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Scott Kazmir Intends To Pitch In 2022

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Scott Kazmir completed an incredible comeback effort in May, reaching the big leagues for the first time in five years. The veteran bounced on and off the Giants’ roster a couple times, ultimately making five MLB appearances and starting twelve times with Triple-A Sacramento.

Kazmir finished the season on the injured list after straining his right hamstring during the final week of the regular season. The 37-year-old (38 in January) tells Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle that he’s returned to full health a little less than a month later. Kazmir adds that he intends to continue pitching next season, assuming he receives interest from teams.

The three-time All-Star will be a free agent this winter, but it indeed seems likely he’ll field some minor league offers. There’s no harm for clubs in giving the respected veteran a chance to compete for a job in Spring Training, and Kazmir is coming off an alright showing in the minors.

Over 52 2/3 frames with the River Cats, Kazmir posted a 4.61 ERA in the hitter-friendly Triple-A West. His strikeout and walk rates (22.1% and 8.3%, respectively) were right around the league average. Kazmir’s brief major league time didn’t go well, as he was tagged for nine runs (including three homers) in 11 1/3 frames. But his passable showing in Triple-A combined with a wealth of big league experience should get him another look next spring.

That could again be with the Giants, where president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi has a relationship with Kazmir that dates back to their time with the Dodgers from 2015-17. The left-hander tells Slusser he’d welcome a return to San Francisco.

Giants’ GM Scott Harris Not Expected To Take Position With Mets

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The Mets continue to search for a new baseball operations leader, but it doesn’t seem they’ve yet zeroed in on a likely hire. Michael Mayer of Metsmerized reported this morning that New York had recently spoken with Giants’ general manager Scott Harris. Andy Martino of SNY confirms the Mets were in contact with Harris but now rules him out as a potential candidate.

Evidently, that’s due to Harris not wanting to leave San Francisco. Andrew Baggarly of the Athletic (Twitter link) reports that the Bay Area native took himself out of consideration for the Mets’ job due to his preference to remain with the Giants. Harris has spent the past two seasons working as San Francisco’s GM, where he’s been second-in-command underneath president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi. The Mets’ top baseball ops job would’ve been a step up in responsibility for the 34-year-old Harris, but it seems he’s content with his current role.

Mayer also reports that Dodgers’ assistant general manager Brandon Gomes is seemingly out of consideration for the Mets. He suggests Gomes is likely to receive a promotion in the Los Angeles front office instead, jibing with similar reports by Martino over the past couple weeks. A former big league reliever, the 37-year-old Gomes has spent the past five seasons with the Dodgers, the last three in an assistant GM capacity.

The Mets’ search initially involved high-profile targets Theo Epstein, Billy Beane and David Stearns. For various reasons, none of that trio is still a possibility for New York, and Martino adds that the team has pivoted to targeting younger, up-and-coming executives in the Harris and Gomes mold. The SNY scribe adds that there are “one or two” candidates for the position already in the organization, although he rules out AGM Bryn Alderson — the son of team president Sandy Alderson, who is partly responsible for deciding on the next hire.

In one final wrinkle, Martino suggests the new hire might be brought in with the title of general manager as opposed to president of baseball operations. There’s a bit of semantics at play there, since the incoming hire would be in charge of daily baseball operations either way. Still, the potential change in title could be dependent upon whom the Mets eventually tab.

Teams are typically reluctant to allow in-house executives to interview for lateral positions elsewhere. New York was initially reported to be seeking a president of baseball ops, a higher title would likely allow more leeway in pursuit of rival GM’s like Harris. Were the Mets to hire another club’s assistant general manager, though, they’d only need to offer that person a GM title to offer a step up.

That’s a small matter, since the Mets are in position to create either role depending upon the previous title of whomever they hire. Still, the Mets’ GM/president of baseball ops twist subtly highlights how leaguewide title inflation plays into the hiring of front office personnel each winter.

