Happy New Year and welcome to the first 2026 installment of the Giants Mailbagg. Thanks to everyone who submitted questions. There were tons of good ones but since so many paralleled one another, I’m choosing fewer than normal so that I can try to respond to them with a little more thought and detail.
Let’s get right to it:
Why should Giants fans continue to care about a team that does not seem to be trying to win? — Chris A.
I’m going to pull back the editorial curtain a bit. Here at The Athletic, we have a Slack channel in which writers submit budget lines for stories they have in process. I was scrolling through it the other day and couldn’t help but notice six or seven variations on the same theme. Dennis Lin is writing about what’s behind the San Diego Padres’ slow offseason. Zack Meisel is “sorting out a confusing Guardians roster.” C. Trent Rosecrans gets straight to the point: “Have the Reds done enough this offseason?” Matt Gelb wants to know what’s taking the Phillies so long to sign J.T. Realmuto. Chris Kirschner wants to know what’s taking the Yankees so long to acquire a starting pitcher and Brendan Kuty wants to know why the Yankees haven’t signed Cody Bellinger. Will Sammon writes about the Mets seemingly failing to match their fans’ sense of urgency to sign a big name like Kyle Tucker. Maybe brew a cup and find a comfortable chair before you read this comprehensive rundown from Sammon and Ken Rosenthal listing all the unfinished business around the league. If we had a Rockies writer, the budget line might be, “Why are the Rockies?”
The point is that it’s been a slow offseason across the sport — and that’s after the hot stove season began with a fairly lackluster crop of free agents. It’s an uncertain time within the industry. Even those teams with secure TV contracts are dealing with shaky revenue projections. A labor impasse and lockout appear inevitable in 11 months or so. That’s not an excuse for the inactivity of any team that hasn’t done enough to improve its roster. It’s just the way the wind is blowing right now.
Weather reports aside, I agree wholeheartedly that the Giants haven’t done enough to improve their roster. Up to this point, each of their moves taken in isolation has been defensible and has the potential to make them better. There’s a lot to like about Tyler Mahle as an upside play. Adrian Houser has some intriguing, under-the-hood attributes. These are also not the droids you were looking for. Grant Brisbee nails it: The Giants need another starting pitcher, and from what I am hearing, it won’t be Max Scherzer or a reunion with Justin Verlander. The bullpen strikes me as one enormous hope and a prayer, too.
You’re underwhelmed. You have every right to feel that way. It’s warranted. But “not trying to win” is an incomplete characterization, I think. A franchise that isn’t trying to win doesn’t take on eight years and $250 million while trading for Rafael Devers, or set a franchise record by signing Willy Adames for $183 million. When Buster Posey pulled off the stunning trade for Devers, we all wrote that he jumped the trade deadline by six weeks. Well, he also might have been getting a six-month jump on the offseason. I think Posey and ownership knew that taking on the Devers money would be shooting their shot. I have no doubt that part of the calculus of making the Devers deal was considering the upcoming crop of free agents and realizing that there wouldn’t be anyone available who fit their needs in quite the same way. Tucker, Bo Bichette and Alex Bregman are all solid players, but none of them has the kind of power that can shrink one of the toughest parks for left-handed hitters.
I think the confounding question, then, and the one best asked, is a little different. And hey! Thankfully, about two dozen of you savvy readers submitted some version of it.
I just don’t get this offseason (so far). The team committed a ton of money to a relatively older position player core that will quickly start having diminishing returns, yet they show no urgency to build as competitive of a team as possible to take advantage of that window. If this is the team they roll into the season with, why even bring in Adames, Devers etc.? I know this has been written about before but I still am just utterly baffled. Help! — Jonathan P.
I always forget the distinction between ethos and pathos, but when it comes to the pulse of Giants fandom, Jonathan seems to have a pretty good handle on both here — and a dash of logos, too. Matt Chapman is a consummate professional who works very hard on his conditioning and his baseball skills. He will also turn 33 in April and he’s under contract for four more seasons after 2026. It’s reasonable to assume that future Matt Chapman is never going to be more productive than he will be this year. Adames is 30 and everyone knew from the moment he signed his seven-year contract that he wouldn’t be a shortstop at the conclusion of it. Devers is 29 and he has bat speed that is the stuff of a 22-year-old prospect’s dreams, but he’s also got a violent, full-tilt swing that probably won’t hold up so well into his mid-30s.
The point: the Giants will never squeeze more juice out of these players than they will this season. They’ll have to deal with the actuarial toll of their declining years. The whole reason you make that devil’s bargain is because of what those players can do for you in their prime. So … why haven’t the Giants done more to augment a position player core that should be geared to win now? Why pay such a high price to squeeze that juice and then get stingy with the gin?
