The San Francisco Giants’ offseason will be a fascinating one regardless of who they’re able to acquire.
In their first winter since longtime catcher Buster Posey replaced Farhan Zaidi as the team’s president of baseball operations, the Giants are hoping a change in the front office can lead to a change on the field. It was a bold move, at least symbolically.
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The Giants could use help on the pitching and hitting sides after getting outscored, and finishing with a losing record, for the second straight season.
In winters past they have tried to sign marquee free agents Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani — each time emerging among the finalists but falling just short.
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According to FanSided’s Robert Murray, the Giants are again determined to make a splash.
“I would say they’re open, like especially if they’re in the Juan Soto sweepstakes, they clearly have the budget to add a big salary,” Murray said on The Baseball Insiders podcast with Adam Weinrib. “If they’re going to try to get a meeting they clearly have some flexibility.”
Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported the Giants are among the six teams known to have scheduled an in-person meeting this month with Soto and his agent, Scott Boras.
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Soto hit a career-high 41 home runs for the Yankees in 2024, helping lead the team to its first World Series appearance in 15 years. He is widely expected to command the most lucrative contract of any free agent this offseason — if not ever — after scoring an American League-leading 128 runs, driving in 109, and reaching base at a .419 clip in his first season in the Bronx.
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While Murray acknowledged the Giants’ desire to spend big this winter could be a “Soto-or-bust” scenario, he also wouldn’t rule Posey out of the bidding on free agent starting pitcher Corbin Burnes.
Burnes was the 2021 National League Cy Young Award winner. In 2024, he made his fourth consecutive All-Star team by going 15-9 with a 2.92 ERA for the Baltimore Orioles. The 30-year-old right-hander is a California native (Bakersfield) who played collegiately in the Bay Area (St. Mary’s).
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“Burnes would be intriguing paired with Logan Webb and Kyle Harrison,” Murray said. “That’s about as strong of a 1-2-3 punch as you can really ask for. That would make for one of the best young rotations in baseball, or one of the best overall rotations in baseball if you end up adding (Burnes).”
Murray went on to suggest the Giants could have higher priorities than adding another pitcher — an area in which they have a longer track record of success developing talent from within. Should Burnes wind up in San Francisco, count it as a surprise coup for Posey.
“They’re going to prioritize up-the-middle options — Ha-Seong Kim, a Willy Adames,” Murray said of the Giants. “I know that they’re considering a bunch of different possibilities here.”
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