Farhan Zaidi Discusses Giants’ Upcoming Offseason

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Giants’ president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi recently appeared on The TK Show, the podcast of The Athletic’s Tim Kawakami, and discussed a wide variety of topics pertaining to the past and the future of the club.

Broadly speaking, there’s a wide variety of paths for the Giants to take this winter. They have a lot of contracts coming off the books when free agency begins, which means they will have money to spend but also holes to fill. They could use that money to assemble a team that’s very similar to the 107-win 2021 squad, go with a completely different look, or somewhere in between. Regardless of how it plays out, Zaidi believes their success this season should help make them an attractive destination for potential signees. “We’re just going to keep trying to get better and better and better and at some point you reach the tipping point where you look up and you’re at the top of the standings, and that situation can perpetuate itself by reputation, a lot of free agents want to play for you, and you can draft off of that success if you just kind of keep grinding and trying to make the team better.”

It certainly stands to reason that free agents would be intrigued, especially given that the Giants have seemingly found a way to maximize the talents of veterans they’ve brought on in recent years, such as Darin Ruf, Anthony DeSclafani, Jake McGee and Alex Wood, who are all over 30 years old and did some of the best work of their careers in 2021. And there’s also Giants’ mainstays like Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford and Buster Posey, who are all 33 or older and had excellent seasons.

Zaidi elaborated on that point by giving some insight into how players approach free agency and how it’s evolved in recent years. He says that money and geography used to be the primary factors, but now, “I think guys are more aware of going somewhere they feel like there’s an infrastructure and a support system that can help them thrive from a performance standpoint. You get a lot more questions from free agents on what facilities do you have, can I speak to your pitching coach or hitting coach? And that’s a way bigger part of the recruiting process. We’ve been really focused on that pitch over the last couple of years.”

Zaidi had already discussed the rotation situation last week, which is surely going to be a big part of the Giants’ offseason as Wood, DeSclafani, Kevin Gausman and Johnny Cueto are all heading into free agency. Kawakami asked him about taking a similar approach to what they’ve done previously, giving short-term deals to talented pitchers with question marks on their records. “You look at the list of free agents and there are some names on that list who have had a lot of success in the past and maybe dealt with injuries this year or underperformed for whatever reason,” Zaidi said. “I think when you’ve got to fill out four spots in your rotation, you’re certainly going to look at that segment of the market.” The team has a $22MM club option on Cueto, but the fact that Zaidi admits they will be looking to fill four rotation spots seems to leave no doubt that they will opt for the $5MM buyout instead.

But those short-term deals aren’t the only thing on the table. “I would be surprised if we didn’t wind up doing at least one multi-year deal for a starting pitcher,” Zaidi added. “Certainly all of our guys who are free agents are going to be looking for multi-year deals based on the seasons they had. We have interest in bringing all of those guys back.”

In terms of payroll, the club should have lots of flexibility for 2022 and beyond. According to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, the club’s opening day payroll was just under $150MM this year, the lowest since 2014, when prorating the 2020 number. According to Jason Martinez of Roster Resource, they only have about $65MM allocated for 2022, when factoring in arbitration estimates. Assuming the club picks up its options on Buster Posey, Wilmer Flores and Jose Alvarez, that number would jump up to the $90MM range. Even if payroll stays steady for 2022, that seemingly gives Zaidi and his team $60MM to throw around this offseason. For 2023, there’s only $33MM on the books so far, with Crawford and Tommy La Stella the only guaranteed contracts. With that level of wiggle room, the club could surely find any number of ways to build a rotation around breakout star Logan Webb, for both the short and long term.

On the position player side of things, Zaidi seems to be less worried about their situation in that department. Kawakami quotes Zaidi from a press conference last week as saying, “We’re deep on the position-player side. We have a number of guys who are platoon guys, every-day guys, we have a lot of at-bats that are accounted for. And we’ve got guys like Thairo Estrada (and) Steven Duggar that we’d like to see get better opportunities. You’ve got a layer of prospects that are even closer to being big-league ready, guys like (Heliot) Ramos and Joey Bart. So we at least have some options on the position-player side. Where all those guys on the position-player side, not just Kris but Brandon Belt, Donovan Solano, these guys fit our team, we’d like to have them back, but we have some options on that side.”

