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Giants Notes: Davis, Pederson, Ahmed

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San Francisco’s reported agreement with third baseman Matt Chapman last night added an elite defender and quality hitter to a lineup that’s already added Jung Hoo Lee and Jorge Soler this winter as the Giants look to bolster their offense after posting a 93 wRC+ as a team last year, which was a bottom-ten figure in the majors. With that being said, the deal seemingly leaves another veteran bat without a clear home in J.D. Davis.

Davis, 31 next month, is set to hit free agency after the 2024 campaign and seems unlikely to find a regular role in San Francisco this season with Soler at DH, Chapman at the hot corner, and LaMonte Wade Jr. and Wilmer Flores expected to handle first base. That reality could spur the Giants to make a trade in the near future, per Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area. The veteran infielder hit a roughly league average .248/.325/.413 in 144 games with the Giants last year, but had established himself as a well-above average bat in the four years prior to the 2023 campaign, slashing .276/.363/.457 with a 127 wRC+ during that time. That upside could make Davis an attractive target for a team lacking in certainty at the infield corners, such as the Cubs, Mariners, or Brewers, potentially allowing the club to shed his $6.9MM salary and free up additional payroll space for a possible pursuit of southpaw Blake Snell.

For Davis’s part, he told reporters (including Shayna Rubin of the San Francisco Chronicle) that the club’s decision to sign Chapman was “definitely surprising,” adding that he hadn’t communicated with the front office regarding the decision of his future to this point before referencing the club’s handling of veteran shortstop Brandon Crawford during his final year with the club and free agency this winter.

“I didn’t get a phone call, Brandon Crawford didn’t get a phone call,” Davis said, as relayed by Rubin. “It is what it is. It’s part of the business. I know every management is different in how they handle things and that’s just one of the characteristics you just have to live with.”

More from around San Francisco…

  • While Crawford recently expressed disappointment regarding how his tenure in San Francisco ended, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle writes that no such acrimony exists between the club and slugger Joc Pederson, who departed the club to sign with the Diamondbacks earlier this winter. While Pederson told Slusser that he retains a strong relationship with both president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and that the Giants even made him an offer this winter, though he added that Arizona “expressed more interest” and presented him with a stronger offer. Pederson spent the past two seasons playing for San Francisco, slashing a strong .255/.351/.470 in 255 games with the club across the two campaigns.
  • Shortstop Nick Ahmed recently spoke to reported, including The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly, regarding his decision to sign with the Giants on a non-roster deal this spring. The two-time Gold Glove award winner had spent parts of ten seasons with the Diamondbacks prior to becoming a free agent for the first time in his career back in September, and the soon to be 34-year-old veteran indicated that while he had some conversations with the Cardinals this winter before they signed Crawford to a one-year deal last month. With that being said, Ahmed indicated that he was enticed to sign in San Francisco when Zaidi and manager Bob Melvin indicated to him that he would have the opportunity the everyday job at shortstop with the club this spring. A career .234/.288/.376 hitter, Ahmed has made up for a lack of offensive production throughout his career with elite defensive numbers and figures to battle with youngsters Marco Luciano and Casey Schmitt for the shortstop job throughout the final month of Spring Training.

Brandon Crawford Discusses Departure From Giants

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Veteran shortstop Brandon Crawford recently signed with the Cardinals on a one-year, $2MM deal, officially bringing to a close his 13-season tenure at shortstop for the Giants in the majors as well as his sixteen years as a member of the organization. Crawford recently spoke to Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic regarding the first foray into free agency of his career and his departure from San Francisco. In doing so, he emphasized that returning to the Giants was a priority for him, but that the sentiment was not reciprocated by San Francisco brass.

“The bottom line is I was not wanted back by the one person whose (opinion) matters,” Crawford told Baggarly in reference to president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi. Crawford went on to note that his camp gave the Giants an opportunity to counter after receiving the offer of a big league deal from the Cardinals last month, though San Francisco offered the veteran only a non-roster deal with an invitation to Spring Training.

