Your 2019 Giants: Zaidi, Year One (and thoughts on Year Two)

After Zaidi's first year as Giants President of Baseball Operations, I thought I would post my thoughts on him so far, and what I see for the upcoming season.

ogc thoughts

I think Farhan Zaidi is a very smart man, and he's personable as well, a great combination for a leader.  I had very high hopes when he took over that he would keep the people who were the talent evaluators (like Sabean, Barr, Tidrow), while restructuring the team to be more analytical.  Basically, I was hoping he would build upon what the Giants had before, and make it better.  So far that appears to be what he is doing.

Zaidi's Rules

Most of Farhan Zaidi's actions for and in the 2019 season were captured in his first press conference.

• Don't want to call it a rebuild, don't want to call it anything
• Want to be competitive every season, as deep into the season as possible
• Improve the team, move by move, even if the move appears small at that time
• Looking for long-term assets, like how the A's picked up Khris Davis even though they were not competitive yet
• The goal for the moves is that even if the odds are 51/49 of success, he's going to take the odds to try and gain incremental improvements 

2019 Assessment:  Transitional Year

Ultimately, although Zaidi did not want to give the season a label, it was one of those seasons that Sabean had called a transitional year:  going to try to be competitive, but won't trade off young prospects to get short-term assets, the goal is to pick up players who are likely to contribute for multiple years.

Sabean at least was open to picking up a free agent on a multi-year contract, in order to at least have a presentable and competitive Opening Day 25-man roster, but Zaidi did not pick up any average, competent free agent at market value (hence why he didn't pick up Nick Markakis, who was a reasonably priced free agent who provides offensive value), as Derek Holland was his biggest signing (and, of course, we don't know who got away, other than Bryce Harper).

As a result, Zaidi did not set up the Giants for competitiveness either, as much as he talked about being competitive.  They started the year with the Connor Joe and Michael Reed Experiment.  Zaidi chafed at that labeling, but that's really what it was when you throw out two minor leaguers who, yes, earned their shot with great hitting in the minors, but neither were Top 100 prospects either, and so he was really rolling the dice with them, and he rowed craps twice.  That the Giants were competitive at all this season was due to acquisitions made during the season and Bochy's superb managing, once again, in one-run games.

A free agent signing like Nick Markakis would have made the lineup more respectable, as evidenced by the Giants record after Joe and Reed were replaced by more proven major leaguers (which Sabean always tried to do, with only one spot left available for a promising prospect; had he been running the team, what he typically would have done is say Duggar was expected to be the CF starter, while picking up two veterans to play the corner OF spots, and a journeyman who would compete to start in CF):  74-78 (or roughly 79-83 season).

Plus, the players' state of mind was in some chaos early on, as was reported, due to all the changes happening real time to the 25-man and 40-man roster.  And if you look at the Giants record after April, they were 65-67 (roughly 80-82 season).  And had they had Markakis (he hit .285/.356/.420/.776) instead of Tyler Austin, they probably would have been at 81+ wins instead given all these negative factors.  Still not playoff contender, but would have been over .500.

The More They Change, The More They Stay The Same

One very steady drum beat during this first season, from a large segment of the Giants fan base, was denigrating comments about Sabean, Barr, and Tidrow, and basically the whole Giants front office.  While Farhan has hired his own guys to take over most of the major positions, he still went internally to Kyle Haines to take over for David Bell as Director of Player Development, or better known as Farm Director.

In addition, he kept around Sabean, Barr, and Tidrow, which was a question at one of the introductory press conferences (I would think Scott Harris' as GM), about whether Sabean was still around, and he's still an advisor, just as he was before with Evans.  Meanwhile Zaidi brought in new people for other key roles, hiring Michael Holmes from the A's to be Director of Amateur Scouting, Zack Minasian from the Brewers to be Director of Pro Scouting, and Matt Daniels from Driveline to be Director of Pitching Analysis.  So while Zaidi brought on his own crew, his front office, he still kept the key people who made up the prior front office as well.

He (or rather, Minasian, I suppose) did release a large number of the existing pro scouting staff, near the end of the 2019 season.  They kept 12 out of 20, letting go of 8 experienced scouts, some who have had a hand in helping the Giants win their championships.  Here is the list:  Brian Johnson, Steve Balboni, Darren Wittke, Matt Nerland, Tim Rock, Glen Tufts, Bob Mariano and Andy Skeels.   Part of it was that the Giants had more pro scouts than other teams, and the trend in the majors has been to using less scouts and more data analysts.  Plus, they want to devote more scouting resources to the lower minors, especially Dominican and rookie teams.