Solano has had a nice run with the Giants but is about to turn 34, whereas Estrada is about to turn 26 and had a similarly-productive season, making it fairly reasonable to see that bringing Solano back isn’t the highest priority. Belt had a tremendous season at the plate but also comes with injury concerns. The club largely turned to a productive Wilmer Flores/Darin Ruf platoon when Belt was out, which they could do again in 2022. (Ruf can be retained via arbitration, Flores by a $3.5MM club option.) Bryant is a tremendous hitter but will be command a huge financial commitment this winter and is an imperfect fit on the Giants’ roster. Third baseman Evan Longoria is still under contract for one more year, at just under $20MM, meaning Bryant would likely be pushed into more outfield time, where his defensive numbers aren’t as good. The club also has a bevy of outfield options already in the fold, such as Duggar, LaMonte Wade Jr., Mike Yastrzemski, Alex Dickerson and Austin Slater. Prospect Heliot Ramos, whom Zaidi mentioned, finished his season at Triple-A and will need to be added to the 40-man roster next month in order to protect him from the Rule 5 draft, meaning he should be in the mix for an opportunity soon. Zaidi’s apparent lack of urgency around the position players seems to hold up to scrutiny. The option of a universal DH for 2022 would open things up somewhat, but that’s not guaranteed to happen.

All in all, it should be a fascinating offseason for the club. The rival Dodgers are in a similar situation, with lots of players reaching free agency, such as Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, Corey Seager, Chris Taylor and Kenley Jansen. Both clubs will surely be frequently connected to free agents in rumors this offseason, meaning 2021’s fierce competition for the NL West division crown figures to continue right through the winter.

Brian Sabean Reportedly Interested In Mets’ President Job

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Former Giants general manager Brian Sabean is interested in the Mets’ open president of baseball operations position, according to a report from Deesha Thosar of The New York Daily News. She says that he is looking for a new challenge and is “going stir crazy in San Francisco with essentially nothing to do” and would move to New York “in a heartbeat” if given the chance. It would be a semi-homecoming for him to come to New York, as he was a scout with the Yankees before joining the Giants.

Sabean was the general manager of the Giants from 1997 to 2014 and was an integral part of their magnificent run of play in the last decade, which included three World Series championships in five years, as they got to spray the champagne in 2010, 2012 and 2014. In 2015, Sabean was promoted to executive vice president of baseball operations, with Bobby Evans becoming general manager and largely taking over the baseball decision making. In late 2018, Farhan Zaidi was hired as the Giants’ new president of baseball operations, with Sabean staying with the organization in an advisory capacity and doing some player scouting.

At the end of the 2019 season, there was some speculation that Sabean was being considered to join the Marlins organization to replace Michael Hill as that club’s president of baseball operations, though he ended up staying in San Francisco.

The fact that Sabean has such a lengthy track record would fit somewhat with previous reporting about the qualities the Mets are looking for in their next president. They have also been connected to experienced front office members such as Theo Epstein, Billy Beane and David Stearns. All three of those options appear to be dead-ends for the Mets, though, leaving the post open. However, the 65-year-old Sabean is also different than those three in some respects. Stearns is 36, Epstein 47 and Beane 59, making Sabean older than all three and significantly older than Stearns and Epstein. They’ve also all been actively participating in running baseball front offices in recent years, as opposed to Sabean, who has seemingly been operating in a fairly limited role for about seven years now.

Thosar’s report says it’s unclear if the Mets have reached out to Sabean. It’s also unclear if they’re willing to change their preferences to include someone like Sabean in their search. Although, considering that they keep crossing names off the top of their list, they may have to make adjustments to their preferences at some point.