2023 was a difficult season for the veteran, as he slashed just .194/.273/.314 in 320 trips to the plate while battling knee, hamstring, calf, and forearm issues throughout the season. Crawford’s defense, once universally regarded as elite, also began to slip somewhat last season. While Statcast’s Outs Above Average placed him in the 90th percentile of qualified fielders with a +6 figure, Fielding Bible’s Defensive Runs Saved considered him to be among the worst-fielding shortstops in the majors last year with -14 runs. All of Crawford’s numbers were a far cry from the elite production he posted during his 2021 campaign, when he slashed an excellent .298/.373/.522 at the plate while posting +16 OAA and +6 DRS in the field.

Even as Crawford’s production last year certainly left something to be desired, it’s still somewhat surprising that the Giants seemingly had minimal interest in retaining a face of the franchise with three All-Star appearances and two World Series titles with the club under his belt. After all, he’s just two seasons removed from that aforementioned dominant season that saw him earn his fourth career Gold Glove award while finishing fourth in NL MVP voting. While Crawford’s age-37 season is unlikely to see the veteran outproduce the club’s young, internal options at short such as Marco Luciano and Casey Schmitt, the veteran indicated to Baggarly that he made clear in a meeting with Zaidi back in November that he would accept a bench role to remain in San Francisco while mentoring the aforementioned young players.

Zaidi also commented on the situation to Baggarly, noting that while Crawford has “been an important member of this team and a real leader in the clubhouse” and stated his willingness to accept a smaller role with the club in 2024, he had concerns that Crawford’s presence would put additional pressure on the club’s young players to perform and potentially hinder their development.

“Having the greatest shortstop in franchise history on the bench … it was just going to create a dynamic where it was going to be harder for our young players to play with a margin of error,” Zaidi told Baggarly.

In addition, Zaidi indicated that Crawford, who had never appeared in the majors at a position other than shortstop until working a single inning on the mound last year, may not have been able to provide the club with the positional versatility necessary to secure a spot on the club’s bench. While the club seemingly intended to move Crawford off shortstop last season should their now-infamous failed deal with Carlos Correa have been finalized, Zaidi suggested the club was hoping to fill out its bench with a player both capable of playing the infield and the outfield as well as a potential threat on the basepaths.

Crawford has never played the outfield at any professional level and has just 47 stolen bases for his career, with his only 10-steal season coming during his career season back in 2021. Given those limitations, it seems the Giants preferred to go with one of the club’s internal bench options rather than commit to Crawford on a big league deal. In conversation with Baggarly, Zaidi pointed to Tyler Fitzgerald as one player already in the organization who fits the versatile role the club is hoping to fill, with Otto Lopez and Brett Wisely among other speculative options already on the club’s 40-man roster.

Giants’ Tristan Beck Diagnosed With Aneurysm In Upper Arm

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Feb. 29: The Giants announced this morning that Beck has been diagnosed with an aneurysm in his upper arm. He’s currently weighing his treatment options. The team will likely have more information in the coming days.

There’s no firm timetable on how long Beck might be sidelined, but manager Bob Melvin told reporters that he won’t be on the Opening Day roster (X link via Shayna Rubin of the San Francisco Chronicle). The Giants appear to be anticipating a fairly lengthy absence, though Melvin did not rule out the possibility that Beck could pitch for them at some point this season.

Feb. 27: Giants right-hander Tristan Beck has left the team’s spring complex and is traveling back to San Francisco to undergo testing after experiencing discomfort in his right hand, the team announced to reporters (X link via Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area). The team will provide further updates in the coming days.

Beck, 27, becomes the second Giants starter to incur an injury of some sort in camp. Fellow righty Keaton Winn has been slowed by a nerve issue in his pitching elbow. He resumed throwing Sunday but is at least a week behind the rest of the group. That’s good news, but early injury troubles for the Giants’ presumptive fourth and fifth starters is nevertheless unsettling — particularly given the patchwork nature of the starting staff behind ace Logan Webb.

The Giants are relying on Winn, Beck, top prospect Kyle Harrison and reliever-turned-starter Jordan Hicks to shoulder the bulk of the workload in the rotation. In terms of proven big league starters, it’s among the thinnest rotations in the game. Veterans Alex Cobb and Robbie Ray will eventually join that group, but both will very likely open the season on the injured list. Ray will be sidelined into the season’s second half as he recovers from last May’s Tommy John surgery. Cobb is on the mend from October hip surgery. A precise return date isn’t clear, but Pavlovic suggested a couple weeks back that Cobb was hoping to be cleared to face hitters by the end of spring training. That trajectory would likely sideline him into May, at the very least.