I recall some of the names and what they did for the Giants, aside from Johnson's homerun.  Nerland was a scout who signed a good number of our prospects previously (saw his name a lot in the annual media guide for the prospects he signed).  Mariano was the guy in charge of the Giants video training for hitters, though we haven't heard of it since Belt and Noonan were the poster children for that training, so there's that too, maybe that was a failure.  Skeels was a successful manager in our minor league system for a while, so I was surprised he was let go and not retained in another position in the organization.

In addition, the coaching staff has scattered.  It didn't help that the Giants told them that they are free to find jobs elsewhere.  Matt Herges is now the pitching coach for the Diamondbacks.  Alonzo Powell left his dream SF (born and raised) job to return to his Japanese roots as a player, as a hitting coach there.  Bam Bam Meulens has moved on to be bench coach for the Marlins.  Have not heard anything about Rick Schu, the other hitting coach, or Curt Young, the pitching coach, or Jose Alguacil, the first base coach.

The only one remaining so far is Ron Wotus, who was at Gabe Kapler's introductory press conference.  He's apparently staying as 3B coach, for his 23rd season on the Giants coaching staff.  At least they were loyal to him, he had stayed with the Giants because his wife is from the area.   And I expect Shawon Dunston, Taira Uematsu, and John Yandle to remain, they held relatively minor positions, also been with the Giants for a long time as well (Yandle joined to pitch to Bonds, giving him a lefty look).

They also recently announced that they are retaining Matt Daniels, who was hired by Zaidi about a year ago.  However, they are changing his title to Coordinator of Pitching Sciences, appears to better capture what he's doing.

Lack of Confidence Building

I would also note that Zaidi might have done what Kapler said was a mistake he made as a manager, constantly going for that 51/49 advantage all throughout a game (like Kapler swapping his LF and RF batter to batter in one game) versus confidence building with a player instead.  This was also noted during season, as some players grumbled about the revolving door act with players being rotated into and off of the 40-man and 25-man roster, and hence why I noted that uncertainty for the players affected their play in April.

I wonder, in particular, how much Derek Rodriguez's and Andy Suarez's confidence were affected when Zaidi spoke of adding enough depth to push the two of them into the minors in the off-season.  Both were huge contributors to the Giants in 2018 but neither contributed much of anything in 2019.

Clearly, D-Rod would not have repeated his great first season, but the advanced stats showed that he was at least average in 2018, and the Giants could have used that in 2019.  Instead, he stumbled to a -1.4 bWAR performance after a stellar +2.5 bWAR in less than a full season in 2018.  That 4 win regression taken out, plus a major league quality corner OF at the start of the season (as noted above at 81+ wins), would have resulted in a 85+ win season.  Similarly with Suarez, while not a difference maker, he could have been a steady performer, a complementary piece, and perhaps even a trade chip, to get what Zaidi really wants:  good players that are controlled multiple seasons.

Listing Giants Ship Sinking to Its Talent Level

Zaidi, ultimately, treated the Giants as a listing ship, letting its age and overall lack of talent sink the ship further, taking on more water, while making a ton of transactions in hopes of finding lightening (and letting go the one lightening bolt that could have made a difference, Hanser Alberto).  If not for Bochy's best season ever for one-run wins (22 games over .500), the Giants would have had a much worse record, which does not bode well for Gabe Kapler's first season, as talent/production wise, the Giants should have been 71-91 per Pythagorean.

And Bochy was great in securing wins in one-run games.  10 of his 25 managerial seasons were 8 game over .500 or better, and 5 of those 10 were 10 games over .500 or better.  In the 13 seasons Bochy was manager of the Giants, he led them to 4 seasons with 10 games above or better, while the rest of the NL, over the same 13 seasons had 17 in total (representing 14-15 other teams).  So he did this feat in 31% of his Giants seasons, whereas the rest of the NL did it in 9% of their seasons (out of 188 total team seasons).  The Braves also had 4 such seasons (2012, 2015, 2018, 2019) during this period.  And Bochy did well in his Padres' stint as well.  Kapler is extremely unlikely to repeat Bochy's outlier of an outlier of a season for one-run games, let alone even duplicate Bochy's best years of 8+ games above .500 in one-run games.

Kapler In A Talent Hole

Kapler talked about starting his Giants career in a hole, because he had to deal with all the questions about his handling of the assault cases, but, at minimum, his Giants managerial career starts in at least a 6 game hole, as the Giants ended up winning 77 games but Pythagorean only had them at 71 wins.  And with 22 games above .500 in one-run games, if you regress that to .500 (or zero games), that flips 11 wins over to the loss column, resulting in a 66 win season possibility for the 2019 Giants team.

