Hot Stove Update: Giants Sign Drew Smyly; Hire First Woman MLB Coach

On a day when almost all the other baseball(and other) news was bad, the Giants gave their fans a couple of thing to be happy about.  LHP Drew Smyly signed a 1 year/$4 M contract with an interesting set of bonuses split between starting and relieving with a series of escalators for starts, relief appearances and games finished.  It looks like his best payday is to be a starter all season with up to $3 M available after his 12'th start.  After Madison Bumgarner jumped ship to Arizona, the best remaining SP's on the FA market were LHP Alex Wood, RHP Taijuan Walker, RHP Chad Bettis and Smyly.  In retrospect, we should have guessed it would be Smyly who Farhan signed.  First, he's a LHP, which Farhan is known to like to stockpile and the Giants were short of, and Gabe Kapler was the manager of the team he found success with last season, the Phillies.

Smyly was once one of those sneaky good pitchers who fantasy baseball players liked to grab for the back end of their rosters.  He is generally thought of a SP.  He made 30 starts for the Rays in 2015, but he also made 63 relief appearances for the Tigers in 2013 with 2 Saves, so he has experience as a Closer too.  He is big at 6'3", 190 lbs.  He has a 4 pitch mix, FB with an average velocity of 91.4), cutter, curveball and changeup.

He signed on with the Rangers for the 2019 season but got lit up in 13 appearances and was released. He was briefly with the Brewers but never threw a pitch for them and then signed with the Phillies.  He allowed just one run in 13 IP in his first two starts for the Phils including 7 innings of shutout ball against the Giants in his second start.  He then had his ups and downs but finished on a high note with a line of 6.1 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 10 K's in his final start against the eventual World Series Champion Nationals.

Now with a full season under his belt post-TJ, Smyly could be poised for a big season which may be helped by pitching in a friendlier pitching environment.  The cost is negligible and maintains payroll flexibility to make more moves before the season starts.  Nice signing by Farhan and the gang!

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The Giants also made some positive history by hiring the first woman coach at the MLB level.  Alyssa Nakken was a softball star for Sacramento State and earned a degree in Sports Management.  She has worked for the Giants since 2014, most recently as director of Health and Wellness initiatives.  She now has the title of Assistant Coach and will be in uniform prior to games.  She will assist other coaches in multiple roles but will focus on "clubhouse culture" promoting a "sense of collaboration and team" according to Manager Gabe Kapler.

In addition to Nakken, the Giants moved last year's Manager at Salem-Keizer, Mark Hallberg, to the MLB club as a second assistant coach who will have similar duties as Nakken.  BTW, Hallberg was a teammate of Buster Posey's at Florida St.

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Former Giant Carlos Beltran, who allegedly helped mastermind the Astros sign-stealing scheme but was not punished by the Commish because punishments were limited to management, resigned as Manager of the Mets without ever appearing in a game.  Meanwhile, there is a theory out there gaining traction on social media that the Astros were also using some type of transmitter in their uniforms to transmit information about signs with a couple of video clips of Jose Altuve serving as exhibits A and B.  Too soon to know if this is a case of social media breaking a story or another case of promoting fake news.