Last night, MLB Trade Rumors put out their predictions for the this offseason’s top 50 free agents (as they see it). It was mainly a chance to project the free agent contract, but they also voted on each
player’s next team. I think you should go read the full post, but for our purposes, I’m going to write about all the players they projected to land on the Giants.
I admit that writing about the Farhan Zaidi era was considerably easier than the Buster Posey one has been, mainly because his version of roster management was based on a fairly public set of sabermetric principles. So, not only was it easier to sit down and analyze a transaction, it was fairly straightforward when it came to predicting future ones. Offseason moves had a shape to them. But, maybe I’m overthinking it and that’s still the case even with Buster Posey running the organization?
Last offseason, the Giants needed a shortstop and a starting pitcher and Buster Posey went out and got both. Is it really that simple, despite Greg Johnson throwing water on the notion that the Giants will increase payroll to keep pace with the competition? I’m not convinced. The Giants need either a center fielder or a right fielder, two starting pitchers, and at least a couple of relievers with track records. They almost certainly don’t have the budget for all that and certainly not enough to entice Kyle Tucker to come to the team and serve as a panacea.
Doesn’t mean Buster Posey, Zack Minasian, and Tony Vitello can’t get creative, but it won’t be easy. To that point, MLB Trade Rumors has them landing only two from the top 50 to shore up the pitching staff. The article offers a three-dude panel for selecting the free agent’s final destination and only Zac Gallen and Ranger Suarez to the Giants got 2 votes. 10 others received Giants votes, and I’ll discuss them in a moment. But “Giants” appears 45 times in the post, so they do what we do and consider that the Giants are likely in on a lot of players — they just predicted the Giants getting some mix of this bunch.
They could be right. Their offseason predictions are mainly spot on when it comes to arbitration salaries, but there are a lot more variables in free agency, maybe to the point that our guess is as good as theirs. I wouldn’t argue that, but I do think I can offer a bit more insight into how a player might work on the roster. So, let’s take a look, starting with the two the panel felt most comfortable pencilling in as San Francisco Giants for 2026.
SP Zac Gallen — MLBTR Rank: #15, Projection: 4 yr/$80 million
Pros: A steady right handed starter with a great track record against NL West opponents thanks to being Arizona’s ace for four seasons, the one-time All-Star (2022) has received Cy Young votes in 3 of his 7 seasons and has thrown 1,007.1 innings of 3.58 ERA ball (3.65 FIP). He’s a rare six-pitch pitcher (four-seamer, knucklecurve, changeup, slider, cutter, sinker) who tends to lean on his fastball, curve, and change the most, and that’s because they have been his most productive pitches. You can stick him into the rotation right behind Logan Webb and ahead of Robbie Ray and feel pretty good about your rotation.
Cons: Well, maybe he’s not such a slam dunk. He’s coming off the worst season of his career (4.83 ERA / 4.50 FIP in 192 IP) and will be pitching in his age-30 season in 2026. He’s in what could be a post-peak decline phase.
Evidence?
2022-2023: 394 IP, 9.4 K/9, 2.2 BB/9, 0.85 HR/9, 3.04 ERA, 3.41 xFIP, +9.3 fWAR (6th in MLB for SP)
2024-2025: 340 IP, 8.8 K/9, 3.2 BB/9, 1.16 HR/9, 4.31 ERA, 3.90 xFIP, +3.9 fWAR (29th in MLB for SP)
In 2022 & 2023, he was as valuable as Logan Webb. For the past two seasons, he’s been about as valuable as Zack Littell and Patrick Corbin. That’s not a situation that should compel an organization to surrender a draft pick to acquire him. Gallen received the Qualifying Offer yesterday and it’s likely he’ll reject it for a multi-year deal. The Giants have given up a lot of draft picks in recent years chasing that third Wild Card, but given the available data and historical context for a pitcher, Gallen’s not the safest bet.
