As with any superstar free agent, Ohtani is likely to not sign with the Giants. But I don't think it would be out of the realm either. Here are some of my thoughts on what it would take to sign him.
Also, as many of my posts goes, this went long: it is also a discussion of the positives that I see with the Giants roster and future. While the past couple of years have been disappointing, the Giants appear to me to be on the cusp of breaking out and being a serious contender for the intermediate term, if they can acquire at least one key component (a good cleanup hitter) and ideally two (another ace starter).
Lastly, I started this post thinking I needed to finish by the end of the World Series, as that was when I expected the Giants to announce their next manager. Because Bob Melvin was named manager, I finished it up and published it now, adding a note where I left the content unchanged and noting the hiring.
ogc thoughts
Obviously, big negatives right away is that:
- The Giants only have one winning and playoff team in Zaidi's five seasons
- Their manager was just fired
- Their GM has a one-year team option that the team has already announced would be picked up, and is viewed as a lame duck leader
First: Sign Zaidi to Two-Year Extension
[Note: This was written before Bob Melvin was hired and Zaidi was announced to have a similar length contract; both now have contracts for the next three years. I left this paragraph unchanged]
First thing the Giants should do after the World Series ends is to announced a new two-year extension for Zaidi, much like how they did that for Sabean during the late 2000's. Even better would be a three-year. This would remove the stigma of 2024 being a lame duck season, and show a longer term view of his tenure, hence why three years would be better.
Second: Illustrate How Ohtani's Need for Control Caused Angel's Issues with Losing
Next, they should analyze (I assume Giants have a ton of grunt interns to do this) exactly what the effects of Angels having to adjust their starting pitcher on the fly because of Ohtani. And I would bet that they were forced to use a below average starting pitcher or didn’t handle the opener well, resulting in losses.
Then they should show how the Giants juggled that all season and the pitching held up strong, but unfortunately they need hitters, and that’s where Ohtani comes in at DH. They should also use the lineup calculator to show how much of an improvement there is with the Giants run scoring with Ohtani as DH, and how many wins that would add to a strong pitching team like the Giants in 2024, and then how much better they would be with Ohtani as SP in 2025.
The Giants were 12th in Runs Allowed in 2023, and I expect it to improve in 2024 because Harrison, Beck, and Winn will pitch more innings, plus the poor performing vets either are gone or not getting as many innings. And especially with Ohtani in 2025, should be top 5 at least. And especially if they can sign either Snell or Yamamoto, that’s a rotation of aces. I think this is the Giants best path to contention right now.
They need to prove to him why the Angels lost even with Trout and him, and why there’s no other team that has handled such a situation and still have a good pitching staff, else wherever he goes, that issue will dog that team as well.
How Much Ohtani Improves Offense
I’ve used Pythagorean and the lineup calculator extensively over the years, and it has always been in the ballpark of the actual stats, so it should be simple to demonstrate that to him, then get into the theoretics of him in the Giants lineup and rotation.
Of course, that presumes he can even come back from a second TJS and be effective. It hasn’t been declared as such yet, but the history is that a second TJS is the end of the pitching career. But they have been coy about what is wrong and hasn't announced what his procedure was, only that he had one, so we’ll see.
But he can hit while recovering from his pitching arm procedure. To get a range of expectations on what the Giants might get from Ohtani, let's take a look at how he hit, from high, to average, to low, over the past three seasons:
- 2023: .304/.412/.654/1.066
- 2021-23: .277/.379/.585/.964
- 2022: .273/.356/.519/.875
Here is the difference his batting lines above would improve the Giants over their 4th place hitter in 2023, who collectively hit a paltry .228/.304/.376/.680 (about as good a reason they fell out of contention:
- Giants 4th place 2023: 1.07 RS
- Ohtani 2023: 1.67 RS (+0.60 RS; adds 90 runs over 150 game season for Ohtani)
- Ohtani 3-yr: 1.51 RS (+0.54 RS; adds 81 runs)
- Ohtani 2022: 1.38 RS (+0.31 RS; adds 47 runs)
- Ohtani 2023: 85 wins (+9 wins over expected; + 6 wins over actual)
- Ohtani 3-yr: 82 wins (+6 wins; +3 wins)
- Ohtani 2022: 80 wins (+4 wins; +1 win)
So, based on high, average and low of the past three seasons, Ohtani would add anywhere from 4 to 9 wins over expected based solely on his hitting.