So that does not bode well for Kapler and the 2020 season, unless Zaidi brings on some free agents and unless Kapler is anywhere close to what Bochy pulled off in 2019 in one-run games.  And maybe he can at least be good, he was 5 games over .500 in 2018.  However, he was only .500 in 2019, or zero games above .500, so that could have been a fluke as well (but +5 is a top of the league result).

Plus maybe Zaidi brings in good performances.  There is the possibility that Bart or Ramos (reminder, acquired under Evans) could make the leap to the majors in 2020, and that Webb, Beede, or Menez might make the leap at SP, as well.   Plus, maybe Zaidi can find another Yastrzemski from another team (or his verrsion of Vogelsong).  Still, that's a lot of good things that must happen just to get Kapler back to 77 wins, let alone be competitive again.  Especially if Zaidi waits again until the regular season to fill his 25-man roster properly for competitiveness.

Key Players Acquired or Developed

There were a number of players acquired by Zaidi who helped to significantly contribute this past season:

• Kevin Pillar
• Stephen Vogt
• Drew Pomeranz
• Mike Yastrzemski
• Donovan Solano
• Mauricio Dubon
• Trevor Gott
• Jandel Gustave

So Zaidi has a number of successes he can point to this season, players who look like they can continue to contribute to the team in 2020 (assuming he can retain the free agents).  Overall, they added about 6 wins to the team (counting all positive and negative WAR produced by players he acquired).  He obtained these players in a variety of ways.

Spaghetti on the Wall Methodology

Zaidi implemented something I had seen the Giants under Evans sometimes do but that Zaidi did at exponential speed:  picking up interesting prospects via the waiver wire.  Evans did that a bit in his last couple of seasons, enough for me to notice, but nothing close to the extent that Zaidi did.

This revolving door process resulted in a try out of epic proportions, as he would pick up one prospect after another, meanwhile often dropping the prospect he last picked up, in hopes that no other team at that moment has the space or inclination to snatch the player from the Giants.  Many players spent a day or two on the Giants 40-man roster before moving onto their next team as the Giants waived them.  Meanwhile, he also traded for similar players who showed some potential but just need the opportunity.

This is what I would call a "spaghetti on the wall" methodology.  You pick up players who show some flashes of talent in their pro career, but has issues which makes them available to the Giants on the waiver wire or via trade for low level prospects.  You have no idea which one will find their footing in the majors, and thus institute a high volume player acquisition program which brings in a lot of prospects given up on by other teams.  This is in hopes of finding that nugget of gold amongst all the dirt, sifting through a lot of flawed baseball talent to find that one player who just needed the opportunity to shine.

Revolving Door Process

The revolving door process also allowed the Giants to retain a large number of interesting prospects in the upper minors that they otherwise would not have, giving them more depth there in case of injuries or poor performance.  This also gave Zaidi a lot of interesting prospects that other teams might be interested in taking in exchange in a trade (he used one to trade for Reed).  Admittedly, probably not a lot of talent, but it is much like that story of a boy getting a free paper clip on Craig's List and trading up to a usable sports car (I recall it being a Porsche), where you had nothing before, but with each trade, each move, you try to improve the team.

However, this revolving door process did not really yield anyone interesting in his first season.  And worse, lost someone who produced for the team they ended up with, Hanser Alberto.  He produced 3.1 bWAR, whereas all Giants 2B produced 0.6 bWAR and he would have increased the WAR contribution by Zaidi acquisitions by 50%.  Adding 2 wins, had Alberto been retained, would have pushed the Giants to 85-77, continuing with the potential noted above.   This shows that while Zaidi has identified traits that might yield a good baseball player, his formula does not identify who that good player is.

Which is more an observation than a complaint, this is much like common sales practice, where you make a 100 cold calls, in a high volume operation, in order to run into that 1 call that nets you the sale.  Ultimately, there's no real strategy with this process, it's all a numbers game, a volume operation.  I guess the complaint here is that this is no magic process that will magically find the next Max Muncy, it is just a volume business process to find that one player who is ready, in spite of it all.  Hopefully, that's the goal of all the analytics changes he is making, so that the team can identify the ones to keep.

Looking over the players used this season, the most interesting guy picked up on the waiver roulette wheel was Williams Jerez, and he didn't really do that much to inspire hopes for the future, just that he was the most interesting.  It was much ado about nothing, ultimately, other than to give the fans something to talk about.  I'm not even sure if you add up all their WAR if it is even positive.

