Upgrades

I think the Giants should sign free agent right-hander Jack Flaherty to a short-term deal. (I’ll take almost anyone on a short-term deal.) He’s going to give you 25-30 starts with above-average results. Flaherty’s market is depressed and he needs to prove himself with a good year and then opt-out. Think Kevin Gausman and Carlos Rodon. (He’s not as good as those guys, but that’s okay.) It’s never bad to have a surplus of starting pitchers.

Right now the Giants are expecting the kind of performance I described for Flaherty from four guys: Ray, Verlander, Hicks, and Harrison. How many of those guys are going to deliver 2+ WAR? Ray did it last in 2022, Verlander in 2023, and neither Hicks nor Harrison pulled it off last year. After that they have a nice group of youngsters—by definition unproven—like Roupp, Birdsong, Black, Rodriguez, etc. I like this group of hurlers but there’s a heapin’ pile of uncertainty there! Even Flaherty, an eight-year veteran, has exhibited big swings in seasonal WAR totals. There are red flags with him, like declining velocity, but he’d be relatively cheap. He’s not going to get the multi-year deal he wanted. And San Francisco is a great place for pitchers.

Really all of this is to say I’d like to see one more starting pitcher added to the mix. I don’t believe free agent veterans “block” prospects and young players. It’s a performance-oriented workplace. If you deliver the goods you get to play. If the youngsters want time on the field then they have to shine on the field. Am I right? And it’s just money. The Giants have plenty. They can afford to take a risk on a veteran pitcher because they need the depth to compete with the other teams in the NL West.

I think they need another position player/DH type for some more thump in the lineup. Or at least some more competition in Spring Training. Somebody like Randal Grichuk is a free agent and he’s actually been linked to the Giants. Austin Hays, Tommy Pham, Jorge Polanco, and Paul DeJong are other examples of low-cost free agent players available at this point. Alex Bregman, Ha-Seong Kim, and Pete Alonso are the “big names” left on the board. None would be a fit. Bregman because of length and cost, Kim because Adames and Fitzgerald are already at SS an 2B, and Alonso because he’s too limited, and they have Wade and Flores as a platoon pair.

These aren’t exciting propositions. We aren’t buying a new car, just getting some upgrades on the old one. Right now the Giants look like they’ve looked for the last three seasons: fair-to-middling with an outside shot at being good enough to get a post-season berth. A couple of breakout seasons from the youth brigade and it’s a different story. I know we’d all like to see that!

–M.C.