The San Francisco Giants seemingly will stop at nothing to lure Aaron Judge home. Judge, a native of nearby Linden, CA, would be the Giants' most significant free-agent addition since Barry Bonds. The Giants met with Judge on Monday night and again pretty much all day on Tuesday, according to NBC Sports Bay Area's Alex Pavlovic. Part of the SF Giants' pitch reportedly involved connecting Aaron Judge with Steph Curry, whose Warriors play down the street from the Giants' Oracle Park. Joc Pederson, Brandon Crawford, and Logan Webb also took to instagram in an attempt to recruit the Judge, whose 62 home runs in 2022 set the American League record. Judge was a near unanimous pick for AL MVP.
Aaron Judge has also made it clear that his top priority is winning, and many have said that this makes the Giants less likely. But Dan Szymborski's 2023 ZiPS projections, which account for current rosters (so no free agents are assigned to any team) has the Giants projected at 83 wins vs. the Yankees' 85. Take Judge off the Yankees and suddenly they don't look like such a great team right now. They have a ton of money locked up to aging or underperforming players, so it could actually be argued that the San Francisco Giants are in a better spot in terms of projecting into future seasons.
Relatedly, Baseball Prospectus' top Giants prospects list came out a few days ago, and once again they're high on the SF Giants' farm system. They're led by Marco Luciano and Kyle Harrison, as expected, although Luciano is more volatile now that he has been in the past. Harrison, whom Szymborski mentions as part of the reason ZiPS is relatively high on the Giants despite the absence of Carlos Rodón, is considered one of the best pitching prospects in baseball and BP suggests his ceiling is that he could be one of the best pitchers in the game.
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The best daily San Francisco Giants podcast. Whether the Giants are winning championships or retooling for another title run, Locked On Giants host Ben Kaspick—a lifelong Giants fan and former contributor for RotoGraphs and Beyond the Box Score—breaks down every game, rumor, and transaction in a way that's data-driven and rational but also simple, passionate, and accessible to all.
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