Beck came to the Giants by way of the 2019 trade that shipped former closer Mark Melancon to Atlanta. The former fourth-round pick made his MLB debut in 2023, pitching 85 innings of 3.92 ERA ball with a below-average 19.2% strikeout rate but a strong 5.9% walk rate. Most of that work came as a multi-inning reliever, however. Beck appeared in 33 games for San Francisco but made just three starts. He completed five innings only three times all season — twice in long relief and once in a start that marked his final appearance of the year.

Another injury scare for a Giants starter will only further spark speculation about the possibility of the Giants adding to the rotation. President of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi has downplayed the potential for any notable acquisitions following the team’s signing of Jorge Soler, but the Giants remain one of the most obvious fits for high-profile free agents like Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery — both in terms of actual roster need and from a payroll vantage point. The team’s projected $164MM Opening Day payroll (via Roster Resource) is more than $36MM south of the franchise-record $200.5MM mark set back in 2018, and the Giants are also about $24MM shy of the luxury-tax threshold.

If the Giants are strictly averse to shelling out the requisite years and dollars needed to bring in Snell or Montgomery, there are still alternatives on the free agent market. Michael Lorenzen and Mike Clevinger remain unsigned, as do rebound candidates like Eric Lauer, Jake Odorizzi and Noah Syndergaard (to name a few).

Giants Remain Involved On Snell, Chapman

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The Giants continue to explore the markets for Blake Snell and Matt Chapman as March draws near, reports Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. One source tells Slusser there’s roughly a 50-50 chance that San Francisco comes away with one of those players.

Snell would address the bigger need, at least in the short term. San Francisco has a patchwork rotation behind Cy Young runner-up Logan Webb. The Giants signed longtime reliever Jordan Hicks to a four-year deal with the promise of a rotation job. Hicks’ personal high in innings at the MLB level is 77 2/3 from his 2018 rookie season. He hasn’t reached the 70-inning mark since then.

The options beyond Hicks are even less established. Kyle Harrison is one of the sport’s most talented pitching prospects, but he has seven MLB games under his belt. The southpaw averaged fewer than four innings per appearance over 20 Triple-A starts a year ago. That was partially to keep his workload in check but also reflected his inefficiency. Harrison struck out an excellent 35.6% of Triple-A opponents but walked upwards of 16% of batters faced.

Webb, Hicks and Harrison are the three locks for the Opening Day staff. Alex Cobb will begin the year on the injured list as he works back from hip surgery. Robbie Ray won’t be ready until around the All-Star Break at the earliest during his rehab from last year’s Tommy John procedure. Keaton Winn and Tristan Beck entered camp with the presumed edge on the fourth and fifth rotation spots. They’ve each been set back by injury during exhibition play. Winn was delayed by elbow soreness, although he maintained over the weekend he expects to be ready for Opening Day. Beck just left the team to undergo testing after experiencing discomfort in his right hand.

A starting five of Webb, Hicks, Harrison, Winn and Beck is already not ideal for a team that hopes to compete for a playoff spot. Losing either Winn or Beck would require dipping further into depth options like Sean Hjelle, Ethan Small, prospect Kai-Wei Teng or a non-roster invitee like Daulton Jefferies or Tommy Romero.

While Snell hasn’t been a consistent source of volume throughout his career, he’s coming off his second 180-inning season. He’d upgrade any rotation and would afford the Giants the luxury of plugging in the top two finishers in last year’s NL Cy Young voting. There’d still be some questions about the staff’s durability, but a top three of Webb, Snell and Harrison would have one of the highest ceilings in the league.

Of course, the question is whether they’ll line up on an agreeable price point. No team has yet met Snell’s ask. Jon Heyman of the New York Post wrote this afternoon that the southpaw may be open to considering a short-term offer that allows him to opt out and retest free agency. Fellow Boras Corporation client Cody Bellinger took that route on a three-year, $80MM pact with the Cubs over the weekend. It’s hard to envision Snell turning in a better platform season than the one he had in 2023, though. He allowed only 2.25 earned runs per nine over the course of the year and turned in a 1.23 mark from June onward.

