The San Francisco Giants aren’t taking advantage of all the ways they could build their roster. If they need help all they have to do is look south down I-5.
The lazy narrative is the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers throw money at everything to explain why they have a stranglehold on the National League West each year and are annually the favorite to win it all. Truth is they have mastered the art of opening all pipelines to funnel talent to their roster and the success feeds the finances to keep the talent flowing for the foreseeable future in LA.
The Giants are a major market team who operate like the Pittsburgh Pirates with self imposed limits on contracts, costs, cap space, and refuse to take advantage of major market financial loopholes. While I understand why the organization is against double digit years on player position contracts and over five-years on pitchers contracts, that’s where MLB has gone. Thought is while the back end of these deals may look ugly, a couple titles on the way makes up for it and with the pie growing every year, the impact isn’t as much. Small and middle market teams can’t afford to miss on those deals so they keep contracts shorter to avoid overexposure. One or two dog deals for those teams and it greatly affects how they can operate long term. That’s not the Giants. San Francisco generated $443 million in revenue in 2024, 8th most in the sport. The Giants projected 2025 payroll is $217 million, 14th in the sport. The luxury tax is $241 million, the team is $24 million under that number before any of baseball’s small pittance penalties come into play. The Dodgers payroll is $393 million, on revenues of $549 million. In other words the Dodgers are spending 71.5% of their revenue on player payroll. The Giants are spending $217 million on payroll with revenues of $443 million which is 49% of revenues on payroll. Teams over the luxury tax threshold pay a 20% penalty the first year, 30% the second and 50% every year they are over until they get under and then the penalties reset. The Dodgers are constant offenders so they pay a 50% rate in 2025, which is $76 million. That brings their total commitment of payroll to $466 million or more than twice what the Giants will spend. I can hear the screams now, it’s all about the money. That would be inaccurate, it’s about how you acquire talent and using all the resources available to you, especially as a big market team.
First of all, the Giants are the biggest single market team in baseball. New York is market one, they have the Yankees and the Mets. Los Angles is market two, Dodgers and Angels. Market three Chicago, Cubs and White Sox. Market four is the Bay Area. The A’s may have just left, but they haven’t been relevant in the market for a number of years. The full effect of their departure means starting now, no local revenue pie to share. All corporate sponsors and local revenue goes to the Giants if you want to back baseball in the Bay. If for example, the Giants wanted to defer contractual money like the Dodgers did for Shohei Ohtani, the pie will grow, so why not pay later for a player now, knowing not only is baseball revenue growing with multiple platforms with deep pockets jumping aboard, but locally your revenue will jump with the Oakland A’s officially in Sacramento and maybe leaving the state entirely soon. The Giants don’t put players on a credit card. Self imposed rule. MLB has put on a platter a way for major market teams to take advantage of their smaller counter parts and San Francisco says they’d rather put everything on the debit card and pay now. The major advantage they are missing is teams can manipulate the tax to keep a player’s cost against the tax down and the deferred money doesn’t count against future payroll. For example, Ohtani singed a 10-year $700 million deal. Yet his tax number over the 10 years is not $70 million, it’s $46 million. The Dodgers save $24 million a year against the tax number and that same amount in penalties so they can spend more year to year. The trade off is they pay Ohtani $680M over the 10 years after his contract expires to not play. However, they are not taxed on deferred money and it does not count against future payroll. So they save payroll space and tax penalties. If Los Angeles didn’t defer the money and paid $70 million a season they would have less to spend on payroll and a higher tax bill. They then reinvest it in more players and payroll. It’s a gift from baseball for the big market teams and the Giants say we’d rather pay cash.
