The San Francisco Giants have a new president of baseball operations this offseason, but they’re still acting like the same old Giants.
That was reinforced this week when San Francisco lost Blake Snell, who signed a five-year, $182 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
This was just the latest example of the Giants falling short in free agency. It happened after the 2022 season when they failed to pry Aaron Judge away from the New York Yankees. It happened again last winter when they lost out to the Dodgers in the Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes.
Both of those teams just made the World Series — a reward for their aggressiveness and deep pockets. San Francisco, meanwhile, finished 2024 with a losing record and missed the playoffs for the seventh time in eight years.
The San Francisco Giants ownership group is wealthier than the Dodgers and Yankees. The Giants have decided to cut payroll and stop paying any luxury tax when they’re team has been at .500 for 3 years. LAD and NYY made the World Series and plan to spend more. #SFGiants
— Mathew Cross (@MathewCross8994) November 27, 2024
The Giants have failed to meaningfully improve their roster the last several winters, which is why they’ve fallen so far behind Los Angeles.
Over the last five years, the Dodgers have added stars like Ohtani, Yamamoto, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Tyler Glasnow and others. Meanwhile, San Francisco has settled for mid-tier additions like Michael Conforto, Robbie Ray and Jorge Soler.
Los Angeles is playing chess, and the Giants are playing checkers.
It’s telling that the two largest MLB contracts in San Francisco’s history were contract extensions for Buster Posey and Matt Chapman. Neither one came close to $200 million.
If the Giants want to compete in the NL West and hang with the Dodgers and San Diego Padres, they need to radically change their approach. They need to start spending aggressively in free agency and go over the top to bring in a superstar or two (Juan Soto or Roki Sasaki would be a good start), because the current roster simply isn’t good enough.
If they don’t, they’ll just keep spinning their wheels and finishing behind the teams that do.
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