The Yankees have reportedly had an offer out to Snell for weeks. Heyman reported this morning that his camp spoke with New York brass again yesterday but didn’t have any kind of breakthrough. The Angels have also been loosely linked to Snell.

Chapman, on the other hand, doesn’t play a position of strict need. The Giants have a solid third baseman in J.D. Davis. Were they to land Chapman, they’d likely flip Davis to a team with a more pressing desire for help at the hot corner. President of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and new manager Bob Melvin both have ties to Chapman from their days with the A’s. He’d markedly upgrade the infield defense, although it’s debatable whether he’s enough of an offensive improvement on Davis to make that move worthwhile.

Zaidi recently suggested the team was unlikely to make any more free agent splashes this offseason. Perhaps that was simply public posturing or the recent health uncertainty surrounding Winn and Beck could change the calculus. In any case, San Francisco should have payroll flexibility. Roster Resource projects their 2024 spending around $164MM. They’re at roughly $213MM in luxury tax obligations. That puts them about $24MM shy of both the base CBT threshold and last year’s Opening Day payroll.

Signing Snell, in particular, would likely push them into luxury tax territory — especially if they added him on a higher-AAV deal to avoid a lengthy commitment. It’d be easier to fit Chapman onto the ledger without going into CBT range, since they’d then have reason to shed Davis’ $6.9MM salary in trade.

The fees for surpassing the luxury tax would be relatively modest if they edged past $237MM. They’d only owe a 20% tax on spending between $237MM and $257MM. The Giants last paid the CBT in 2017. Snell and Chapman each declined the qualifying offer; signing either player would cost the Giants their second-highest pick in the upcoming draft and $500K in international bonus pool space.

Giants Sign Nick Ahmed To Minor League Deal

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The Giants announced Monday that they’ve signed veteran infielder Nick Ahmed to a minor league deal and invited him to spring training. Ahmed, a client of Excel Sports Management, has long been a division rival of the Giants, spending his entire big league career with the D-backs until now.

San Francisco has reportedly been mulling a variety of veteran options at shortstop. Ahmed will add a glove-first option to their spring group. He’ll compete with prospect Marco Luciano, 25-year-old Casey Schmitt and 26-year-old Tyler Fitzgerald for playing time at that position. Ahmed was recently linked to the Cardinals as well, where he’d also have been competing with a young prospect (Masyn Winn) for playing time, and the Marlins before that. It’s not clear whether St. Louis or Miami ever made an offer, but that’s largely moot now that Ahmed has signed on with the Giants.

The past two seasons have been a struggle for Ahmed, a two-time Gold Glove winner at shortstop. Shoulder surgery in 2022 limited him to just 17 games, and his already modest offensive production cratered upon returning in 2023. Ahmed hit just .212/.257/.303 last year, losing playing time to Geraldo Perdomo. In September, the Diamondbacks designated Ahmed for assignment and released him. It was an unceremonious end to a 10-season tenure as Arizona’s primary shortstop, but the veteran’s dwindling role and production prompted the organization to move on.

In the five seasons prior to his shoulder surgery, Ahmed had still been below-average at the plate, but not nearly to the extent he was in ’23. From 2017-21, Ahmed tallied 2057 plate appearances and batted .242/.300/.402 (83  wRC+). As is to be expected from a right-handed hitter, he’s been far better against lefties in his career, slashing .257/.309/.430 (93 wRC+).

Ahmed offsets his lackluster offensive output by playing defense as well as virtually any player in the sport. From ’17-’21, Ahmed’s 58 Defensive Runs Saved ranked fifth among all big leaguers, regardless of position. His 87 Outs Above Average, per Statcast, tied him with Francisco Lindor for the most of any player — shortstop or otherwise — in the big leagues.

Whether Ahmed can return to those heights in the field remains to be seen, though last year’s showing in a small sample was promising. He only logged 488 innings in the field but still tallied 1 DRS, 6 OAA and a 1.6 Ultimate Zone Rating. The typically surehanded Ahmed did make an uncharacteristic eight errors in that small sample, but his range remained excellent.

Ahmed will have some youthful competition as he looks to grab a roster spot. The 22-year-old Luciano currently ranks 56th on Baseball America’s Top 100 list. He didn’t hit much in a tiny sample of 45 plate appearances during last summer’s MLB debut, however, and also struggled in Triple-A following a promotion from Double-A (where he’d struck out in 29.8% of his plate appearances). Questions about his glovework and contact profile could lead Luciano to Triple-A to begin the season.

