Scouting the Offseason: Winter Meetings Preview

In the last several years of the Sabean/Evans administration, the Giants followed a fairly predictable offseason course.  They needed starting pitching?  How do you like Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija?  They needed a Closer?  Well, dang! Here's the guy we should have traded for at the deadline last year, Mark Melancon!  Third base?  Hey!  We can get Evan Longoria and still stay under the CBT threshold!  Outfielder?  Andrew McCutchen would look mighty nice in a Giants uniform!

This season is different and for more reasons than a new GM.  The Giants have some clear needs but also a strong feeling that the old approach of throwing money and hoping it will plug holes has reached a saturation point and continuing to do that will just dig the hole deeper.  The Giants need to plug holes to be competitive but they also need to find ways to upgrade the overall talent in the organization.  They need to get younger, more athletic, more powerful.  They probably can't do all that in one offseason.  It's debatable whether they can do it at all without a complete teardown and rebuild which according to Managing Partner Larry Baer is "not in our DNA."

A big question none of us know is what players currently in the organization does Farhan Zaidi believe are untouchable?  Does he believe any of them are?  The one big trade chip from the MLB roster is Madison Bumgarner.  A couple of years ago, ever trading him would have been unthinkable. Now there is some question whether they can get enough in return for him to make it worthwhile.  The 2 big trade chips on the farm are Heliot Ramos and Joey Bart.  For a team that needs to get younger, more athletic and stronger, they should be untouchable, but they aren't guys that Zaidi drafted, so does he value them as much as the previous regime and most of us do?  

Baseball's Winter Meetings are really obsolete affairs in terms of player transactions.  With modern communication and travel options, there is really no need for all of MLB management to gather in one physical location to acquire players and strike deals.  Last year, not a whole lot happened at the Winter Meetings and most of the offseason action occurred much later.  This year, a whole lot of action has already gone down.  Given the state of the Giants and how fast the hot stove heated up this year, it would be disappointing if Zaidi returns at the end of the week empty handed.  It just feels like he needs to do something fairly dramatic and different than methodically plugging holes.

Will he come away with a franchise player in Bryce Harper or Manny Machado?  Will he get an offer he can't refuse for Madison Bumgarner?  Will he go for volume and depth like he did in LA?

We'll be writing up Hot Stove Updates with as close to instant analysis as we can get while writing around a full work schedule, so stay tuned!