Your 2025 Giants: Rest of Giants Draft Picks

Thought I would write some thoughts on the rest of the draft.  The MLB reporter Maria Guardado nicely covered the picks here in this article.  Please read to learn more about the picks.  I will discuss what I think is the strategy with some of the picks, which were overdrafts. 

Your 2025 Giants: At the All Star Break

I thought I would write up some thoughts during the break.

Your 2025 Giants: Thoughts on Rafael Devers

Tons of thoughts running through my head on Rafael Devers, after reading comments about the stellar trade for Rafael Devers. (Finished most of this June 22, but forgot to finish…)

Your 2025 Giants: Drafted SS Gavin Kilen with 13th Overall Pick

In the 2025 MLB draft, the Giants selected SS Gavin Kilen with the 13th overall pick in the first round. Keith Law heard that the Giants were in on RHP Tyler Bremmer, who was ranked around the middle of the first round, but the Angels surprised everyone by selecting him second overall.  

Your 2025 Giants: Buster's Blockbuster Trade for Devers

As announced by the Giants, they have traded for Boston's Rafael Devers, acquiring him in a package headlined by once and future ace, SP Kyle Harrison, SP/RP Jordan Hicks, and prospects OF James Tibbs III and reliever Jose Bello.

Devers (only 28 YO) is in the second season of a ten-year, $313.5M contract, covering him up to age 36 YO season, and there is about $250M left on it.  He hit .272 with 15 HR and 58 RBI in 73 games for the Red Sox this season and has been a great hitter (.859 OPS) for his career with the Red Sox (8.5 seasons).  

Your 2025 Giants: Reviewing The Modern MLB Rotation Chaos Portfolio Theory

Last off season I wrote in a post about how the Giants approached Zaidi’s idea of finding starting pitchers who can get the Giants 162 game starts, as contrasted with the traditional objective of finding 5 32-starts starting pitchers. 

Now that Posey is in charge, I thought it would be interesting to see what the Giants are trying to do this season, which, to me, is very much like last season.  And dig into where they are going to put all these pitchers. 

{Note: wrote most of this before Opening Day; obviously, the pitching has been pretty good so far}

Your 2025 Giants: Dude Rakes!

In a SF Chronicle article on Bryce Eldridge, it was noted that his family has a group chat named “Dude Rakes”, and I have been meaning to do some research on him and how he compares with recent great hitting prospects.

Your 2025 Giants: Opening Day Roster

 The 2025 Giants Opening Day Roster is out, and there were some surprises:

• Catcher:  Bailey, Huff
• Infield:  Wade, Flores, Fitzgerald, Adames, Chapman, Schmitt, Koss
• Outfield:  Ramos, Lee, Yastrzemski, Matos
• Starting Pitching: Webb, Verlander, Ray, Hicks, Roupp
• Relief Pitching:  Walker, Doval, Rogers, Miller, Trivino, Rodriguez, Bivens, Birdsong

Your 2025 Giants: Big 6 Prospects

This season this will be an abbreviated version of my Big Six prospects.  I’ll be mostly doing it from memory plus a bit of player research.

WAR, What Is It Good for: Crossing the Yaz Chasm

With Spring Training coming soon, I thought I would touch on a topic that will occupy the minds of some Giants fans:  Mike Yastrzemski.

A frequent complaint that I saw all through the 2024 season was complaints about playing, and even rostering, Mike Yastrzemski.  Many today still think little of him and his accomplishments as a Giants player.  In this post, I thought I would discuss what I know about WAR's foundations, and what that means about players like Yaz who produce 1.5-2.5 WAR per season.

Your 2025 Giants: Justin Time - Verlander Signs for One Year, $15M

As reported by various sources, future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander signed with the Giants for one year, $15M.  There are a couple of good analyses on why he might be a good signing:

• Fangraphs
• The Athletic