Both Schmitt and Fitzgerald made their MLB debuts last season as well. Schmitt is a plus defender at multiple infield positions but hit just .206/.255/.324 in 277 trips to the plate during last year’s debut effort. His .300/.346/.435 slash in Triple-A was a far sight better, but he’s not yet proven himself against MLB pitching. Fitzgerald didn’t play shortstop at all in the majors last season, but that’s been his primary spot in the minors. He went just 7-for-32 in 34 MLB plate appearances but connected on a pair of homers and doubles alike. Fitzgerald popped 20 homers and swiped 29 bags in Triple-A, but scouts see him as more of a utilityman than an everyday option at shortstop, in part for defensive reasons.

Latest On Keaton Winn

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  • Keaton Winn’s sore right elbow has “calmed down” after a bout of nerve irritation, the Giants rookie told reporters (including Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle).  Winn didn’t need a cortisone shot and has been cleared to start throwing again, so he believes he’ll have plenty of time to ramp up in time for Opening Day.  The 26-year-old right-hander made his MLB debut in 2023, and is one of several young starters the Giants are counting on through at least the early part of the season before Alex Cobb and Robbie Ray are slated to return from the injured list.

Latest On Giants’ Past Negotiations With J.D. Martinez

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Reports yesterday indicated that veteran slugger J.D. Martinez had turned down a contract offer from the Giants earlier this offseason, before the club ultimately landed Jorge Soler on a three-year deal. There have been conflicting reports regarding the nature of the sides breaking off negotiations, with the New York Post’s Jon Heyman suggesting that Martinez simply “didn’t want to go” to San Francisco while Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area reported that Martinez made a counteroffer to the Giants that club brass “weren’t comfortable with.”

This morning, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale and MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand shed additional light on the situation, reporting that the Giants’ initial offer to Martinez was a one-year deal worth $14MM. The two reports diverge from there, however, with Nightengale indicating that Martinez rejected the contract in pursuit of a two-year deal while Feinsand reports that Martinez was seeking $20MM and declined San Francisco’s offer despite potentially being open to accepting “a little less” than his preferred salary figure.

Of course, it’s possible there’s elements of truth to both reports. Speculatively speaking, it could be the case that Martinez’s preference would be a two-year deal in the range of $20MM annually, though he may be willing to accept a one-year deal at the higher end of that range or a two-year pact for a slightly lower AAV. That would fall in line would fall roughly in line with MLBTR’s prediction for Martinez’s contract, which sat at two years and $40MM.  It remains to be seen whether or not Martinez will actually be able to earn that sum, of course. The offseason’s top offensive free agent behind Shohei Ohtani, outfielder Cody Bellinger, settled for a three-year, $80MM deal earlier this morning. It’s possible that Bellinger’s deal clocking in below expectations is a concerning signal for Martinez, though with him off the board Martinez’s biggest rival on the positional market is third baseman Matt Chapman, who figures to have a different set of suitors than the veteran slugger.

Martinez figures to be an impact bat for the club that eventually lands him, even as he enters his age-36 season. After slashing an excellent .292/.363/.526 across 637 games in a Red Sox uniform from 2018 to 2022 en route to four All Star appearances and a top-four finish in AL MVP voting, Martinez took a one-year deal with the Dodgers last winter and revamped his approach in L.A. to generate more power. The changes worked as intended, as he slashed a fantastic .271/.321/.572 with 33 home runs in just 479 trips to the plate after hitting just 16 homers in 596 plate appearances the previous season. That incredible power came at the expense of a significant jump in strikeouts, as his 31.1% strikeout rate last year marked the first time he was punched out at a clip over 30% in his career.

With the Giants now assuredly out of the running for Martinez’s services after signing Soler, the veteran slugger could still make sense for a handful of clubs. The Angels and Mets have both been connected to the veteran at various points this offseason, though public indications are that neither team prefers to add a full time DH to its mix. A team like the Cubs or Twins that lacks a full-time DH could at least theoretically accommodate Martinez at the position, though each club sports a crowded positional mix and figures to benefit considerably from having the DH spot available to rest players or work in more playing time for youngsters forcing their way into the lineup. If none of the aforementioned teams are interested to committing to Martinez on a high-dollar or multi-year deal, that could leave the veteran slugger forced to lower his asking price. At that point, any of the aforementioned clubs or even a low-budget club with a clear need for offense such as the Guardians could jump into the mix for Martinez’s services.