Thosar also suggests that this could be a two-for-one deal, with Sabean’s hiring being followed by Bruce Bochy being brought in to take over the manager’s chair, which was recently left vacant when the Mets declined their option on Luis Rojas. Bochy was hired to manage the Giants in 2007, during Sabean’s time as general manager, and stayed through the 2019 season. He was recently rumored to be in consideration for the Padres’ open managerial position. Bochy is 66 years old and would buck the trend of teams hiring younger managers, though that trend has also been countered by the recent hirings of Tony La Russa (77) and Dusty Baker (72).

Jose Quintana, Jake Jewell Elect Free Agency

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Giants lefty Jose Quintana and righty Jake Jewell have both elected free agency, per the MiLB.com transactions log. Both are largely procedural moves. Quintana would have been a free agent after the World Series anyhow based on service time. Jewell, meanwhile, was outrighted off the 40-man roster for the second time in his career earlier this month — and a second outright grants a player the right to reject in favor of free agency.

Quintana, 32 this offseason, was a waiver claim late in the year as the Giants looked for ways to stockpile pitching depth after the trade deadline. He posted an ERA north of 8.00 as a starter, mostly with the Angels, but notched a 4.18 ERA with a 28.3% strikeout rate and 7.5% walk rate in 28 relief innings. Some clubs may want to give the once-steady Quintana another chance to bounce back in the rotation, but that K-BB% in 28 bullpen innings could generate some interest as a reliever, given a fairly thin crop of lefty relief options on the market this offseason.

Jewell, too, is a former Angel — though his time with the Halos didn’t overlap with that of Quintana. The 28-year-old righty was a fifth-round pick by the Angels back in 2016 and was considered one of the organization’s more promising arms for several years. He’s yet to find success in the big leagues, though, pitching to a 7.75 ERA in 38 1/3 innings — including a 9.90 mark in 10 frames this year.

Jewell fared much better in Triple-A this season, splitting time between the Giants, Cubs and Dodgers organizations and working to a combined 3.40 ERA in 45 frames. He also fanned nearly 27 percent of his opponents and allowed just four homers in an offensively-charged environment, albeit with a somewhat bloated 10.2 percent walk rate. Jewell averaged a bit shy of 95 mph on his heater in his brief big league look this winter and will garner some interest as a depth option on minor league deals.

Free Agent Notes: Shortstops, Belt, Seager, Hernandez

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After asking 11 rival evaluators to rate the offseason’s top five free agent shortstops on a 1-5 grading scale, ESPN’s Buster Olney reveals the final order was Corey Seager, Carlos Correa, Marcus Semien, Trevor Story, and Javier Baez, with Seager claiming 50 of a possible 55 points.  Seager received six of the first-place votes (Correa received four and Semien one) due to his age and big left-handed bat, even though there was some question about his durability and how long he’ll be able to remain at the shortstop position.

All five players carry their share of question marks, which is what will make the shortstop market so fascinating to observe as the many teams in need of shortstop (and overall infield) help will be competing for these names at the top of the market.  Unsurprisingly, the 11 evaluators cite the Yankees and Tigers as likely to land one of the big five shortstops, and teams like the Mariners, Rangers, Phillies, Cubs, and Angels could all be in the mix.  In an additional detail on Semien, there is some feeling that he would like to remain with the Blue Jays, while other evaluators believe the Bay Area native would prefer to play with a team closer to home.

