Hot Stove League Update: Buster Adds Advisors; Rule 5 Draft Roster Moves

Giants POBO, Buster Posey, made a couple of hires which caused a mini-meltdown in the Giants blogosphere.  Buster hired former Giants GM Bobby Evans and Buster's own former agent, Jeff Berry, as advisors.  The meltdowns are related to a perception that Bobby Evans tenure as GM was a disaster while Jeff Berry was recently quoted in The Athletic complaining about Moneyball groupthink and how unfair it was for some of his clients.  

I've never been as down on Bobby Evans as most Giants bloggers.  He was trying to keep an aging, declining core competitive longer than was warranted but I tend to believe that's what ownership wanted him to do.  It was the expectation of most of the fanbase.  He acquired some veteran players who didn't pan out as hoped which left the team in a payroll bind.  He also expanded the analytics department and beefed up international scouting which paid dividends with the signings of Luis Matos and Marco Luciano.  He was also GM when Heliot Ramos was drafted after several drafts that didn't work out, mostly due to the Giants relatively low drafting positions.  I am sure his top-to-bottom knowledge of organizational structure will be valuable to Buster as he acclimates to the role of POBO.  I don't know enough about Berry to comment much on what he may bring to Buster's round table, but it doesn't hurt to have some insight into how agents think about the free agent process.

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Today was the deadline for setting 40-man rosters in preparation for the Rule 5 Draft which takes place on the last day of the Winter Meetings in December.  No big surprises as the Giants added Carson Seymour RHP and Carson Ragsdale RHP and DFA's Kai-Wei Teng RHP.  Players eligible for the Rule 5 Draft who were not protected include Aeverson Arteaga SS and Onil Perez C as well as former first round draft picks Hunter Bishop OF and Will Bednar RHP.  I do not see a high probability that any of them will be selected.