THIS IS HOW THE 2025 GIANTS WERE BUILT:
| WAY TO BUILD | PROJECTED 2025 OPENING DAY ROSTER / HOW ACQUIRED |
| DRAFT | (8) Heliot Ramos (1-19, 2017), Tyler Fitzgerald (4-116, 2019), Patrick Bailey (1-13, 2020), Logan Webb (4, 2014), Kyle Harrison (3-85, 2020), Ryan Walker (31st Rd, 2018), Tyler Rogers (10th Rd, 2013), Sean Hjelle (2-45, 2018), |
| FREE AGENCY | (9) Willy Adames Dec. 2024, Jung Hoo Lee Dec. 2023, Matt Chapman Mar. 2024, Wilmer Flores Feb 2020, Tom Murphy Dec 2023, Jerar Encarnacion May 2024, Justin Verlander Jan 2025, Jordan Hicks Jan 2024, Lou Trivino Feb 2025, |
| TRADES | (6) LaMonte Wade Jr Feb 2021, Mike Yastrzemski March 2021, Brett Wisely Nov 2022, Robbie Ray Jan 2024, Erik Miller Jan 2023, Tristan Beck July 2019. |
| INTERNATIONAL | (3) Luis Matos Ven. July 2018, Camilo Doval Dom. Oct 2015, Randy Rodriguez Dom. July 2017. |
| JAPAN | (0) |
| DEFERRED MONEY | (0) |
RESULTS:
Draft: Two All-Stars in LF Ramos and number one starter Webb. Projected everyday starters in Bailey at catcher and Fitzgerald at second base. Closer Ryan Walker is All-Star caliber and Rogers and Hjellie are solid bullpen arms. Harrison is likely the fourth starter with upside.
Conclusion: Webb is the best player on the team, we’ll see if Ramos is more the guy we saw in first half or second last season. Bailey is gold glove potential, but bat is iffy. Fitzgerald had hot stretches, I’d rather see him as a super utility player. Walker is the closer after taking over for Doval, let’s see it again. Grade B.
Free Agency: Adames was supposed to be the start of a busy offseason, but they Giants stop spending depite being a projected $24 million under the tax, which is very prohibitive anyway. Chapman is a two-way stud who was extended in the offseason. Jury is still out on Lee after a major injury wrecked his rookie season. Verlander hopes to turn the clock back but had a major neck injury last season and he’s 42. Murphy was hurt all of 2024, Flores looks done, Hicks should be in the pen, Trivino, the former A’s reliever is a flier.
Conclusion: Chapman was a great signing, I think Adames will be too but expected one more splash in 2025, Giants decided to save money for some reason despite the fact they are way under tax. Verlander is a great name but this isn’t 2015 and shouldn’t be counted on as a #2 at this point of his career, but he will be. Hicks is five and fly and would be better served as an opener and 7th inning guy to set up Doval for Walker to form a nasty 7-8-9 to end games. Grade C
Trades: Wade would be solid if the team he were on had more power and better hitters to take advantage of his on base skills, Yaz is a great defender in RF, streaky as a hitter, but has been a solid Giant for the price paid, which was basically nothing. Wisely showed something last year. Anything was better than what the Giants gave up for Ray (Mitch Haniger), Miller is an average bullpen arm, Beck has been hurt and just OK.
Conclusion: Nothing above average to see here. Wade and Yaz need to be replaced in traditional power positions, Yaz would be a great fourth outfielder, Wade would be okay on a team with more pop around the diamond. We’ll see if Ray if back from Tommy John surgery which will possibly upgrade that trade. Grade C-
International: I guess we could put Marco Luciano on this list, but I’m not sure he makes the opening day roster, but for all his hype over the years, his future looks murky without a position to play. I expect Doval to bounce back, Matos has been a tease to this point, Rodriguez showed flashes.
Conclusion: Always hype around these signings, but trying to project 16-17 year old kids playing on torn up fields with old Chuck Taylor’s on, a handed down glove and beaten up gear to the Major Leagues in 7-8 years is like trying to hit a Tim Lincecum diving curve ball with a blindfold on. Doval bounce back would help, it took 6 years to figure out Luciano had no position. The Giants have been poor for a number of years here and haven’t hit big since signing Pablo Sandoval in 2003. Long gone are the days of Juan Marichal, Orlando Cepeda and the Alou brothers, Felipe and Matty. Grade D
Japan: None.
Conclusion: Former Giant Masanori Murakami was the first Japanese player to play in the major leagues in 1964, but San Francisco hasn’t had a Japanese player appear in a game since Nori Aioki in 2015 and before that Kensuke Tanaka in 2013. It would seem with the diverse culture of San Francisco and the proximity to Japan, the Giants would be a welcoming destination for Japanese players. Reports surfaced though after the Giants latest failed attempt, this time for pitcher Roki Sasaki who signed with the Dodgers, the Giants were thinking of abandoning pursuing Nippon Professional Baseball players altogether. Grade F
Deferrals: None.