J.D. Martinez Turned Down Offer From Giants

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6:52pm: According to NBC Sports Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic, the Giants made an offer to Martinez while they were already in talks with Soler and Martinez’s camp made a counteroffer that San Francisco brass “weren’t comfortable with.” The specifics of both the club’s offer to Martinez and Martinez’s counteroffer remain unclear, though Pavlovic’s report seems to indicate that Martinez’s apparent lack of interest in San Francisco may have had more to do with the deal’s value than soft factors such as geography or club competitiveness.

12:04pm: The Giants made J.D. Martinez a contract offer at some point this offseason prior to the team’s deal with Jorge Soler, the New York Post’s Jon Heyman reports.  Martinez rejected the offer because he “didn’t want to go there,” Heyman writes, which could indicate any number of concerns (roster fit, playing time, geography, etc.) beyond perhaps any misgivings about the value or nature of the deal the Giants put on the table.

It is safe to assume that San Francisco didn’t offer Martinez anything akin to the three years and $42MM that Soler received, given that Martinez is entering his age-36 season and is four and a half years older than Soler.  That said, the two players have similar profiles as right-handed hitters with defensive limitations in the field.  Martinez is essentially a DH-only player at this point in his career, and the bulk of Soler’s time in the Marlins’ 2023 lineup was spent as a designated hitter.

Though Martinez has had more streakiness and variance in his performance as he has aged, he has still been the more consistent hitter than the notoriously inconsistent Soler.  Both players were All-Stars and 33-homer hitters in 2023 and had interestingly similar numbers, as Martinez had a 135 wRC+ while hitting .271/.321/.572 in 479 plate appearances for the Dodgers and Soler hit .250/.341/.512 over 580 PA with Miami.  Martinez’s playing time was limited by groin and back problems, and Soler had much better walk and strikeout rates than Martinez, even if Soler’s 24.3 K% was still below average.

Soler and Martinez weren’t far apart on MLBTR’s list of the offseason’s top 50 free agents, as Soler was ranked 16th and Martinez 20th.  The age gap was one of the determining factors in the differing rankings, and we predicted a smaller annual average value for Soler (with a three-year, $45MM projection) than Martinez (two years, $40MM).  Of course, it now seems entirely possible that Martinez will end up falling behind Soler in AAV given that we’re in the last week of February and Martinez still remains unsigned.

The Blue Jays, Mets, Angels, and Diamondbacks have all been linked to Martinez’s market at various points this winter, though Toronto and Arizona have since already added other veteran bats (i.e. Justin Turner, Joc Pederson, Randal Grichuk) for the DH role and no longer seem like fits.  MLBTR’s Anthony Franco recently broke down possibilities for Martinez’s next landing spot and listed the Mets and Angels as still the most logical destinations based on team need, even if both clubs have indicated they would prefer to use the DH spot to cycle many players through the lineup.  Heyman suggested the Rangers as a possible candidate for Martinez, though Texas also has a lot of promising up-and-comers in need of at-bats.

Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi has been generally conservative with free agent expenditures during his five-plus years in charge of San Francisco’s front office.  As the Contract Tracker indicates, this winter’s signings of Jung Ho Lee and Jordan Hicks marked the first time that Zaidi signed a player to a deal of four or more years.  Speculatively speaking, it seems plausible that Zaidi first checked on the possibility of signing Martinez or another known Giants target in Rhys Hoskins before agreeing to go to three years to land Soler.

From Martinez’s end, we don’t know enough about the Giants’ offer to gauge whether or not he might’ve erred in not accepting the deal, or if accepting it at some unspecified earlier point would’ve taken him off the market much earlier.  However, if Martinez just wasn’t interested in playing for the Giants in particular, money might not have been the issue whatsoever.

Enrique Hernandez Reportedly Deciding Between Four Teams

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Free agent utility player Enrique Hernandez is deciding between the Giants, Angels, Twins, and Padres, according to a report from Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The news comes on the heels of a report yesterday that indicated Hernandez was nearing a decision.