Good Player Identification

Where Zaidi did shine was in the players he specifically targeted and acquired.  The better players he acquired were either free agents (Stephen Vogt, Donovan Solano, Jandel Gustave) or guys traded for (Trevor Gott, Mike Yastrzemski, Kevin Pillar, Alex Dickerson, Mauricio Dubon).  Not that they were all successes, but I'm not expecting perfection, a good manager needs to take on risks in order to hit the home run occasionally. So at the least, his methodologies does work at some level, just, so far, not with his revolving door tactic with the waiver wire.

Still, I hope to see this continue in 2020.  It seems like a sound thing to do, and he did get some value out of it by having players in AAA who he could use in trade, whereas he had nothing much before.  He does not need to have a success every season with this method, he just needs a success every once in a while to justify it.  It's all under the improve the team, move by move, mentality.  And given his success in trading, which had successes, and free agent signing, I have hope that these successes in identifying good players will eventually pay off with the revolving door tactic.

Successful Trading

As noted, where Zaidi was successful was in his trading.  As he noted in his first press conference, sometimes it is the transaction that don't get the attention that matters the most (he reference the Dodger's Max Muncy as an example), and he did that with a few of his trades.  Trevor Gott was one of his first early moves, and he was a good reliever for most of the season before an injury ended his season.

And, of course, Mike Yastrzemski was his Giants version of Muncy.  He came in, struggled initially, was basically told he was going back to the minors, but an injury allowed him to play in the Colorado series, and he broke out, hitting great.  He had 21 homers, one of the first Giant players to do that in a number of seasons, and the last Giants rookie to do it since the 70's (forgot who, but it's been a while).  And he had a .852 OPS, and from that Colorado series, hit .296/.363/.580/.943.  And he was pretty steady, even in September he hit .848 OPS.  Not too shabby for a no-name (generally, if it wasn't for his famous last name and grandfather, he would have been under the radar) player acquired in trade, he was 28 years old and never spent a day in the majors until he joined the Giants.

Alex Dickerson probably would have been the Muncy comparison if not for his various injuries (and that's the reason why he was even available, his vast injury history).  He hit a great .290/.351/.529/.880 overall, and was just white hot after being acquired for a minor league pitcher, before his first injury stopped his hot hitting.  In July, he hit .386/.449/.733/1.222, which sparked the Giants to a 19-6 record in July (they were 15-5 in the games he appeared in).

Mauricio Dubon was one of the interesting prospects picked up in the flurry of trade deadline deals that Zaidi made, and he performed the best of them in the majors.  He hit .279/.312/.442/.754 and mostly took over 2B after Panik and Scooter Gennett were released.  His great history (his mother convinced missionaries to take Dubon from his home country in Latin America to the United States, and he lived in the Sacramento area rooting for the Giants before being drafted by the Brewers) also makes him heir apparent to Brandon Crawford's great background history.

Zaidi made some great trades during the trade deadline period, besides Dubon (acquired in trade for Drew Pomeranz and Ray Black).  Jaylin Davis is certainly interesting, and Trevor Beck looks interesting as well, on top of which, he got the Braves to take Melancon's contract, even better.  Trades was how I saw that Sabean was a good GM, because with free agents, need trumps evaluation, and the draft is a huge crapshoot with very low odds of success, that's a real volume operation there, as well.

Farm System Improved

Many Giants fans have given Zaidi all the credit for the Giants farm system ranking jump from the bottom tier to the middle range, but these people ignore the fact that basically all of that gain was due to the progression of Joey Bart, Heliot Ramos, and Marco Luciano. Because most rankings look at potential MLB starters and stars.

Some of it was for Hunter Bishop.  While I would give Zaidi some credit, because he's already ranked on the MLB Top 100 Pipeline list (#65), the only reason he got the 10th pick overall was because of how bad the 2018 Giants were.  And no matter how good a drafter you are, you are not likely to find anyone good with a pick in the 20-30 range (where competitive teams are), so I would give him credit for finding a Top 100 player with the 10th pick.  But that's also obviously not the reason the Giants farm system rose in rank, Bishop was not that good.

But, per Pipleline, Bart (#19), Ramos (#50), and Luciano (#61) are.  In my experience with rankings (through playing fantasy baseball and grabbing Top 100 players when they were available), there are no sure things, even the #1 overall prospect can fizzle out (hello Sean Burroughs), but the odds are better the closer you are to #1.  When a player is ranked in the Top 20, most are likely to become good players, but when I was grabbing guys in the 30-40 range, many of them fizzled out eventually.