Giants Improved Pitching in 2024, Which Was Already Good in 2023
The good news for Ohtani is that the Giants already had a good pitching staff in 2023. He should be looking for this because it is unknown whether he's even capable of coming back as a good pitcher, so he should want to sign with a team who is very talented. While they were ranked 12th in Runs Allowed in the majors, the pitching staff was ranked second in xFIP with 3.86 and third in SIERA with 3.88, which is a sign that bad luck affected their results, and indicative of the good talent already on the team. Put some good (or just better) defenders out there and that RA can drop down a lot.
In addition, the Giants should also have an improved pitching staff in 2024. Webb and Cobb were good, and look to continue to be good, plus Harrison took the next step in development and pitched in the majors in 2023, and he was roughly where ZiPS projected him to be in 2023, roughly 4 ERA/FIP, and project him to be around 3.65 ERA in 2024. If he can figure out his homer problems, he could be good his first full season, like Bumgarner was.
There are other potential starters. Tristan Beck also pitched well, and would be a decent 5th starter first option, with Winn, Stripling, DeSclafani filling out SP depth, and Whisenhunt, Black, Birdsong as prospects percolating and developing.
Altogether, the 10 pitchers who were actually starting pitchers, had a collective 4.12 ERA and 4.49 RA, which is slightly worse than the 4.44 RA for the Giants.
- Ohtani 2023: 88 wins (+12 wins over expected; + 9 wins over actual)
- Ohtani 3-yr: 86 wins (+10 wins; +7 wins)
- Ohtani 2022: 84 wins (+8 wins; +5 win)
- One is that in his second year, Gold Glove finalist Patrick Bailey would likely improve, both offensively and defensively, as well as playing an additional six weeks. That's 1-2 wins.
- Second, Marco Luciano would be the starting shortstop, where he's projected to be near 2.0 zWAR, which is better than what Crawford and Schmitt produced there, roughly zero, so adding a win or two.
- Third, not as likely but Harrison has the tools to be an ace starting pitcher. If he can figure it out in 2024, he would add 3-4 wins. Even if he just meets projected production of 1.5 zWAR, that should be at least an extra two wins because the starters weren't even good enough to go three deep for a significant part of the season (i.e. they weren't even replacement level, which is considered to be zero WAR produced).
2025 Pitching with Ohtani
I think here is where the Giants might be able to win over Ohtani, integrating him back into the rotation. Pitchers who have second TJS usually signals the end of their pitching career. That's probably why Ohtani has not announced that its TJS surgery. He is probably looking at every alternative.
What is known is that while it is an UCL tear in his pitching elbow, apparently the original TJS ligament placed in there is healthy and fine, it was another ligament that tore. And they are exploring a variety of options for repairing it, as Ohtani wants to return to pitching. One includes a brace, which is what Brock Purdy got to fix his injury. But it still might be a TJS for this ligament, his agent did not deny that, he only would say that they are looking at many options. He has had the procedure, but nothing is publicly known about it yet.
Thus, he will need a team willing to go the extra mile in accommodating his need to push a start back, as necessary, much like how the Giants operated this season. Webb was the only starter to take the mound every five or six starts. Cobb often had to shift his start, because of his hip issues, which is similar to how a team would handle Ohtani. And, of course, for a significant portion of the season, the other three rotation spots were TBD, and they were actually .500 in those games, which other teams would struggle with, throwing out their 6th, 7th, 8th starters out there, and losing aa lot of games (as we'll see below when I look at the Angel's rotation)..
More importantly, I think to Ohtani, the team he signs with needs to already have a good pitching staff without him (which the Giants already do, with a Top 3 staff in xFIP and SIERA; and could be better with Harrison, and perhaps Yamamoto, if they sign him), and ideally one on the rise (which the Giants do with Harrison, Beck, Winn, and the other prospects), just in case his arm does not respond to whatever treatment he gets. Only LA is even in the top 10 (10th in SIERA; 13th in xFIP), though Seattle is just behind SF (4th in both xFIP and SIERA). But Seattle seems like a huge negative as a destination because Ohtani, one would think, would want to be the top dog with the team he signs with, and Ichiro casts a huge shadow in Seattle. And they did not utilize the opener much in 2023.