More on other pending or possible free agents…

  • Brandon Belt and the Giants had some in-season negotiations about a contract extension, and while “talks didn’t go anywhere,” NBC Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic feels there is enough mutual interest between the two sides that Belt will return to San Francisco in 2022 and beyond.  Though Belt turns 34 in April and battled multiple injuries, he has also been hitting at the highest level of his career — Belt has hit .285/.393/.595 with 38 home runs over 560 plate appearances since the start of the 2020 season.  The Giants have already worked out an extension with the other member of “the Brandons,” locking up Brandon Crawford to a new two-year deal back in August.
  • “The ship has sailed” on Kyle Seager returning to the Mariners, The Athletic’s Corey Brock opines as part of a reader mailbag.  Brock feels both the team and the veteran third baseman are ready to move on, seemingly precluding any chance of either the M’s exercising their $20MM club option on Seager for 2022, or Seager being open to re-signing with Seattle at a lower price.  Seager seemed to hint at a departure a few weeks ago, when he said that he hadn’t heard anything from the team about the option, and also noted that he hadn’t personally spoken with GM Jerry DiPoto in several years.
  • Speaking of contract options, The Athletic’s James Fegan predicts the White Sox will decline their $6MM club option on Cesar Hernandez for next season.  Hernandez hit only .232/.309/.299 in 217 PA after being acquired from Cleveland at the trade deadline, so Fegan believes the Sox will be looking to upgrade at the keystone, rather than just retain Hernandez or hand the position to some combination of Leury Garcia, Danny Mendick or Romy Gonzalez.  More offensive production will of course be welcome, but the White Sox might also prioritize a strong second base glove as a way of improving the club’s run-prevention efforts.

Farhan Zaidi Addresses Giants’ Rotation, Posey, Belt

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This morning, Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi addressed the club’s priorities ahead of what’s sure to be a busy offseason (via Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area and Andrew Baggarly of the Athletic). Zaidi made clear the team regards its starting rotation as its “number one priority.” The Giants’ president also effectively confirmed they intend to bring back Buster Posey (by at least exercising his $22MM club option) and hope to re-sign Brandon Belt for what would be his twelfth season in San Francisco.

That the Giants intend to focus their offseason attention on addressing their needs in the rotation comes as no surprise. Presuming they pay Johnny Cueto’s $5MM buyout rather than pick up his $22MM option, four of the five members of a group that led the club to a 3.44 rotation ERA (Kevin Gausman, Anthony DeSclafani, Alex Wood, and Cueto) are set to hit free agency. Only breakout star Logan Webb, who won’t reach free agency until at least 2026, remains under team control.

Zaidi made clear he hopes to bring back at least some of this year’s rotation, stating that “we want to keep as much of this group together as we can,” but he’ll face stiff competition for several of the arms in question. Gausman figures to be among the top starters on the market (alongside Max Scherzer, Robbie Ray, and Marcus Stroman) and won’t be eligible for the qualifying offer that might have scared off some suitors after he accepted the Giants’ QO last winter. DeSclafani (who made $6MM in 2021) and Wood ($3MM) are each in line to land much bigger salaries moving forward after each posted a bounceback year in his first season in the Golden City.

Zaidi’s confirmation that the club plans to keep Posey in the mix for 2022 is similarly unsurprising after the longtime Giants backstop put up a .304/.390/.499 line in 2021 after sitting out the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. The club’s intention to either pick up Posey’s 2022 option or sign him to an extension had also already been reported in August by MLB Network’s Jon Heyman, but Zaidi’s comments reiterate the commitment of Giants’ brass to their franchise catcher. Still, as Posey will be entering his age-35 season, any extension is likely to be on the shorter side, perhaps similar to the two-year pact reached with shortstop Brandon Crawford in June.

Belt put up a similarly excellent .274/.378/.597 line in 2021 (albeit in only 381 plate appearances), so the club will likely face some competition in re-signing the first baseman from two of its three 2010’s title teams. Zaidi told reporters today he’d already been in dialogue with Belt’s representation before the season’s end and they still hope to re-sign him.

After a 107-win season that ended in heartbreaking fashion, the Giants’ desire to run it back with a similar squad is certainly understandable. The Giants have largely bucked the youth wave sweeping the game, and whether or not manager Gabe Kapler can deliver the mix-and-match lineup magic of 2021 for another year remains to be seen. Crucially, so does their ability to bring back the bulk of a rotation that put them in position to lead the big leagues in wins.