Final judgment: The only thing I could say in his defense is that Arizona had a new pitching coach this season (Brian Kaplan) that got off to a rocky start when their big offseason acquisition of Corbin Burnes challenged their pitching plan for him as it conflicted with his own preparation. At the time, the story didn’t turn into “Corbin Burnes is a prima donna” because a lot of industryheads correctly recognized that pitching plans and a pitcher’s comfort/routine was under the purview of the pitching coach and that any scheduling issue that emerged and had to be dealt with by a manager was a failure of said pitching coach.
Does that mean Brian Kaplan flipped Zac Gallen’s switch from good to bad? Probably not. But with a fresh new manager coming in with a fresh new staff, it’s maybe not the best idea to commit to a player whose status going forward is on shaky ground. 4 years and a $20 million AAV for a starting pitcher should not raise ownership’s hackles, but that draft pick and the obvious decline are reason enough to want something better for the Giants.
SP Ranger Suarez — Rank: #10, Projection: 5 yr/$115 million
Pros: He’s been a remarkably consistent lefty starter the past four seasons, averaging around 150 innings when not injured. He strikes out about 8.5 per 9 and walks around 3 per 9. He has a great track record against NL West opponents, and he’s more efficient than the other lefty in the rotation (Robbie Ray), getting into the 90-100 pitch zone consistenly while still averaging 6 innings per start.
Cons: He has a recurring back problem that knocks him out for 6-7 starts every season and would seem to have also contributed to elbow probems from time to time, too, and I don’t expect that to improve with age, especially if Tom Murphy’s accusations about the Giants’ medical staff and their dealings with back injuries have even 10% truth to them. There’s also the matter of losing a draft pick and international bonus pool money to sign him, as the Phillies have offered him the Qualifying Offer.
He’s the modern crafty lefty, with a 90 mph sinker and sharp change off of that. He’s not Cristopher Sanchez, though — that other left-handed Phillie who put the Giants to shame twice in 2025.
Final judgment: Offering him the deal Kevin Gausman got from Toronto in 2022 would absolutely trigger Greg Johnson’s alarm and so I think given that and the negatives above, this is just a little too much of a lift for the Giants to consider, because, like Gallen, it probably impedes their ability to improve elsewhere and, certainly, long-term on the player development side.
Now let’s look at the other 10 players who received 1 vote from the three man panel. I need to mention that, like the two players above, any of these players would help the Giants in 2026, but some more than others and some not beyond the upcoming season. And none of this is to suggest that the only way the team can improve is by signing a handful of Top 50 free agents. That’s not how the game has ever worked.
RF Kyle Tucker — Rank: #1, Projection: 11 yr/$400 million
Pros: He has been the 10th most valuable player (23.4 fWAR) over the past 5 seasons, rounding out a list that goes Aaron Judge (42.8), Shohei Ohtani (31.6), Juan Soto (30.7), Francisco Lindor (29.8), Jose Ramirez (29.8), Trea Turner (28.2), Freddie Freeman (27.0), Bobby Witt Jr. (26.7), and then Mookie Betts (25.2). So, he’s one of the greats playing the game right now. He’s a slugger (.237 ISO) who doesn’t strikeout (15 K%). He keeeee-rushes fastballs. According to Statcast, he has one of the highest run values against the pitch year after year. Injury limited his final line in that measure, but he’s right there with Willy Adames and Rafel Devers. He’d be a critical third heat to a lineup that gets cold too quickly and too often.
Cons: Defensively, he would not be a great fit in Oracle Park unless he moved to left field. That would have a weird knock-on effect where Tony Vitello would have to figure out if Heliot Ramos’s defense could be fixed well enough to make him run around in Triples Alley.
The past two seasons have been injury marred, with a shin contusion limiting him to just 78 games in 2024 and a calf strain causing him to miss three weeks in September.
More alarming is what happened to him starting July 1st. Through June 30th he was slashing .291/.395/.537 (.931 OPS), but hit just .225/.348/.342 (.690 OPS) over the season’s final 3 months (53 G 227 PA).
Then, of course, there’s the money involved on top of losing a draft pick and bonus money for a player who will play his age-29 season in 2026.
