I wrote this after reading the comments from fans after GM Scott Harris left to take over the Tigers. Some complain about how the Tigers have a better prospect situation. Others complain about Zaidi's tactics.
Seems like people need to get clear on some things about Zaidi and the Giants, and a bit on the Tigers too.
ogc thoughts
Tigers Are Different Situation
First, the Tigers. Totally different situation. Owner is willing to tank to build up the farm system, so they have basically been a 100 loss or so team for 5 of the past 6 seasons. So that's nothing like what the Giants have been losing, nor anything our fan base would put up with, look at the vitriol here just for a .500 season, and multiply that by 5 100 loss seasons.
But that's why they have so many prospects relative to the Giants, who have nominally been trying to compete all this time. Because all those bad seasons got them high draft picks who are more likely to become good players. And thus their farm system is percolating more than our's.
Giants and thus Zaidi were Stuck
When you are trying to compete, but saddled with big contracts that nobody is willing to take on, you have to do what Zaidi did: tap dance about being competitive every year but not commit to any long term anchors, unless it is a player worth it, like Harper. Because you are stuck with big contracts, like Cueto, Samardzija, Posey, Crawford, and Belt, and have to wait them out until the prospects start reaching the majors.
And the original plan probably had Bart and Ramos being starters this season, Luciano next season. But the pandemic loss of a minor league season pushed everyone's time table back a year. Or killed their chances, like Corry, who looked like he might be something, but something went very wrong the year he was away.
Zaidi was stuck. If you have to field declining vets while waiting for your prospects to develop or mature, you really only have three avenues of improvement: trades, free agents, and waiver wire.
Trades is not the best avenue, because nobody will give you value without getting value back. And when we are in this situation, it's like loans, nobody will give you what you want, unless you don't need what they have. Here, most conversations will be the Giants being interested in Player X, and the other team will ask for Ramos, Luciano, Webb, or Harrison, and that ends the trade talk. They want to gut our farm system. This is like when every team was asking for Cain or Lincecum in every trade rumor, that's why there's no real big trades happening.
With free agents, you are trying to get out of the big contracts, so it makes no sense to talk to any bigger free agent until your prospects are nearly ready to lead the team. With Bart this season, probably Ramos and Harrison next season, and Luciano maybe next season or the one after, they should be ready to sign one or two this season, then use the rest of the budget the following off season. But that's why he's only been signing guys like Flores so far, and not more mid-range or higher free agents, because pushing a .500 81-win team to 85-wins with a big free agent gets you no playoff spot, and you have a worse draft slot to boot.
Ideally, a team tanks to get a Top-5 overall pick, because the prospects more likely to be good can be most easily found in the Top-5 (but conversely, the odds are still so bad that even the first pick overall is more like to not be a good player, and it gets exponentially worse from there to picks 2-6, and worse again after that). But the Giants can't get away with tanking like what the Tigers did (which is how Atlanta, Washington, Marlins, Astros and other teams did to become competitive again, by losing at the extremes), because that's when the fans abandon the team. But that means the team get mediocre prospects, as the team is picking in the teens or worse, where the odds are very low of finding a good player.
So that leaves the waiver wire and their strategy of playing waiver wire roulette. You target players who has some skills that is untapped, which you are willing to accept their negatives to get the positives. And that is how platooning is a huge component of this, because teams will let go players who are platoon worthy prospects, which the Giants have made a strategy of building their roster/lineup. It's a way to obtain easily available talent without giving up your best prospects. It's a way to prop up the team and improve its competitiveness while you are waiting for your young guys to become major league starters (hopefully, that is).
That's why this has been his major tactic in keeping the team competitive, the other ways are not likely to yield a lot immediately. He knows the value of players you don't need to platoon. If you can give him one at a reasonable cost without gutting your farm system, he will be all ears. And prospects take 4-6 years to develop, on average, so his picks hasn't really had the prerequisite playing time necessary to mature and develop, especially with losing 2020.
And that is why the team has been having such wide ups and downs, because how do they depends greatly on what production they get out of the veteran players, as the team is still depending greatly on their production. When they are out or injured (2020 and 2022), you get mediocre results. When they are producing, you get seasons like 2021.
The Light is Near the End of the Tunnel
It should be better going forward. I assume he will be going after top free agents the next two off-seasons, to prime the overall team talent for when the surge in production comes from our young prospects: Webb, Bart, Harrison, Luciano, Ramos, Matos, Villar, Schmitt, Brown, etc. The Giants will be much more interesting once the young guys ascent and the old vets leave the team.
Then, of course, we will have go through possible growing pains the young guys often have. Cain and Lincecum struggled in their first season before figuring it out. Even Posey was struggling for a couple of months before taking off. And Bumgarner would struggle off and on too, but was mostly good (remember, his start was skipped in the 2012 playoffs, because he was so off). And some will never reach their potential (Belt) and yet would still be an extremely productive player that any real fan should be happy with (we very likely would not have won in 2012 and 2014 without him, too).
[Addendum: wrote this in September. As we now know, the Giants signed Carlos Correa to his gigantic contract, 13 years for $350M. I'll be working on a post on that.]
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