Who will be the Giants’ next free agent signing?

It turns out the San Francisco Giants did not miss out on Corbin Burnes because they weren’t really in on him, so as we head into 2025, we’re forced to examine not a pivot but the plan all along. On that note, let’s follow Buster Posey’s lead:

Andrew Baggarly via Bluesky: Where do Giants pivot following Burnes to AZ? Buster Posey responded via text: “We believe in our young arms, and feel like they are in a position to take some big steps forward. Will continue to look on the offensive side for players that give us a chance to score runs in multiple ways.”

I’ll read this as a tacit acknowledgement that the team is out on Roki Sasaki, too, despite Posey’s hopes just two and a half weeks ago:

With that dream effectively dashed, all that’s left is dreaming big on two or three out of the Dodgers, Diamondbacks, Padres, Braves, Mets, Phillies, Brewers, Cubs, or Reds (with new manager Terry Francona) having tremendously bad seasons to give the 2025 Giants a chance of sneaking into the postseason as the third Wild Card.

In order for that dream to have a chance of becoming a reality, the Giants will need to be ready with a semi-talented roster, a situation that has mostly eluded the franchise for the past 8 seasons. Some of us thought that meant a combination of great pitching (Snell, Burnes, Sasaki, Fried) and great hitting (Soto, Adames), but it’s clear now that the plan all along has been to grab a dynamic shortstop and hope to get lucky on the pitching front.

With no luck on the pitching front, I’m sure they will look into signing Justin Verlander or Max Scherzer to a musty 1-year deal that will excite the oldest season ticketholders and move the needle exactly zero with the ball-knowers, but that’s fine. We’re on to the hitters, and maybe that will be the next move. But I’ve been wrong about a lot this offseason.

I think the Giants should be invested in finding a left-handed bat with some thump or dynamism, but that might not be the case. While it’s true that the Giants have their eyes on hitters who “have a knack for finding the barrel” and are “complete players that can steal some bases and take the extra base when they need to and pressure,” that might have been November thinking that was satisfied by the acquisition of Willy Adames. As December ends and we head into January, the current thinking could be radically different.

As Susan Slusser mentions in her Burnes post mortem:

The Giants remain in the market for a first baseman or DH, too, and four-time All-Star Pete Alonso, who has hit 226 home runs in six seasons with the Mets, is on their radar.

Again, different from November thinking, when Buster Posey told Shayna Rubin, “It goes without saying, Oracle Park is a historically tough place to hit homers. Not that we’ll discount the value of the home run […]”

It’s also hard to know who has their finger on the pulse about the Giants. Pete Alonso is a Scott Boras client. Slusser seems to have a better relationship with Boras than some other Giants beat writers, who largely don’t report on rumors of Giants’ maneuvers during the offseason — indeed, they usually come off as the last to know about breaking Giants news.

Slusser reporting that the Giants have interest could be a way of increasing pressure on the Mets, who may or may not have already offered Alonso 3 years and $90 million (with opt outs after years 1 & 2). If the Giants wouldn’t offer Corbin Burnes a $30 million AAV, then I don’t see why they’d offer Alonso $30 million AAV, unless the season ticketholders are demanding Greg Johnson signs a guy whose name they recognize and might think wins the Home Run Derby every year (his two wins are 2019 & 2021). I can’t discount the “Puts Butts In Seats” factor, though. On that note, Alonso has hit well at Oracle: .273/.347/.563 (.910 OPS) with 11 home runs in 33 games.

Last weekend’s run on first basemen should have snuffed out the Giants’ designs on bolstering that position — but again, I have been way off the mark this offseason. Maybe Pete Alonso is their guy. Would that be so bad? I think so, given his consistent decline…

Pete Alonso – batting lines by season (except 2020):

2019: .260/.358/.583 (53 HR, 120 RBI), 4.7 fWAR
2021: .262/.344/.519 (37 HR, 94 RBI), 3.5 fWAR
2022: .271/.352/.518 (40 HR, 131 RBI), 3.8 fWAR
2023: .217/.318/.504 (46 HR, 118 RBI), 2.8 fWAR
2024: .240/.329/.459 (34 HR, 88 RBI), 2.1 fWAR

But! The Giants aren’t looking strictly at the numbers. They’re looking at clubhouse presence and winnitude (winning attitude). He’s also an RBI guy. About a month ago, I looked at guys through this lens and compiled this list:

The only players available/possibly available on this list: Pete Alonso, Justin Turner, Ian Happ, Nick Castellanos, J.D. Martinez, Anthony Santander.