Final judgment: You’ll note that the Giants didn’t really go after any of those players above who are in Tucker’s cohort — at least, in the cases where they could. The Judge and Ohtani check-ins were more for marketing purposes than anything else. They knew both those guys were committed elsewhere. The Giants would probably need to offer more than MLB Trade Rumors’ projection to entice Tucker, too. He’d be a good fit on the team, even with Oracle Park’s demonic energy towards left-handed hitters, but this is a Juan Soto situation where the Giants won’t even bother to check in. I shouldn’t have even written this much about the player, but I don’t expect to be writing about him again this offseason.
Okay, now for some editorializing. The rest of this list will go in my order of preference, which skews heavily towards what I think is probable.
SP Justin Verlander – Rank: #38, Projection: 1 yr/$22 million
Pros: That was a really good second half of the season (2.99 ERA in 75.1 IP) and I’m still burping up that crow he made dimwads like me eat. The first ballot Hall of Famer still has that fire and something to prove and on a 1-year deal there’s not a lot of downside.
Cons: But there is some. I’m not sure MLBTR’s got the financial number right, but more than the $15 million he got this past season does start to eat into the team’s financial flexibility to fix all the holes that still need to be patched if they’re to win more games in 2026, both for the franchise and for Justin Verlander. And even though a 43-year old doesn’t seem old to me, a very slightly older man, it’s still unusual and alarming to put that much of a workload and importance on a player of that age.
Final judgment: I hear the Max Scherzer connection to Tony Vitello and I accept it’s very likely to happen. Verlander and Scherzer aren’t sympatico, but I have to believe that Buster Posey’s loyalty at the moment is towards Verlander. If/when Verlander turns down the Giants — to pitch for an actual winner, to pitch closer to home, to get away from the Scherzer rumors — then I think Posey makes the pivot, but I think this has to be a straightforward, “Hey, JV, we loved having you on the team, we’d love to have you back again, are you interested?” and if he’s in, then they go from there.
SP Cody Ponce – Rank: #39, Projection: 2 yrs/$22 million
Pros: The 6’6”, 255 lb. righty reinveented himself overseas pitching in the KBO. His average fastball velocity is in the 95-96 range and he has a cutter, changeup, and curveball to go along with that. MLBTR makes a comparison to Erick Fedde, who left MLB after 6 seasons after a 5.41 ERA in 454.1 IP and similarly reinvented himself in the KBO. He has a 4.27 ERA in 318.1 IP since returning. It’s not a 1:1 comp as Ponce offers more upside, theoretially, but it’s a proof of concept. Ponce hasn’t pitched in MLB since 2021, and before dominating the KBO this season (1.89 ERA in 180.2 IP with 12.6 K/9, 2.0 BB/9, 0.5 HR/9, 0.935 WHIP),he clunked his way through the Japan’s NPB as a reliever (4.54 ERA in 202 IP).
So, this is a massive transformation, and it’s plausible that the Giants scouts who followed Jung Hoo Lee kept tabs on Cody Ponce or became aware of him. I’m not sure MLBTR’s projection will wind up being the final number, but the Giants are already at the deep end of risk this offseason and adding him theoretically fills a need in the rotation.
Cons: He’s from Pomona, so, if the Dodgers want him, they’ve got him. On top of that, it’s just as likely that nothing he did in the KBO sticks when coming back to the states. Jung Hoo Lee has had a tough adjustment and Ponce’s general familiarity notwithstanding, MLB hitters are better overall. I think risk aversion for a tough to project arm is actually pretty healthy and his age (he’ll be 32 in 2026) also adds injury risk.If you’re thinking there’s a connection to the Giants because he was drafted by the Brewers in 2015, when Zack Minasian worked there, forget it: Minasian was the Director of Pro Scouting. He didn’t have a hand in acquiring him then.
Final judgment: Yes, I’m saying that he should be the next Giants’ target after Justin Verlander. Would be a fun story for the Giants this season. A resurrected player resurrecting a dead team. That said, the risk prevents me from saying, “Yeah, Verlander and Ponce satisfies the biggest offseason needs go get ‘em.” That’s a lot of risk combined. If Buster Posey disciplines himself to avoid 1-2 big moves (and I’d label re-signing Verlander a big move), adding Ponce might give the team flexibility to make 4 or 5 medium moves.