David Stearns May Have Vesting Option For 2023

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As the Mets continue their search for a new president of baseball operations, they may have to change tack, according to Andy Martino of SNY. It has long been reported that the top tier of their preferred candidates included Theo Epstein, Billy Beane and David Stearns. Martino reports that the Mets’ confidence of landing any of the three is apparently low, leading to them consider a change of strategy and targeting younger executives.

Stearns, the youngest of the group at 36, has had his name connected to the Mets in rumors for a while now, as it was widely believed the Manhattan native was entering the last year of his contract with the Brewers. However, Martino says it is “now believed” that the club has a vesting option for his services for 2023. It’s unclear what conditions need to be met for the option to vest, but that is a noteworthy development, if true. As Martino himself notes, this changes the calculation of how much leverage the Mets would have to compel Milwaukee to allow negotiations to take place. Many have speculated that the Brewers could allow Stearns to consider outside opportunities because he is nearing the end of his contract. But if that is not actually the case, it makes it less likely that they would be open to such a scenario.

Dodgers’ assistant general manager Brandon Gomes, 37 years old, has already been reported to be one of those under consideration, though Martino reports that the Dodgers could promote him to general manager in order to keep him from taking a GM job with the Mets. Martino also floats Brewers general manager Matt Arnold and Giants general manager Scott Harris as those that “could be in the mix.”

Players Recently Electing Free Agency

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As the offseason gets underway, players around baseball continue to elect minor league free agency.  While the threshold for big league free agency (six-plus years of Major League service time) is well known, there are several methods of qualifying for minor league free agency.  The most common criteria: players with 3+ years of MLB service time who have been outrighted off their teams’ 40-man rosters this season, players who have been outrighted off a 40-man roster multiple times in their career, or unsigned players not on a 40-man roster who have spent parts of at least seven seasons on a minor league roster or injured list.

Each of these players has recently hit the open market in the last few days, according to the official transactions pages for both Triple-A East and Triple-A West.

Yankees Have Options With Joey Gallo

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Joey Gallo has long been one of the most inconsistent stars in baseball. If you see him on the right day, he’s a surefire MVP, a towering power hitter with surprising range in the outfield. He looks like a designated hitter, but he can passably cover centerfield.

See him on the wrong day, however, and you’ll be surprised to hear that he ever makes contact (36.9 percent career strikeout rate). He can seem passive at the plate, and when you see his sub-Mendoza-line batting average come across your TV screen, you may wonder why he’s even in the lineup.

For 58 games, the Yankees got a much heavier dose of Gallo version two as he slashed .160/.303/.404 in 228 plate appearances with a 38.6 percent strikeout rate. He did hit 13 home runs with a .245 ISO, but Yankees fans might be wondering if he’s worth the $10.2MM he’s projected to make in his final season before free agency. Joel Sherman of the New York Post explores some trade possibilities for Gallo, should the Yankees look that way this winter.

It would be a tough turnaround to flip Gallo, as they almost certainly wouldn’t be able to get as much as they gave up to get him. Besides, the short porch in Yankee Stadium still offers a tantalizing advantage for Gallo over a full season. Had he played the entire year in New York, public sentiment might be different. For the year, Gallo posted 3.5 fWAR with a .199/.351/.458 line with 38 home runs and 90 RBIs. Though you might not love the shape of it, those are solid bottom-line numbers.

In all likelihood, the Yankees hold onto Gallo for the final season of his contract. Despite their relative health this season, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton still come with a lengthy injury history, and Gallo provides significant power/patience insurance for a lineup that faltered at times.

If they do want to move him, however, they could start with the clubs that explored a trade for him at the deadline. Sherman provides that list: the Rays, White Sox, Braves, Brewers, Giants, Padres, and Phillies. The list of teams would almost certainly grow if the Yankees put him out there this winter. There’s a deal out there for the Yankees if they want it, but Gallo version one might still be the guy the Yankees want and need in the middle of their order.

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