Well, the Giants have always operated this way: The front office makes recommendations to ownership about player acquisitions and then ownership approves or says no. Over the years, whether it’s Shohei Ohtani or Carlos Correa or Yoshinobu Yamamoto or the Devers trade, ownership has given its approval. The executive board has displayed a lot of trust in baseball ops, whether it was being run by Bobby Evans or Farhan Zaidi, and obviously, there’s a huge amount of trust in anything that comes out of Posey’s mouth.
So what’s happening now? Well, I think a big part of it is that this front office really does believe that it will get more out of this group of internal pitching options. They’re not impressed with the free-agent pool of talent available to them. They haven’t felt that they could make the case to ownership to take a big swing. And part of working with ownership is being able to read the room. It’s not lost on Posey and GM Zack Minasian that the ownership group would prefer to exercise restraint or why that might be the case. This is an organization that just sold off 10 percent to private equity and must brace for a significant downturn in TV revenue. (Don’t forget that the Giants get a chunk of their rightsholder fees from NBC Sports Bay Area as a percentage of revenues, and the cord-cutting era is killing the golden goose: all that passive income from cable subscribers who paid for the sports channels even if they didn’t want them.) Of course, it’d be the height of disingenuousness for the Giants to cry poor. But it’s understandable to some extent that they might prefer to exercise a bit of restraint.
It’s free to ask, you say? I’m not so sure life really works that way. You lose credibility when you ask recklessly.
Here’s the important caveat: The offseason isn’t over yet. There’s still time to be opportunistic. We saw what happened when the market didn’t develop for Blake Snell, Chapman and Jorge Soler before the 2023 season. The Giants signed all three players in spring training. It didn’t work out, and the Snell deal continues to be an impediment (that can’t be a good feeling to slip that $17 million check in the mail to him next week), but ownership was ready to sign off on what the front office presented as a market opportunity. I can’t say I’m confident those opportunities will exist a month or six weeks from now, but you never know. It’s pretty easy to make the case that signing Alex Bregman, for example, would elevate the Giants’ lineup from solid to one of the best in the league. Let’s see how the rest of the offseason plays out.
Of course, any Bregman contract is almost certain to include opt-outs. As for that …
Tatsuya Imai signed a three-year, $54 million contract with the Astros that includes additional incentives and opt-outs after 2026 and 2027.
How much interest did the Giants have in Japanese starter Tatsuya Imai? Buster is on record opposing opt-outs. Did this stance factor into negotiations? — Jay O.
There was interest in Imai and he signed with the Astros for much less than industry estimates. But if you really examine his contract, folding in the posting fee (which a team pays up front on the percentage of the guaranteed money and receives no refunds if the player opts out), it’s essentially a one-year, $30 million contract. Teams cannot publicly disclose their opinions on free agents, but it’s obvious that the Giants didn’t value Imai as a one-year, $30 million player. There’s some concern over how his fastball will play. Now, if Orix ends up posting dominant 23-year-old right-hander Shunpeita Yamashita in a year or two, it’ll be a different story. He’ll be pursued as hotly as Yoshinobu Yamamoto was, and I’d anticipate the Giants will be as aggressive as anyone else.
As for opt-outs, you’re right, Posey came into this job with some principled stances. He wanted a free-agent contract to feel like a reciprocal commitment — investing in players who wanted to be a Giant. It’s an admirable stance and it’s good for clubhouse bonhomie. It can also be self-limiting when your organizational goal should be to open up every possible avenue to improving the club. I haven’t had a conversation with Posey about this, but my hunch is that he’s come around to a more nuanced stance, whether the subject is opt-outs, or running guys through waivers, or making incremental roster moves that necessitate a little bit of churn.
What is the plan to fix the outfield defense? Even as waiver claims with slim chances to make the major-league roster, Justin Dean and Joey Wiemer graded as plus defenders that could have at least raised the team’s defensive floor. Both are now cut and the outfield is set to be the same as it was last year. — Ricky S.
At one point this offseason, the Giants had 10 outfielders on the 40-man roster. That’s like leaving your anvil on a seesaw. There’s a better place for that thing, especially if you want to use the seesaw. It was untenably out of balance, and so far, the solution has been to whittle that group down with DFAs. Marco Luciano was claimed by the Pirates and then the Orioles. Wade Meckler was claimed by the Angels. (I like to imagine the Minasian brothers making a “Trading Places” inspired $1 bet on how many hits Meckler will get in the big leagues this season.) Weimer seemed to fit the roster as a defensive asset and platoon partner for Drew Gilbert, but it turns out he was more of a grab-and-hopefully-stash waiver pickup. The Nationals claimed Weimer and we’ll find out if someone claims Dean, who was DFA’d to make roster space for Mahle.
