When the Giants introduced their new manager last October, Bob Melvin regaled the attendees with stories about his past connection to the organization, his sense of wonder whenever he walked into the early-afternoon emptiness of their waterfront ballpark, and the times when he’d sneak past security to slide down the Coke bottle for good luck.
That is how the offseason began. This is how it ended on Monday: with yet another thrilling free-agent addition, a stomach-dropping total payroll investment of almost $400 million in new guaranteed money, and a roster that is built to do one thing.
You don’t need to be Talia Shire in the obstetrics ward to understand what that is.
Win.
If it wasn’t clear when the Giants signed center fielder Jung Hoo Lee for $113 million, or when they signed designated hitter Jorge Soler for $42 million, or when they took out a $44 million bet that they can transform right-hander Jordan Hicks from hard-throwing closer to hard-throwing starter, or when they relieved the Seattle Mariners of a $74 million in future obligations while trading for rehabbing left-hander Robbie Ray, or even when they ended a winter-long staredown and guaranteed $54 million to third baseman Matt Chapman, then everything crystallized the moment news broke that the Giants had agreed to terms with left-hander and reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell on a two-year, $62 million contract with an opt-out after the first season.
GO DEEPER
Snell, Giants reach 2-year, $62 million deal
The Giants are going for it. They have redefined what a successful 2024 season would be in San Francisco. They’ve reset expectations for the future of president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, who might be on the warmest seat possible for someone who just agreed to a contract extension. They are no longer content to try to punch up against the competition in the NL West, even though their division includes the team with the deepest pockets, another team that won the NL pennant last season, and yet another that remains the most relentlessly unpredictable in the league. The Los Angeles Dodgers spent an industry-shaking $1.2 billion on a Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and others. The Arizona Diamondbacks added to their youthful core that just stormed to the World Series. And the San Diego Padres continued their hyperactive tendencies by trading for Chicago White Sox ace Dylan Cease.
In terms of ambition, the Giants now match or exceed all of them.
Consider that the Snell signing didn’t merely take the Giants past the luxury tax threshold ($237 million) for the first time since the 2017 season. The Giants now project to be a few hundred thousand over the second threshold of $257 million, too. (The CBT penalty is 20 percent of the overage, or roughly $4 million where the Giants currently stand, with an additional 12 percent surcharge on any amount over $257 million.) And although both Chapman and Snell agreed to deals far below industry estimates, and could opt out of their contracts after one season, signing them required the Giants to make a concession to their future. Because both Snell and Chapman had rejected a qualifying offer, the Giants will lose their second-round pick as well as their third-round pick this June in addition to $1 million of their international signing bonus pool.
The draft picks might not sound like a huge price to pay. But it might be helpful to think of the picks in terms of slot value and not draft position. The 51st pick (second round) had an assigned value of $1.66 million last season. The 88th pick (third round) was assigned $784,000. The Giants’ total signing pool is expected to be in the $9.5 million range. So signing Snell and Chapman means forfeiting roughly 26 percent of their draft allotment.
The Giants haven’t sacrificed two compensatory draft picks in one offseason since the winter of 2015, when they signed Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija. Even then, they knew that they would have both pitchers for a half-decade. Snell and Chapman both could be gone after one season.
The last time the Giants gave up two draft picks for free agent signings, Johnny Cueto was one of the big names they acquired. (Bob Kupbens / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Of course, neither Chapman nor Snell would be Giants on opening day at market prices. But this was a strange offseason in which several of the game’s jewel franchises — the Boston Red Sox, New York Mets, Los Angeles Angels, Texas Rangers, among others — tightened up their spending or sat out the winter entirely. You could argue that Zaidi successfully stonewalled super agent Scott Boras to get two of his clients at heavily reduced prices. Or you could argue that the entire industry stonewalled Boras and Zaidi was merely the most aggressive opportunist when the calendar lurched into March.
Free-agent scorekeeping and market conditions aside, the Giants’ offseason is stunning in its totality because it represents their clearest “win or broke” play since they traded top pitching prospect Zack Wheeler to the New York Mets for a two-month rental of Carlos Beltran in the summer of 2011. Back then, the Giants were attempting to become the first NL team to win consecutive World Series titles since the Big Red Machine of the mid-1970s. It was a bold stroke that blew up in their faces — and might have resulted in different consequences had the Giants not won the World Series again in 2012 and ’14.
Now the Giants are a decade removed from the last of those trophy-hoisting moments. They are desperately seeking to recapture fan engagement. They must quell the dissatisfaction of (the dwindling number of) paying customers who’ve complained about watching a starless roster lacking in permanence and continuity, and who’ve begun to wonder whether there are bigger structural issues at the top of the organizational pyramid.
The Giants disrupted a huge conduit to the continuity of the game-day experience early Monday morning when they announced that they had parted ways over a contract dispute with Renel Brooks-Moon, their public-address announcer and ballpark ambassador from the moment their waterfront stadium opened in 2000. (The news release, which was emailed just after 6 a.m., actually was titled, “Ahead of the 2024 Season, Giants Name Renel-Brooks Moon Public Address Announcer Emeritus,” proving once again that the worst kind of PR spin is the kind that insults everyone’s intelligence.)
These are no longer Peter Magowan’s Giants. There’s very little romanticism involved in personnel decisions now. You don’t have to be a management consultant to understand that we are not only all replaceable, but we are all fated to be replaced on this planet. Times change, people change, things as fleeting as ballpark experiences change. What pass as efficient business decisions might often be unpopular. But discontent can be rendered temporary.
It’s the winning. The winning is supposed to fix everything. That’s what the Giants are betting on. So after they were rebuffed for Ohtani and Yamamoto, they spent $400 million to overhaul their roster. They have two new starting pitchers (and a third on the way back from the trainer’s room), a new third baseman, a new designated hitter, a new center fielder and even a new backup catcher. It’s a lot of disparate parts for one manager to pull together on short notice and turn into a cohesive team. Melvin might have escaped the chaos in San Diego, but his new gig suddenly has just as fervent a mandate. Now missing the postseason would not qualify as a disappointment. It would be a disaster.
Either winning fixes everything, or the organization is in for a hard fall. It would not be a graceful slide down.
(Top photo of Snell: Denis Poroy / Getty Images)