Future Scenarios

I was going to cover different scenarios of how Zaidi might act in his second off-season with the Giants, but an interview he just gave with Tim Kawakami of The Athletic and with John Shea of the Chronicle were illuminating in a number of ways, and gives the scenario building some constants that he'll be following, so I thought I would start with that first.  Of course, the Zaidi Rules above are likely followed again.

2020:  Strategy

Zaidi actually called this a transitional year for the Giants in the interview, whereas he openly said that he did not want to label 2019 season.  Like last year, he stated recently “We’re still in a mode where we want to compete next year.  We want to play meaningful baseball as deep into the season as we can, which was our stated goal in 2019.  But we want to do it in a way that creates flexibility for us and keeps us an organization moving in a positive, healthy direction. We’re going to be balancing those things as we go through the offseason.”

Of course, as I noted above, he didn't really do much of anything to set up the 2019 Giants to be competitive on Opening Day, it took him ten games to finally get there (replacing Joe/Reed with Pillar/Austin), so I guess we'll have to take it with a giant grain of salt when he says that he wants the 2020 Giants to be competitive.  I'll believe it if the Giants aren't starting Opening Day with starters who are huge question marks like Joe, Reed, and even Duggar.  Sabean at most devoted one starting spot for open competitive for a young guy.

And when discussing what they might do with the money that he can spend, he mentioned that given where the Giants are now, their best option would be looking more for a deal where they take on money while getting a young prospect in return, kind of like how LA took on big contracts in Friedman/Zaidi's first off-season together.  He felt like this is the best move to make given where the Giants are, and especially after removing contracts like Melancon and Dyson last season (and for now, Bumgarner).

This is like what Sabean would talk about trying to do in transitional periods, building up talent for multiple seasons.  But he never pulled off such a deal that I can recall, he only spoke about looking for guys the Giants can control for multiple seasons, that I can recall.  That ended up being signing lower-end free agents, trading for players who are arbitration eligible for at least two seasons, or trading for lesser prospects, he never got off any deal like Khris Davis, or like Jeff Kent or Jason Schmidt, though, he did pick up Angel Pagan, Melky Cabrera, and Hunter Pence.

What Zaidi said he could not see the Giants doing is taking on long term contracts that limits his flexibility, his options, in operating the Giants.  He said that this was a huge issue previously, and he just can't see getting back into that type of situation while he's still dealing with clearing out the previous long term contracts.  So it'll probably be some more low end free agent deals like Derek Holland and Drew Pomeranz in 2019, unless he can swing more deals like Pillar.

That, to me, does not bode well for a Bumgarner reunion.  Although he did mentioned that he's been talking with Madison's representatives and plan on staying in contact.  Still, if he don't want to take on a long contract, and that's basically what Bumgarner is looking for, that equation does not work.

But a pursuit of Gerrit Cole does not seem out of the realm, though.  He would fit into the Bryce Harper exception that happened last off season.  Also, Stephen Strasburg is available as well, though expected to resign with the Nationals.  He's another Scott Boras client.

2020:  Tactics

There were some specific needs that Zaidi said that he would like to address in the Shea interview.  he is looking for "a left-handed hitting infielder with multi-position capability, backup catching, and extra pitching, though he again stressed that 'flexibility' will factor into the team’s decisions."  Options, something he stressed a lot for the 2019 season, is the keyword again.

Odd that he would state a left-handed hitting infielder with multi-position capability.  That was basically Sandoval's role (he's out for much of the 2020 season recovering from his TJS), and would mean that this player is probably playing more at 2B (where Dubon, a RHH, is presumably mostly starting) and at 3B (where Longoria, another RHH, starts).  I guess Dubon is considered the RHH who could slide over to play SS when Crawford is being given a rest day, but then one would think the Giants would want a RHH who can play 2B to pair up with Dubon on those days BCraw sits.

Vogt is mentioned as a "great fit" for the backup catching role.  So basically looking for a left-handed hitting catcher, more offensive oriented than defensive, can play a couple other positions (I recall Vogt playing 1B and LF at times).  He just signed with the D-Backs, so he's no longer available. But Zaidi noted that there were many different ways of attacking the backup catcher position because they expect Posey to be healthier now that he should be fully healed from his surgery, and with Bart likely to reach the majors in 2020 sometime, he couldn't commit more than one year to Vogt.

Extra pitching probably means taking a flyer on some players, either a cheap free agent, non-tendered arbitration eligible pitchers, waiver wire roulette, or a trade.  With Cueto, Samardzija, Webb, Beede, Shaun Anderson, Tyler Anderson, Connor Menez, D-Rod, and Andy Suarez, the Giants have nice depth of starting pitching, and probably will be looking for this season's version of Drew Pomeranz to take a chance on, while at least kicking the tires of the top tier SP free agents, Cole and Strasburg.