This leaves the Giants outfield … pretty much exactly where it was when the offseason began. Jerar Encarnacion might be the next best fit if right field becomes a platoon, but (this is either a rhetorical question or a sanity test) would the Giants really feel comfortable rolling out a defensive outfield of Heliot Ramos, Jung Hoo Lee and Encarnacion?
Jung Hoo Lee and Heliot Ramos combined for minus-14 outs above average in 2025. (Eakin Howard / Imagn Images)
Expanding the question a bit: How much longer can the Giants dither on Grant McCray and Tyler Fitzgerald? They have the athleticism that fits the kind of offensive identity that two administrations have pledged (and failed) to create. They also have ghastly contact rates that would make them a poor match for an offensive identity rooted in putting the ball in play and making things happen. They are a very nice brown belt and a very nice pair of black boots.
Whether it’s McCray or Fitzgerald, or Luis Matos this spring, or Luciano, or Joey Bart, the Giants have been in this situation way too often in recent years. They can’t figure out what they have with their graduated former top prospects. Yet they can’t quite move on or make a trade, either. Their default mode has been to run out the options clock, which seems entirely suboptimal. Clearly, something has to change. More specific to your question, they need a plus center fielder who can help minimize Ramos as a liability in left and allow Lee’s defense and arm to play up as a right fielder. Harrison Bader apparently wants a three-year contract. I can’t imagine that’s a good idea for any team. I also can’t imagine a more direct fix for what the Giants need.
How do you see the Giants going about trying to improve their prospect development pipeline? The well has seemed to run dry for a long time and we don’t seem to be willing to rebuild at the major-league level to get better draft picks. — John M.
Well, thanks to the draft lottery, the Giants will select fourth this year. The only times they’ve picked higher, they’ve taken Matt Williams, Will Clark and Joey Bart. So they should get a player that fans will be excited about. Our draft analyst, Keith Law, sees a deep group among the top five or six picks.
Of course, luck is not a strategy. Things need to change. I don’t believe that Buster Posey and Randy Winn have been in charge long enough for us to make evaluations about the direction of the farm system, but there was a clear emphasis on contact hitting in last year’s draft. Infielder Gavin Kilen could move quickly and club officials were ecstatic after watching Rutgers outfielder Trevor Cohen make his pro debut with San Jose.
Next week, the Giants will announce an agreement with Luis Hernandez, a 15-year-old shortstop from Venezuela who is expected to receive the largest bonus of any player once the international signing period begins. Along with Josuar Gonzalez, a switch-hitting shortstop who was the prize of last year’s class and has been compared to Francisco Lindor, that’s a pretty good infusion of talent. And the more talent you have, the more palatable it can be to trade some of it away to address immediate major-league needs. It’s been a long time since the Giants were in a position to do that. And it’s worked to their detriment in the NL West, since the Dodgers and Padres seem to use that playbook to some extent every winter.
Name a couple of players that (much of) the fan base is unfamiliar (with) who could end up contributing quite a lot in 2026. — Brian R.
There had to be a lot of second-guessing within the front office when club officials broke down their season and came to the subject of Trevor McDonald. They went through nearly a dozen options while trying to address a needy rotation before they turned to McDonald in September and all he did was pitch brilliantly. He’s got every bit of Landen Roupp’s tenacity and competitiveness. He’s got four pitches that he can mix to keep hitters off balance. He was drafted in 2019 yet he’ll be just 24 when he reports to spring training. Last year, Randy Rodríguez was my pick to have a breakout season, which required no special skills on my part. Anyone could’ve seen it coming. McDonald might be best positioned to be that guy in 2026.
Unfortunately, I don’t have another name that springs to mind. I think that’s mostly because when you’re looking at players who develop quickly and sneakily into big-league contributors, they’re usually pitchers. And right now, the Giants’ prospect group is tilted toward position players. I probably would’ve put right-hander Spencer Miles on this list, but the Toronto Blue Jays grabbed him in the Rule 5 draft. I’d imagine it will be tough for a Rule 5 pick to crack the Blue Jays’ roster, though. If they don’t trade him to another team, he could end up back with the Giants.
As a long-time Giants fan, I’d say this has been a very disappointing offseason. They can’t even formally announce their coaching staff. I understand spring training hasn’t gotten here yet. If buying the Curran Theater is the biggest offseason expense, that’s a problem. — Deborah P.
Actually, their biggest offseason expense (to date) will be the $17 million check they’ll cut to Snell on Jan. 15 — his deferred signing bonus for the 20 starts he made for them in 2023. But I can’t imagine that will make you feel better, especially if you conflate investing in the arts in San Francisco with signing a right fielder. I’m pretty sure the Curran Theater didn’t come out of the payroll budget. The Snell money definitely does, though. Maybe try not to think about that the next time he faces the Giants in a Dodgers uniform.