Hernandez, 32, opened the 2024 season as the starting shortstop for the Red Sox, though he struggled both with the glove and at the plate in the role. After slashing .222/.279/.320 in 323 trips to the plate with Boston in the first half of the season, the club shipped Hernandez to the Dodgers for the stretch run. It was a homecoming for Hernandez, who had already played in L.A. for six seasons before signing in Boston prior to the 2021 season via free agency, and in his return to the Dodgers he found some success in a bench role. Hernandez slashed a roughly league average .262/.308/.423 down the stretch in L.A. while bouncing between every spot on the diamond except for catcher.

The veteran has generally been utilized as a bench bat throughout his career, filling in all over the diamond thanks to his versatility and often getting reps against southpaws due to a career .801 OPS against left-handed pitching. That being said, Hernandez typically provides slightly below average offense overall. Since first joining the Dodgers prior to the 2015 season, Hernandez sports a career slash line of .239/.310/.408, good for a wRC+ of 93. That lack of offensive presence has typically kept him from securing a full-time role; 2023 was just the second season of Hernandez’s career where he totaled 500 plate appearances in a season despite routinely appearing in 130 or more games for his club.

Looking at the reported suitors for Hernandez’s services, the Angels are perhaps the least surprising given their previously reported interest in the 32-year-old. It’s easy to see why the Halos would have interest in Hernandez’s services. While the club has plenty of interesting pieces backing up superstar Mike Trout in the lineup, the club’s lineup offers little in the way of certainty. Trout and former star slugger Anthony Rendon have been plagued by injury woes in recent years that have kept both veterans off the field more often than not, while exciting youngsters like Zach Neto and Nolan Schanuel have potential but are hardly a guarantee to produce in the majors after short stays in the minor leagues.

Hernandez’s versatility would allow him to cover for virtually any player in the Anaheim lineup in the event of injury or under-performance, and the DH spot left open by the departure of Shohei Ohtani could provide Hernandez a path to semi-regular at-bats even in the event the club’s starting lineup manages to stay healthy and effective. Hernandez’s versatility could also allow the club to offer more consistency to 26-year-old infielder Luis Rengifo, who appears poised to enter the year as the club’s starting second baseman but appeared at six different positions in 2023.

The other three suitors for Hernandez’s services had not been publicly connected to the veteran previously. That being said, each of them could make plenty of sense as a fit for the utility man. The Padres, in particular, are in clear need of outfield depth after entering the spring with just two outfielders on their 40-man roster in Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jose Azocar. They’ve added Jurickson Profar on a big league deal since then and have non-roster invitees such as Oscar Mercado attempting to earn a roster spot in Spring Training, but Hernandez would offer the club a steady, veteran presence off the bench who can handle all three outfield spots and could take pressure off prospects like Jackson Merrill and Jakob Marsee to prove themselves ready for regular big league action.

The roster fit for Hernandez in Minnesota and San Francisco is a little less obvious, as both clubs already have crowded positional mixes. With that being said, the presence of Hernandez could provide the Giants with some veteran stability at shortstop should youngster Marco Luciano not hit the ground running at the position, and Hernandez’s right-handed bat could serve as a strong complement to an outfield featuring a trio of lefty regulars in Michael Conforto, Jung Hoo Lee, and Mike Yastrzemski.

Meanwhile, the Twins have a several young lefty bats in their lineup such as Edouard Julien, Alex Kirilloff, and Matt Wallner. Adding Hernandez to the club’s positional mix would give the club a right-handed bat to complement those youngsters while also providing a clear backup option in center field should oft-injured star Byron Buxton return to the shelf at some point this season. Buxton also isn’t the only piece on the Twins’ roster that has struggled with injuries in recent years, as each of Kirilloff, Royce Lewis, and Carlos Correa also dealt with injury woes last season. While it might be hard for Minnesota to fit Hernandez on their roster as things stand, the club could attempt to clear roster space by shopping fellow utility player Kyle Farmer or even simply option Jose Miranda, who figured to serve as a right-handed bat off the club’s bench this year, to Triple-A to open the season.

MLBTR Podcast: Finding Fits For The “Boras Four,” Which Teams Could Still Spend? And Rob Manfred In His Last Term

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

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