Conclusion: The player is giving you an interest free loan on his future salary, Major League Baseball is not taxing the money now or later, you can pay the player more now tax free, it’s buying now and putting it on a credit card when your revenues will be larger but there are no interest charges. It makes no sense when a major market team doesn’t use this loophole gifted by the baseball bean counters to win now and pay less, yet the Giants let the Dodgers have all the fun with the credit cards. Grade F
Bottom line is the Giants are a major market team, the majoriest market team with no in market competition. While fans complain about the Dodgers taking advantage of the system, the system is built for the big boys to dominate the sport. To do that, you have to think of yourself like a big dog, the Giants would rather run with the pups.
- The Giants self impose limits: While baseball is clearly trending to 5+ year deals for pitchers and 10+ year deals for superstar position players, San Francisco has never had a position player contract longer than Buster Posey’s 9-year $167 million deal in 2013 or Barry Zito’s 7 -year $126 million in 2006. In both cases, the players helped the Giants win at least one World Series. The Giants should also have learned that while Zito’s deal was largely a failure, no Zito, no World Series title in 2012. These deals are prohibitive and risky but the hope is you get a World Series or two out of them like San Francisco did with these knowing the back end could look ugly. They tired to give Carlos Correa a 13-year deal, but it fell apart last minute in 2023. Their reluctance to go five years for pitchers prevented them for keeping Kevin Gausman who secured a 5-year deal from the Blue Jays in 2022. Meanwhile recent Giants Blake Snell (5 years), and Carlos Rodon (6 years), were lost on longer deals elsewhere. Their reluctance to go long term likely cost them chances at impact starters the last couple off seasons with Corbin Burnes 6 years, Max Fried 8 years and Kodai Senga 5 years.
- They won’t spend to the tax line: They have $24 million still under the luxury tax for 2025, a self imposed line.
- First year the tax penalty is 20%, second year it’s 30% of the amount over the number. For example if the Giants went over by $30M this season, they’d pay a penalty of $6 million, that’s one night of hot dogs at the yard. They could have spent $50M more on payroll this season, or Corbin Burnes and Pete Alonso, but they’d rather put it in their pocket, figuring Oracle Park and the turnstiles are the real stars.
- The Giants spend 49% of their revenue on payroll, the Dodgers spend 71% of their revenue on payroll.
- The Dodgers have three Japanese superstars on their roster, the Giants haven’t had a Japanese player play for them since 2015 and they’ve never had a Japanese All-Star. Beyond those current players the Dodgers have featured Hideo Nomo, Yu Darvish, Kenta Maeda, and Hiroki Kuroda, a total of 12 players have donned Dodgers blue. It’s a pipeline the Giants can’t access despite their obvious advantages in luring these players to the Bay Area. There are currently 13 players from Japan in the Major Leagues. The Dodgers have 3, Cubs 2, Padres 2 and one each for the Angels, Mets, Orioles, Phillies, Red Sox and Tigers.
- The Giants had the international pipeline in the 1950’s but haven’t signed a high impact international prospect since Pablo Sandoval in 2003, Camilo Doval could get there. The Dodgers signed Roberto Clemente in 1954 and haven’t stopped.
- The best trade the Giants have made in the last 10 years was Hunter Pence from the Phillies in 2012. I’ve said for years, the Giants need to sign excess pitching and trade pitching for hitting, because generally power sticks won’t come to hit in this home park. Willy Adames bucked the trend this offseason but the stigma still remains. Farhan Zaidi was too afraid of trading his precious, underachieving prospects to even chance losing one for an impact veteran player. Meanwhile the Dodgers current roster features Mookie Betts, Tommy Edman, Chris Taylor, Tyler Glasnow, Michael Kopech, Alex Vesia, and Brusdar Graterol who all arrived in trades.
For the Giants to get back to winning, they need to be much better and aggressive in all avenues of roster building, start acting like a major market team bullying around the small guys, take advantage of baseball’s loop hole credit card gift and shake the dust off their wallets, that is unless they like living life in the Dodgers wake. If so, happy wild card hunting….Again.