Another critical offseason for the San Francisco Giants has officially begun. The Texas Rangers are World Series champions, and now the Giants will get to work to turn their fortunes around. The SF Giants have made the playoffs only once in the last seven seasons, which is an unacceptable fate for a team of this market size and stature in the game. The Giants must significantly improve their roster this offseason, and they appear poised to at the very least make their best effort to do so.
Free agency officially opened today, but free agents can only sign with the team they finished the year with for the first five days of free agency. This is unlikely to affect the Giants in a meaningful way, as free agents like Joc Pederson and Brandon Crawford are unlikely to return in 2024. Five days from now, not only can free agents sign with any team, but option decisions are due and qualifying offer decisions must be made by teams. We will know on Monday whether Michael Conforto ($18M), Sean Manaea ($12.5M), and Ross Stripling decide whether to opt in or opt out. The SF Giants must decide whether to exercise their $10M option on Alex Cobb or whether to set his loose and pay a $2M buyout. Cobb's recent surgery and lengthy recovery timeline complicate the decision.
The non-tender deadline is also a critical date coming up in the next couple of weeks, and the Giants have six arb-eligible players. Most are easy decisions, but there are a couple of potentially borderline ones to look out for. And finally, in about a month in Nashville, Tennessee, the Winter Meetings will take place. This is when a flurry of activity usually takes place, with some of the top free agents signing contracts around this time. Like they were last year, the Giants figure to be heavily involved in the biggest names. This free agent class is headlined by arguably the best player in baseball, Shohei Ohtani.
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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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