SP Max Scherzer – Rank: #48, Projection: 1 yr/$15 million
Pros: Getting a madman like Scherzer into the Giants’ clubhouse would be entertaining as hell, and pairing him with his buddy, Tony Vitello, seems like a team up that would sustain us through rough times in 2026. He’s another Hall of Famer to pass through Oracle Park, too, and as he demonstrated during this most recent postseason, he’s still got something left in the tank.
Cons: It’s not a lot left in his tank, though. He has not aged like Justin Verlander. And he’s a massive villain — at least, he ought to be! He did NOT strike out Wilmer Flores to end the 2021 NLDS.
But anyway, since that humiliation, he’s had one great season (2022 with the Mets — 4.5 fWAR in 145.1 IP), one good one (2.2 fWAR in 152.2 IP in 2023) and two bad ones. He’s totaled just 128.1 IP and 26 starts the past two seasons combined and been worth 1 win above replacement. A 4.77 ERA and 4.72 FIP for a career 3.22 / 3.23 guy. He didn’t even make it on FanGraphs’ ranking list.
Final judgment: I think it was Roger Munter & Kerry Crowley’s KROG podcast where it was suggested that Scherzer could simply sign around May and prepare to be ready late in the season, and that’s probably the best case scenario. Grant Brisbee labeled a signing like this (and Verlander this past season) as The Farhan Zaidi Legacy Tier, but I’m not of the belief that Scherzer is here. It feels as though he already had his “I’ve got something to prove” comeback season and this is just a fiery guy who still wants to pitch. If it’s Ponce + Scherzer, it’s probably an offseason of 4 or 5 medium moves, so I guess I should consider that there’s utility to the move, even if it seems destined for failure.
SP Framber Valdez – Rank: #6, Projection: 5 yrs/$150 million
Pros: To pull another line from Grant Brisbee, he’s “the closest thing to a left-handed Logan Webb that exists.” The innings totals aren’t as sexy, but his 767.2 IP over the past 4 seasons (plus 41.1 postseason innings) are second only to Webb and 33.2 more than 3rd on the list, the aforementioned Zac Gallen. His 16.5 fWAR rounds out a top 5 of Zack Wheeler (19.5), Webb (19.1), Tarik Skubal (18.8), and Kevin Gausman (17.9 — and, lol). After laughing at the Giants for being pennywise and pound foolish re: Gausman, consider that Valdez would be exactly what the Giants need to stabilize their pitching staff. Having two Webb-types really makes a bullpen look good, don’t you think?
Cons: The Qualifying Offer is significant, but he might be the guy you make an exception for; of course, there’s no chance the Giants will go to that number of years and dollars for a pitcher. It’s the exact sort of deal Greg Johnson & co. want to avoid. Also, he’s going to get more than that. Grant also mentioned this incident between Valdez and his catcher, which might put him off Buster Posey’s radar. Blake Snell was blacklisted for less.
Final judgment: There are a lot of soft-tossing lefties on the market this winter, both in the rotation and in relief, and he’s the best of the bunch. One of the best in the sport. But like Kyle Tucker, it’s so not going to happen that this should be the last time you think about him until the Giants have to face him in a game.
CF Harrison Bader – Rank: #31, Projection: 2 yrs/$26 million
Pros: The Giants need a good-to-great centerfielder. Badly. Jung Hoo Lee is fine. Sometimes. Bader is nearly as good as it gets for the position.
Cons: He’s not a total loss at the plate, and in 2 of the last 5 seasons he’s actually been better than league average in a significant chunk of playing time: 108 wRC+ in 401 PA (2021) and 122 wRC+ in 501 PA last season. In between, an 80 wRC+ across 3 seasons and 1,094 plate appearances; so, you know, could go either way.
Along with being a ball magnet (8 HBP in 2024, 11 in 2025), he’s a bit of an injury magnet. The past two seasons have featured 0 IL days, but hear me out: in 2023, a right hamstring strain and a right groin strain sent him there on two separate occasions. That was after starting the season on the IL with an oblique strain. The year before that he missed half the season with plantar fascitis. A hamstring strain in 2019. It’s the result of being such an all-out defender at a tough position, I’m sure, but after two spotless years and his age-32 season upcoming, I’m enough on guard to believe he ought not to be the team’s #1 offseason priority.