If Zaidi were serious about competing (and also worried about 2020 attendance), he would sign Bumgarner.  With the QO depressing some of Bumgarner's value to other teams, I would think a 3 year, $60-70M contract should be enough to get his interest in signing on the dotted line.  MLBTR is forecasting a 4-year, $72M contract.  However, given all the analytical concern about Bumgarner's physical decline, as well as performance decline (2019 did not help at all with that perception), teams should not be that interested in going beyond 3 years for him (four years would cover his 30-33 YO seasons, though if he was born one day earlier, it would cover his 31-34 YO seasons), which should make the Giants competitive for his services, especially if they offer more than $18M per season.  Though, as the saying goes, it only takes one team to change that equation, and the Atlanta Braves have been reported to be very interested in bringing him back home.

In terms of relief, Zaidi on the TA interview noted that "Tyler Rogers, Jandel Gustave, and Sam Coonrod" are good enough to be considered for late inning roles, when asked by Kawakami about who might take the closer role, with Will Smith joining the Braves (he leveraged the Giants QO by telling teams that he was accepting the QO unless another team gave him a good enough offer, and the Braves did, 3 years, $40M).  He did not say that he won't go looking for a closer via free agency, either, though, so we'll see, this probably means he might sign someone just prior to spring training if the price is right, so that he'll have an asset he can flip in trade by the trade deadline, like he did with Melancon, Dyson, and Black.

Still, with Watson returning, having picked up his option, plus Gott, Rogers, Gustave, Coonrod, Jerez, Adon, Selman, plus any of the starters who don't win a spot in the rotation (in particular Shaun Anderson) available as relievers, the Giants appear to have a full deck of relievers that they can turn to, without signing any significant free agent, if he follows the same pattern as last off-season.  I can see him picking someone up through the Rule 5 Draft, like he did last year in picking up Bergen (whom he eventually returned).  And he will pick up guys like Venditte and Abad, low end relievers, to stash in AAA.

But, again, much as I noted above for SP, if Zaidi truly wants to be competitive, he will need better bullpen personnel.  He has one relatively reliable reliever in Watson (and even there, he collapsed in the second half of 2019), and the rest were basically rookies in 2019, other than Abad and Venditte, from what I recall.  This would have been Moronta's season to shine if he didn't injure himself, and will be out for the whole 2020 season, probably.  That's not reliable bullpen experience for a competitive team, but an acceptable bullpen for a team intent on playing out the string and focusing more on competing in the 2021 and beyond timeframe, when Bart and Ramos are expected to be starters and the NextGen Giants offensive leaders.

2020:  Veteran Usage

Zaidi noted that veterans had their ups and downs, performing as expected sometimes, and noted that perhaps the question is whether they are still 150 game players.  He also said that all players need to dig deep and see how they can get better.  He also mentioned the sports buzzword of load management, where players are rested to maximize their performance.

So I would expect to see the Giants sit down their veterans more in 2020, and play them in accordance with where/when they play best.  For example, after two seasons of lackluster play, Evan Longoria might be used in a hugely weird way:  starts all road games, but will sit a lot in home games.  He hit .279/.364/.507/.870 on the road, but only .231/.286/.372/.658 at home, which was an improvement over 2018, but still huge difference.  He did hit much better at home in the second half of 2019, so maybe he finally learned, but we'll see.  Belt has always been vulnerable to certain lefties (for example, Kershaw along depressed his overall career line severely), so I would expect to see him sit more often vs. lefties.  Crawford has actually been as good against either side, so I could see him just get rest here and there, randomly, perhaps he's got a poor history against the SP or poor history in the road park.  Posey will probably also see rest as well, while perhaps still stealing 1B starts vs. LHP.

Only Longoria, among position players, has any trade value that another team would be interested in, as Belt, Crawford, and Posey had very poor seasons where the Giants would need to supply young prospects to entice other teams to take them away.  But Longoria is still owed $44M over 3 seasons (plus buyout), which works out to just under 4 WAR production.  Which works if he can continue to produce as he has with the Giants, at roughly 2 WAR the past two seasons, but given expected declines of 0.5 WAR, that works out to 1.9+1.4+0.9 . or 4.2 WAR.

However, this gives little margin for error on the part of the other team, so at best, the Giants can expect to get a really low level prospect who has a lot of flaws in return for the other team taking on the responsibility of the contract.  If he's traded, then it's a sign that Zaidi is valuing clearing out contracts over fielding a competitive team (like he did with Melancon), because he was one of the few productive players on the team.

