotation help. Only Logan Webb remained under club control from the team’s primary five this past season. They’ve already re-signed Anthony DeSclafani and reportedly were nearing agreement to bring Alex Wood back. Kevin Gausman’s departure to the Blue Jays leaves one prominent vacancy, though, and teams often have to rely on seven or eight starters to navigate the injury attrition of a full season.

There’s still room for further additions to the rotation, and there should be plenty of spending capacity with which to do so. Cobb’s two-year, $20MM guarantee narrowly tops MLBTR’s two-year, $16MM forecast entering the winter.

The Giants now have a little more than $113MM in estimated 2022 commitments, according to Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. For a franchise that has logged player payrolls in the $200MM range in the past, a fairly modest Cobb signing shouldn’t be especially prohibitive to the club’s future goals.

Jon Heyman of the MLB Network (Twitter link) first reported that the deal was being finalized, and Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reported the club was making a strong run at the right-hander last week.  The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (via Twitter) reported the $20MM figure, NBC Sports Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic (Twitter link) reported the existence of the option year, and USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweeted the salary breakdown.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

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