Angel's Rotation Problems
Also, as I noted before, I would bet that the Angels was always forced to use replacement level starters. So I went through their starters throughout the season (which the Giants could have their analysts do, as I suggested above). I found a team that had rotation problems after Ohtani's starts.
They had to go with Tyler Anderson for 25 starts, only skipping two starts at the end. He had a 5.43 ERA, and while they went 12-13 with him as the starter, that's a horrendous ERA. They also traded for Lucas Giolito, who had 6 starts with a 6.89 ERA, and the team went 1-5 with him as the starter, that's what helped tank their pennant run. They also had to give seven starts to Jose Suarez, who had a 9.35 ERA as a starter. And Jaime Barria had 6 starts at 4.94 ERA. That's 44 starts with a collective 6.11 ERA. All the Giants starters had an ERA 4.99 or lower, except for 20 starts and 8 openers.
On top of that, the Angels only had one other starting pitcher who was good, Patrick Sandoval, and he had a good ERA of 4.11 (109 ERA+), but the team went 8-20 behind him. This was the result of a lot of games where the bullpen gave up enough runs after he left that the team lost despite Sandoval's effort.
Overall, the Angels had to mix and match all through the season, shifting to four man rotation at one point, then running a 6-man rotation from roughly May 15 to June 18 (with 7 different starters from 5/15-5/20, then an 8th on 5/22, with Ohtani pitching twice). They only had one starter with over 20 starts besides Ohtani who had ERA+ at least 109, and the only other starter over 110 ERA+ only had 8 starts.
Meanwhile the Giants had two starting pitchers at 109 or above (Webb and Cobb), and this was in the NL, where the average ERA used to calculate ERA+ was 4.22 (vs. the AL ERA+ base of 4.48, roughly). Webb was near Ohtani's ERA of 3.14, with a 3.25 ERA, and Cobb had a 3.87 ERA. They varied their rotation to both keep Webb on a five day pitching pattern, mostly, and allow Cobb extra time for his hip to be well enough for him to pitch.
When the Giants had problems with the starting pitching, they were able to pivot before too much damage was done and their pitching was good enough to prop up the weak offense until the last two months of the season. That was good enough to get them above .500 by roughly 10 games for most of the summer before things fell apart. Their openers collectively had an 18-17 record in their "starts", which allowed the bulk feature pitcher the ability to face more of the bottom of the order. Meanwhile, all the Angels starters with ERA+ of 100 or less, had a collective 31-41 team record.
Thus, if Ohtani is back in the rotation in 2025, they likely have Webb as co-ace of the rotation, and Harrison will hopefully make the jump to ace status by that season, as well. Cobb will likely be aging out, so he's probably gone by then (age 37 season) or at best, a middle rotation guy, but Beck, Winn, Whisenhunt, Black, Birdsong, along with any future speculative free agent pickup like Gausman or Rodon, will fill out a good to great rotation. Even better if they are able to sign Yamamoto or Snell.
To Return to Contention: Giants Offense Need a Good Clean-Up hitter
The Giant's problem was mostly not pitching, it was hitting, especially the clean up hitter, who collectively had a .680 OPS, which isn't even good enough for the bottom of the lineup. And getting a good to great clean-up hitter, whether Ohtani or another bopper, like Bellinger, would boost the team into playoff contention, when combined with expected improvements in the starting pitching.
This can be seen with the addition of Ohtani, from good to elite, into the clean up spot, as shown by the lineup calculator. Fans when they are down on a team suddenly need all-stars at every position or else it's all a failure, but as I showed above, the Giants weren't all that far from being playoff competitive, had they an average to elite clean up hitter.
Addition by Subtraction
Another area of improvement needed is fielding. Errors pushed the Giants ERA of 4.02 to an RA of 4.44. This should be solved via the old addition by subtraction. Two of the Top 5 players with the worse DRS will be gone, Brandon Crawford and Joc Pederson (combined -19 DRS, or roughly two wins lost).
JD Davis was responsible for -10 DRS himself, and I expect Casey Schmitt to replace him as the starting 3B, as Davis' horrible 3B defense is a career long issue, costing 1.5-2.0 wins on a seasonal basis. Schmitt started off badly at 3B, but ended up looking great defensively there, per DRS. His bat also looked better. Luciano should not be as bad at SS (collectively -21 DRS; he had a -11 DRS/Yr rate), which is roughly 1 win improvement on defense there, though he's not likely to be average there, as most scouts have him moving to 3B or a corner OF position. He's still an overall improvement defensively if he's the starter.