On the pitching side, Samardzija is the only one with any significant trade value.  With just one year left on his contract, and a good year under his belt in 2019, he's probably the only veteran player who might net an interesting prospect in return, depending on how much the other team values his pitching.  And again, if he's traded, then it's a sign that Zaidi is valuing clearing out contracts over fielding a competitive team, because he was one of the few productive players on the team, and without him, the starting rotation is very young, inexperienced, and lackluster, for a competitive team, but exactly right for a team retooling for a more competitive 2021 and beyond, when Bart and Ramos are expected to reach the majors as starters.

Scenario:  Full Transition

In this scenario, Zaidi is basically doing what he did in 2019.  No significant free agent signing.  Lots of fringe prospects picked up via waiver wire, Rule 5 draft, and small trades.  Perhaps a veteran traded away to clear salary.  Perhaps a veteran with a large contract taken on, tied to an interesting young prospect.  Maybe Belt, Samardzija, or Longoria traded at some point.

The team will likely be much worse than it was in 2018-2019, meaning a Top 5 pick is likely, and a Top 10 for sure.  It will be an ugly season which I would label a tanking season, as the listing ship takes on more water as the veterans continue their decline.

Also, possible in any of these scenarios, is the Giants pursuing and signing one of the top free agents, like Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, or Anthony Rendon.  It is much like the Harper deal, picking up a baseball talent that should still be good when the next wave of young prospects matriculate to the majors (Bart, Ramos, Luciano, Corry, others).  And thus would not affect the strategy used otherwise.

Scenario:  Full Rebuilding

It is not much different from the scenario above, but here multiple big contract players are traded away (in particular, Samardzija and Longoria, but maybe Belt as well), cratering the talent pool until Bart and Ramos force their way onto the MLB roster.  We should be getting a Top 3 pick in this scenario.  Extremely unlikely to happen, but he somehow traded Melancon, so who knows?

Scenario:  Competitive

Unlikely, but Zaidi in this scenario, is signing free agents to fill up multiple holes with reliable veterans.  Here, Bumgarner is likely re-signed to fill the hole in the starting rotation, giving the Giants a strong trio in Cueto, Bumgarner, Samardzija, or another strong starter in the $20M per season range. They will probably pick up a good reliever or two, to strengthen the back end of the bullpen, instead of relying on rookies.

He wouldn't do this for Bochy's last season, so why would he do it for Kapler's first?  Especially since he called it a transitional season.  But maybe with a new control person, the owner's son takes a different view on what the Giants should be doing going forward.  Or maybe he really, really likes to see Bumgarner return.

Scenario:  Full Competitive

Not likely at all, unless they right now think both Bart and Ramos will be on the Opening Day Roster as starters.  Which I strongly doubt, they might not even start in AAA.  Still, if they are in this mode, here they pick up Bumgarner and likely another decent SP, as well as 2-3 good relievers, and probably a good corner OF, and perhaps a good corner IF (to mix and match with Longoria and Belt).  They would definitely pursue Cole or Strasburg hard, and probably Rendon as well (shifting Longoria to 2B, potentially, or 1B, if they do something with Belt), though most probably not sign any of them, hence the Bumgarner and another starter forecast.

Thoughts on 2020

I think 2020 will be much like 2019:

• Zaidi will make moves with an eye towards the future, so anyone he acquires would be controlled multiple seasons (like Pillar, Yaz, and Dickerson; or Gerber, Bergen, Joe, Gennett, if you are the glass half empty type).  
• He will shoot for the top free agents (and likely whiffs on them all) and likely signs a number of lowest tier free agents (minor league free agents and veteran minimum), but not any of the middle tiers (like Bumgarner or even Wheeler or Keuchel).  
• Some of the nondescript trades like he did for Gott and Yaz will pay off.
• Some free agents will work out really well like Vogt and Solano did for us in 2019, most more like Parra, Venditte, and Maybin, with some in-between like Pomeranz.  
• He'll be playing Waiver Roulette again, using his Revolving Door process, and see what spaghetti sticks to the wall this time.  
• He'll probably pick up one or two Rule 5 Draftees to try them out (maybe he'll pick up Joe?).  

