The Giants traded for former Cy Young winner LHP Ronnie Ray, getting him from the Mariners for Mitch Haniger, DeSclafani, and cash considerations, which makes the deal net zero dollar trade. Ray is rehabbing from TJS, and is expected to return in July 2024, plus whatever rehab time he needs. Ray has a player option after the 2024 season, where he can opt into a two year @ $25M per season deal, or make himself a free agent.
ogc thoughts
This is a great trade by Zaidi. It takes two players in areas (OF, depth SP) where they have too many players for next season, and obtains the chance of holding an ace starting pitcher, all for the same amount of payroll for 2024. This also opens up a 40-man roster spot, should they sign or trade for other players for their 40-man.
The major risk is taking on Ray's two years at $25M per season for 2025-26 (which is slightly mitigated by the $15.5M we would have owed Haniger in 2025). He has a player's option, so he can get out of his contract after the 2024 season, and pursue a bigger contract as a free agent, if he does as well as he had before the operations. But if he doesn't have a great season with the Giants, we are stuck with him for 2 years, $50M. So Zaidi hopefully feels that his team of doctors can help him get back to some level of goodness by 2025-26.
But in the overall big picture, that's not when the team will be strongly competitive. 2024-25 is waiting out Harrison becoming an ace, because our rebuild will stall a lot if he falters. So 2026 is the first year I would mark on my calendar as the target for when the Giants can seriously compete with the Dodgers for the Division title. So while the money could be wasted, it would only be wasted in 2026, and hopefully we have 5-10 years of competing after that.
OF Excess Reduced to Manageable
With one less OF, the Giants can play Conforto in LF, Lee in CF, and platoon Yaz and Slater in RF, where they should be good defensively. This also opens up DH, which was viewed as an outlet to utilize one of the OF, to Davis and Flores, full time, should the Giants be able to sign a 3B this offseason (Matt Chapman per rumors, but who knows?)
Then there is nice depth in the system with Wade Meckler and Heliot Ramos as first men up should there be injuries in the OF (like Yaz and Slater seem to have every season). Ramos had a nice AAA season in 2023, as he reached the age vs league where he is able to take advantage of the hitting. Of course, it's a huge step to the majors, and he might not be able to figure out breaking pitches. Meckler is more likely to be called up first because of his ability to avoid strikeouts, that's one skill that seems to translate well into the majors, I noticed that with Panda long ago, and with other prospects coming up to the majors. Tyler Fitzgerald could jump ahead of those two, since he can play both IF and OF, plus hit better than both in the majors, but have to think he's lower on the depth chart.
Starting Pitching Depth Shaping Up Nicely
With Disco gone and Ray needing to at least July to get ready for the majors, plus Cobb out until June, that leaves the starting rotation currently at Webb, Harrison, Beck, Winn, and Stripling, with depth of Sean Hjelle, Carson Whisenhunt, Mason Black, Hayden Birdsong, Kai-Wei Tang, Jack Chote, and Landen Roupp. I don't think Zaidi will want Hjelle as the first man up for long relief, so I expect some sort of minor league invite to spring training, who would compete with Beck, Winn, Stripling for a starting spot, with the loser becoming the long man/featured relief role.
This gives Beck, Winn and Stripling about two months to establish themselves, before Cobb returns. Some fans hate Stripling, but most forget that most teams have crap at the end of their rotations (and some have crap up to the middle of their rotation). I think he'll be okay battling against the back end of rotations, and if not, he can always be DFAed if he's bad, but he was decent as a featured reliever last season, and could hold the long relief job, should he falter as a starting pitcher again.
When Cobb returns, whoever isn't pitching as well will likely be removed from the rotation, though Stripling will get the call to start if he's close enough to the others. This is because Zaidi should be hoping he does well enough that we can trade him for an interesting prospect (and money savings) when Ray returns to the rotation.
Reportedly, the Giants are still pursuing a higher end starter, and have been tied to Snell, Montgomery, and Imanaga. After getting Ray, I'm happy to roll the dice to see how he turns out, with what we got right now. We only need to get into the Wild Card, and it's highly unlikely we can beat out the Dodgers for the division title. If we were to get one, at this point, I think Imanaga is the best choice because he's the cheapest one and because we need to establish cred in the Japanese market.
Further Moves
While I believe that the moves made so far would allow the Giants to compete for a Wild Card spot, it is like a 50-50 proposition right now, very easy to see how the Giants might fall out of the race. The Giants have the money, I want to see them get the roster to the point where it should make the playoffs. To accomplish that, I believe the most important free agent signing left to do is getting Matt Chapman.
Some compare him with Longoria, but he produced 4+ WAR the past two seasons, and should be in the 3+ range for the next 2-3 seasons. Longoria was already below average when we got him. Adding Chapman would be adding 2-3 wins over what we got from 3B in 2023. Getting him would get me feeling like we should make the wild card.
I also wouldn't mind getting another good reliever to slot in the 6-7-8 innings, like Affeldt. Not sure who would fit that or how much it would cost (FA or trade). I like Doval as the closer, and the Rogers Twins are good as the set-up men, but I would like to see the bullpen be a shutdown one. Walker looks promising for that role, long term, but I would love to get another good setup reliever.
And another starting pitcher like Imanaga would be nice as well, but not as high a priority as the above, for me. I want to see our young hurlers get the chance to show what they can do. But getting Imanaga should improve our chances, so I don't mind either.
Fans Don't Understand the Realities of Rebuilds
Fans are upset, but rebuild are generally upsetting because they take longer than fans would like to see them. Fans generally don't understand that finding and developing prospects take many years, as well as many iterations, and each missed opportunity (which fans view negatively) is much like hitting in baseball: hitters failing 70% of the time are good hitters.
Also, the media doesn't help because they keep on touting first round picks as if they were magic beans that will magically make your team good again immediately. But draft picks have horrible odds that just gets worse and worse. Only the first overall pick has a good success rate, almost 50% of them become good players, then the odds fall to around 25% for the next two picks, then 20% for the next three, 15% for 7-14, 10% for 15-23, and 5% for the rest of round 1, and into rounds 2 and 3. Fans don't understand bad odds like that in real life, other than gambling on the lottery.
Fans also like things to be black or white, yes or no, on or off. However, a rebuild is full of two steps forward, one step back, sometimes a fall back to zero (Foppert getting injured, Williams and Ainsworth failing, Lowry injured), before putting enough forward steps (Cain, Lincecum, Wilson, Romo, Sandoval, Posey, Bumgarner, Belt, Crawford) to reach the top.
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