There is also media talk (Baggarly of The Athletic) about signing Matt Chapman to start at 3B. I think that would be a better solution for 3B than starting Schmitt, who still have a lot of question marks about his bat. Chapman would greatly improve 3B, by around two wins over Davis just on defense, plus his bat is more than okay for 3B and an improvement over Davis as well (overall, he has produced roughly 4.0 bWAR annually the past three seasons). In addition, his great defense there would help to cover up any range issues Luciano might have playing SS, and help to hide his weaknesses fielding SS.
The other Top 5 are Luis Matos (-10 DRS) and Blake Sabol (-7 DRS). Matos might not even be the CF, if the Giants sign the Korean CF Jung-Hoo Lee, who has usually been a Gold Glove winner in KBO. If they strike out with him, Kiermeier is a free agent and would add around 20 DRS, if they can sign him. In any case, Matos' not going to get much playing time with that type of fielding even if they don't sign Lee or Kiermeier.
Sabol likely will be spending much of the season in AAA learning how to catch, as well as playing other positions, as they prepare him to be their utility player of the near future. I expect the Giants to use Bart as backup catcher, given his abilities there, at the beginning of the season, and possibly trade him before the trade deadline, once Sabol is average-ish defensively.
Bart still has some value, and would be a nice part of a bundle of players in a trade. I still think he can be a capable starting catcher if given the opportunity and experience. I would prefer keeping him as the back up catcher, to see if he can still develop his bat further, as his defense is considered good. As much as I like Bailey and think he's the long term solution, catcher is an injury prone position, so it wouldn't hurt to keep Bart around, just in case.
Altogether, that's -46 DRS, or roughly 5 wins added by subtracting them. And should lead to an overall improvement in defense, which was -17 DRS for the season. Subtracting them would push the team to +29 DRS.
And it should even be better.Adding Schmitt or Chapman should add another +10 DRS or so, pushing to roughly +40. If they can sign Lee to man CF (he's been a gold glove winner in KBO), that's likely another +10, pushing to +50 DRS. +29 would have been 10th in the majors, +39-40 would have been 6th, +49-50 would have been 4th. Kiermeier would push it up even higher.
Thus, the Giants could greatly turn around their overall fielding simply by replacing their top 5 offenders with average (+0 DRS) defenders. That alone would push them to 10th overall. And Schmitt (or Chapman) at 3B should push them to 6th. That should all be doable.
To Compete While Accommodating Ohtani's varying need for rest, from 5 to 7 days
In addition, Ohtani only started 23-28 starts the past three seasons. He needs a team that plans around the missing starts. The Giants need to demonstrate that Ohtani will run into the same issue with any other team, having to manage that uncertainty.
The Dodgers have experience managing pitchers who miss games, but have not had to juggle starts as a starter (like Cobb with the Giants this season) who needs another day of rest to make his start. I'm not sure about how SD, Seattle, Texas, Cubs, clubs that were allowed to talk with him back then, but haven't heard of them doing stuff like that. And the Mets, Yankees, and Red Sox have the money, but like these other clubs, isn't know for doing stuff like juggling their rotation with openers.
The Giant have that experience, as well as the success, as their pitching was good (and should be better next season with Harrison, Beck, Winn, and Walker on the staff all season, as well as subtraction of the laggards via less IP or DFA), and what they need is hitting to take advantage of the good pitching.
Contract Nuances
I also expect teams to structure the contract because of the uncertainty regarding his return to pitching. I expect that Ohtani will ask for player options after his second and third seasons, much like Cueto's contract. Ohtani will want the option of upgrading his contract if he can return successfully to the mound.
This might make him more amenable to a deal with the Giants. Nobody is going to doubt his abilities to hit, but this second pitching arm injury will be a huge question mark. The Giants not only have an organization focused on pitching, their park is a pitcher's park, and they already have a great pitching staff to build off of, by adding elite starters like Yamamoto and Ohtani to the rotation.
I also expect teams to work in a bonus structure tied to the number of starts made. The Giants have done that before with contracts for pitchers, and Zaidi did a very complicated one for Maeda in LA, because of his potential injury issues. I expect much the same with Ohtani negotiations.