Final judgment: He’d help the Giants an awful lot and, personality-wise, seems like a Tony Vitello kind of player. I think it’s a good fit, but if he’s the main add this offseason then the Giants are in trouble. And if they’re not connected to him at all — they have been in the past — it’d be a huge surprise and a headscratcher.
RP Raisel Iglesias — Rank: #32, Projection: 2 yrs/$26 million
Pros: The Giants do need help in the bullpen and he has proven himself to be extremely reliable. He has spent the majority of his career (9.5 of 11 seasons) pitching in two of the most notorious hitters’ parks: The Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati and Truist Park in Atlanta. In Cincy, he posted a 3.15 ERA (3.44 FIP) in 411.2 IP (274 appearances). The past three and a half seasons in Atlanta: 2.58 ERA (2.91 FIP) in 254.1 IP (261 appearances). He’s losing that strikeout stuff (9.3 K/9 the past two seasons; career: 10.6) but he doesn’t walk batters or many hits in general. He’s had a sub-1 WHIP the past two seasons. He’s a fastball-changeup guy like Devin Williams, so there’s a case to be made that these are very similar players.
Cons: He’ll be 36 next season and that’s a big enough red flag that I’m not sure the Giants should shoulder such risk for a closer.
Final judgment: Okay, if it’s down to Iglesias or Devin Williams, I think it’s Iglesias, because the years plus the lower AAV do matter. If he’s part of a “spreading the money around” strategy, then he could be a very sweet cherry atop a surprisingly tasty sundae.
RP Devin Williams — Rank: #16, Projection: 4 yrs/$68 million
Pros: If you only follow Yankees games via social media then you’d have thought that Devin Williams had been kicking Yankees fans in the teeth all season long. At the end of the day, his ugly 4.79 ERA might be a better indicator for the Yankees’ defense, pitching plan/sequencing, and managerial skill. It’s the worst showing of his career by far, as is the 2.68 FIP and 2.95 xFIP, but that’s just it — the expected numbers were still very much, “Hey, this is Devin Williams.” The pitch velocity and other metrics were similar, too. He struck out 90 and walked 25 in 62 innings. On paper, he looks like a real catch.
Cons: So, the Giants do need a closer, they have a great pitchers park for closers, but $17 million a year for one is not going to happen.
Final judgment: If the Giants were willing to spend to the first luxury tax threshold ($244 million), then yes, he should be on the shopping list. But they’ve got to spread the money around and spending money on the bullpen is closer to luxury than necessity.
RP Edwin Diaz — Rank: #13, Projection: 4 yr/$82 million
Pros: He is quite good, possibly an elite closer, and has racked up 253 saves in 9 seasons. His 6-year Mets career was phenomenal: a 2.56 FIP (2.93 ERA) in 328.1 IP (144 saves, 255 games finished) is a cut above the typical “good” reliever.
Cons: Qualifying offer (he should take it, btw) and I don’t ever need to see the Giants sign a former Mets closer again. Never forget this key image in McCovey Chronicles history:
Final judgment: No reason to go this route if a closer is such a big deal. There’s Devin Williams or even somebody like Pete Fairbanks, whose option was just declined by the Rays.
SP Lucas Giolito — Rank: #27, Projection: 2 yrs/$32 million
Pros: The Giants do need starting pitching, and he recovered nicely in 2025 from an internal brace procedure that knocked him out of 2024. His 145 innings of 3.41 ERA ball is pretty danged good for pitching in the AL East.
Cons: Still, his expected numbers (5.01 xERA, 4.59 xFIP) continued a worrying trend that started in 2022. Also, on a personal note, I’m not a fan of his delivery.
Final judgment: This wouldn’t be a Ross Stripling-level disaster because he’s got a good fastball and a solid track record. Oracle Park might help him out, too, and if that projected deal is what it would take to sign him, then he’d be a good fallback option.
This is just one panel’s thoughts on how the Giants’ offseason will go. What do you think?