I doubt Buster Posey would want Justin Turner anywhere near the team and vice versa and J.D. Martinez would rather retire than hit at Oracle Park, and the rest of that group has a pretty high price tag, relative to what the Giants seem able to spend. The downside seems to be greater than the upside.

So, let’s lower our expectations. The Adames signing was a red herring. The Giants are not going to blowout the budget, and there are no free agents worth doing that with at this point anyway. Trades are very hard to pull off in MLB, especially for a first-time executive who is not tanking, so, let’s presume that that’s off the table for now, too.

The best of the rest — or, at least, what’s possible — aren’t very exciting or even all that promising, but that’s okay, because neither are the Giants. They just need to bolster their roster with some solid players in case 100 things break their way in 2025.

Joey Gallo

Up until 2021, Gallo looked like he might be the next Adam Dunn, but since then, he’s basically bounced around the sport as a source of cheap power. The Rangers traded him to the Yankees at 2021’s deadline after he put up a line of .223/.379/.490 with 25 home runs. Since that trade, he’s never broken .200 on batting average and his on base percentage has dropped to .280-.303 and his slug has disappeared, too. This is on top of basically a 40% strikeout rate. The Oracle Park effect on left-handed hitters should only make what’s left of his baseball juice worse, but I’m including him on this list because if the Giants sign him it should signal to you that the team is truly flailing.

Anthony Rizzo

I’m including Rizzo for much the same reason, but I think he’s one of those winnitude guys who might have some defenders — or, at least, a cluster of fans willing to defend the decision to sign him to a 1-year deal. The 14-year veteran is a World Series winner and 3-time All Star with a pair of Gold Gloves (2019 & 2020). But his heyday was last decade, and since 2021, he’s been a league average hitter, basically. 2020 was his age-30 season (which will be Pete Alonso’s season in 2025) and in the four seasons since, he’s gone from an All-Star talent to an old man ballplayer (.236/.330/.416, 5.2 fWAR), and the past two seasons signal an end to a career rather than one due for a resurgence (.237/.315/.358). He’s the left-handed version of Pete Alonso, in other words and, again the Oracle Park effect on left-handed hitters would certainly worsen the odds that he has one last good season.

Josh Bell

Basically a league average player whose breakout in 2019 (37 HR, 94 RBI, 3.0 fWAR) was the best year of his career. He’s played for six teams over the course of his nine-year career, though, suggesting that he’s nice to have but never valuable enough to keep.

Since 2021, he’s hit .256/.339/.430 with 85 HR and 304 RBI (4.5 fWAR) as a switch hitter. His career OPS split is solid: .798 as a left-handed hitter against righties, .770 as a right-handed hitter against lefties, and at Oracle Park he’s hit .276/.370/.437 in 101 PA (23 games).

In terms of projected value, the Giants might be better off sticking to a Wilmer Flores/LaMonte Wade Jr. platoon, which will cost about $8.5 million and might put up a similar line plus sport better defense. Bell is coming off an AAV of $16.5 million and might be in line for something in the $12-$14 million range. He’s been a dreadful first baseman for his entire career, though, with a -33 Outs Above Average, per Statcast. That makes him, effectively, a DH-only bat, same as Pete Alonso (-26 OAA).

Ty France

Also a bad first baseman (-24 OAA), but France’s right-handed bat and general power might play okay at Oracle Park. From 2021-2023 he hit .272/.348/.415 (120 wRC+) with 50 HR, 214 RBI, a 6.4% walk rate against, 16.4% strikeout rate, and 7.1 fWAR. He fell off a performance cliff in 2024 (his age-29 season), hitting 7% below league average (93 wRC+) on a line of .234/.305/.365 and a 21.3% strikeout rate (-0.9 fWAR).

Speculatively, a fractured right heel in early June might’ve sunk his season, and so maybe the Giants see this as an opportunity to get a player coming off a down year who’s due to have a sparkling season on a pillow contract.

All of these guys, and other supplemental free agents such as Dylan Carlson, are unlikely to be signed until mid-to-late January or even February. When we think of the team desiring a bat, our minds tend to jump to All-Stars. None of those are available or would want to sign with the Giants or be available in trade, though — unless Pete Alonso is the target.

Of course, none of this alters our ongoing perception of the Giants’ problems. It’s not an inability to sign top of the market free agents, it’s developing homegrown All-Star talent. That won’t change no matter who they add this offseason.

So, now we wait. What do you think? Is Buster Posey hunting the Polar Bear?

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