As noted, I expect a player option for at least after the third year, perhaps also one after his second. Ohtani will have to accept a lower priced deal because of the uncertainty about him pitching. But whatever procedure he ended up doing to his arm (he has reportedly had it, but no news on what), he'll likely be not pitching in 2024, and might not even pitch a full season in 2025, depending on how things go, so there is a possibility that if things go well, 2026 would be the season he can pitch the full season, prove his worth, then opt out and get a bigger contract.
Given Zaidi's experience with injured pitchers contracts, one way to differentiate the Giants bid from others is to break down the Giants bid into one for his bat and one for his pitching. I would guess most teams are not willing to pay for his ability to pitch, given his uncertainty, and would price it via a game appearances bonus. If they can commit to at least $10M base plus appearances bonus, that would be more than other teams would offer, I believe.
SF Should be a Desirable Team
All of this makes the Giants a better destination. They need hitting, not pitching. They are desperate enough to accommodate whatever contract nuances he wants, especially over paying for his pitching. Everyone knows he can hit, so playing in SF won't hurt his value, but the park has been a pitcher's park for most of its existence, which would boost up his pitching performance if he's able to complete his comeback. The Giants have a pitching department, and has been aggressive in limiting their young pitching's usage in order to extend their careers, as well as facilities that presumably can help him recover better.
Hiring Melvin to be the manager helps as well. He's well known and well liked by players. He's won a number of awards as manager, showing how good he has been before. He's also associated with a number of the Japanese elite players like Ichiro, Nomo, Darvish, and thus viewed as a plus in pursuit of any Japanese free agents.
He would also be the marque Japanese player in Giants history, should he sign. They had the first Japanese player, plus had Shinjo in the 2000's, but neither of them were stars of Ohtani's magnitude. He would be the biggest Asian star, in a region where there is a significant proportion of Asian people.
Other potential positives include the Giants bullpen catcher coach who is a Japanese native, who would give Ohtani someone on the staff who he could communicate easily with in his native language. And if they are able to sign Yamamoto, that would give him a second native speaker.
He could sign here, hopefully recover to pitch well again, and more hopefully, win enough games in spite of the need to accommodate his needs and game readiness, to make the playoffs. That has to be key factor that the Giants pitch to Ohtani, demonstrating how the Angels didn't handle it well, and the need for expertise in handling his need to skip starts as he deems necessary, like what the Giants did this season. And as the above calculations show, the Giants would easily get into the playoffs with his hitting and with the expected improvements in the pitching rotation, and any free agent signings for 3B and CF would just improve the team's chances to get into the playoffs.
Other Giants Thoughts
I think it would help greatly if the Giants could first sign an ace pitcher to the rotation. Signing Lee to man CF would be nice as well, or Matt Chapman for 3B, to bolster the lineup. That would give them a stronger position to then go to Ohtani and engage in serious negotiations.
Also, as demonstrated above, the Giants really need a cleanup hitter who they can just automatically put in the lineup, so whether it's Ohtani (unfortunately, LA Dodgers look ideal for him, location, great team, constant playoffs, and wouldn't even have to move), or another slugger (like Bellinger), that is the number one priority for the off-season, as long as they can accomplish this without trading Kyle Harrison.
Just Say No to Trading Kyle Harrison
My fear right now is that signing Yamamoto would lead to the Giants trading Harrison. Harrison should reach ace level within one or two seasons, and that would really give the Giants a great core ace situation for the rest of the decade with him and Webb atop the rotation. And even better if they sign Yamamoto. I would be okay trading away the rest of the Giants bounty of young pitchers to trade for the cleanup hitter, but I would rather keep Harrison and try our luck next off-season for that clean-up hitter. And who knows, perhaps Luciano could be that cleanup hitter for us, his bat has that potential.
But Harrison being traded would not make me happy at all, I don't care if it is prime Trout we receive (and he's no longer in his prime). I would think seriously about wanting Zaidi removed if this happens. As I've discussed here often, it is elite pitching that enables teams to win championships. I've detailed this in my business plan link to the right side. Zaidi has been holding strong to keeping that type of focus, and as i've noted before, you can never have too much great pitching, the more the merrier is best for the pitching staff.
Sabean didn't listen to fans back then, he needed a cleanup hitter too, but kept Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Bumgarner, Wilson, Romo, and we needed every one of them contributing to get our first championship. Giants fans are crying now about the offense, forgetting that the dynasty teams weren't star driven lineups either. We had a star driven pitching staff.
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