More Pitching.  I think he will focus more on pitching for 2020, though.  The rotation is not filled with expected options yet, maybe Beede will work out, maybe Webb will, but who knows?  D-Rod and Suarez actually had nice previous seasons and he wanted to improve the rotation to push them to AAA, and this off-season, he doesn't even have anyone with as much successful experience as those two in the back of the rotation.  In addition, the upper minors don't

He's already picked up someone, Tyler Anderson, as a SP option.  Maybe he'll try for a Japanese post, like he did with LA previously, for Maeda, there are some SP options there.  Rich Hill was a great pickup for Zaidi when he worked for the Dodgers, and he's available again, though now his 40 YO season, and so is Alex Wood.  Probably someone who fits the Drew Pomeranz (or Todd Wellemeyer, if you are an older fan) mode, someone cheap but had some good in the recent past.

And speaking of bullpen, again, only Watson is a reliable performer available.  Maybe one of the young guys prove to be set-up men or better, but if you want to set up Kapler for failure in his first season, not adding any experience in the bullpen would be the way to do it.  So I see at least one Watson-esque late in the off-season signing on the cheap, a plethora of Abad-type signings, to find hungry guys who want a good chance to win a MLB role in the Giants bullpen, and maybe today's version of a Affeldt signing, someone on the rise, but not totally proven as a reliever.  Some mid-tier guys like Craig Stammen or Steve Cishek (MLBTR thinks 2-years, $10M) or Josh Lindblom, who is coming back to the states from KBO.  Or maybe take a flier on Dellin Betances, who is coming off an injury plagued year, which is a good lead-in to the next section.

Opportunistic Acquisitions.  I see position player acquisitions to be more opportunistic.  If a team wants to dump a young-ish, productive, but getting too expensive (probably arb-eligible) player, Zaidi will want to jump in and get him, and deal with the consequences later through competition with existing players.  Or if a team wants to take on one of the Giants' big contracts, Zaidi would dump him to that team, and deal with the consequences, whether it's Posey or the Brandons or others with big contracts.  All in all, Zaidi is building towards the future.

I think it all revolves around when the next wave of big talent is expected to hit the 25-man roster.  It's likely that both Bart and Ramos will make their MLB debuts in 2020, but the big question is when? Mostly likely, it won't be at the start, neither pulled off Belt's rise to AAA in one season move.  So both are probably coming up sometime conveniently late in May, or later, so that the Giants control both for 2021-2026.  And not all succeed at once, so we're looking at 2021-22 as the hoped for targets where they will emerge as starters, and 2023-24 as the years Luciano and Corry emerge as other key components of the NextGen Giants.  So any team building Zaidi does for 2020 will have an eye towards actively competing in the 2021-24 period.

I also think he'll be opportunistic with relievers, given how barren that area is for the Giants, full of potential but lacking in experience and performance.  That's been his MO in LA and here, he brings in a lot of options and see where the dice lands.  The Dodger's volume approach to starting pitching has somehow worked without really pissing off a lot of them.  And he brought that approach to the Giants, talking about improving the rotation enough to push D-Rod and Suarez to AAA.  You'll notice no such talk this off-season of pushing anyone off, because it's so easy to do that this season.

So I think if there is a reliever who is arbitration eligible, and getting pricey for their current team, Zaidi would be open to trading for him and improving the bullpen that way.  I don't see that happening with starting pitchers, as even in arbitration, they will be too pricey for how Zaidi has been operating, either in terms of salary, for average type starters, or in terms of prospects, for the star type pitchers. Given how he didn't add much to the team last off-season, I expect more of the same transitional stuff he was doing, building for future competitiveness, but not necessarily competitiveness in 2020.

Overall:  Zaidi will operate much like he did for the 2019 season, following the Zaidi Rules from up top. Meaning he won't add much of anything in assured performance (i.e. big contracts), unless he can sign one of the top free agents (like Harper last season).  He'll pursue low end deals, and opportunistically jump on any trade that gives him younger and controllable talent, whether by adding a big contract in return or by taking on expensive arb-eligible players (the Khris Davis model).  It appears that he wanted to do that last off-season, but was not able to pull off anything like that until the Pillar trade.  Let's see if he's any better this season.

As I noted, I think he's going to let the Giants sink or swim with the people they got, without expensive ($10M or more annual contracts for multiple seasons) free agents or trades for such players, unless he gets an interesting young prospect in return.  With only two proven starting pitchers (Cueto and Samardzija, and Cueto is not proven yet to be back to where he was before) and one proven reliever (Watson), it will be similar to last year's OF experiment where it is likely that there will be a bit of chaos and churning on the pitching staff, before settling down by May.  It should be a long season if he does not bring in at least one established starting pitcher and two established relievers (which should cost altogether between $20-40M, depending on how pricey he wants to go), at least until Bart and/or Ramos arrives and make it interesting in another way.  Or if some other young prospects perform great in the early season (Webb?  Beede?  Dubon?)