Better Late than Never: What the Holland situation says about the Giants organization going forward
Originally published on May 12th at Adios, Pelota!
The San Francisco Giants are in the national media again. Unfortunately, it’s not for anything positive, as starting pitcher Derek Holland, coming off a rough start against the division rival Rockies and a fresh demotion to the bullpen, didn’t have many kind things to say to the public about club president Farhan Zaidi and the Giants management thus far in 2019:
Derek Holland just expresses frustration with some decisions that said came from front office, including “fake injury” that put him on the IL. “ which I’m not happy about it.” #sfgiants
— Henry Schulman (@hankschulman) May 12, 2019
Already, the honeymoon is over for Zaidi…at least with the players anyways.
Holland’s charges against Zaidi and the Giants management are pretty substantial. Not only is he already criticizing the leadership of the Giants (and not even two months into the season at that), but he’s also making a serious accusation: that they put him on the injury list to call up a player even though he’s not actually injured. While Holland’s situation wouldn’t be the first instance of such a situation, the fact that Holland admitted it to the media openly about it is definitely rare. Of course, it sounds like a “he said, they said” kind of situation, as Zaidi and the Giants responded to Holland’s claims saying that there was substantial documentation that Holland was injured and that his “fake” claim came from his desire to pitch through a minor injury after a rough personal start to the 2019 season. You can see the full story in Schulman’s tweet below:
One #SFGiants pitcher aired opinions usually kept in-house after Saturday night’s loss. Bullpen-bound Derek Holland is not happy with some front-office decision-making, including what he called an IL trip with a “fake injury.” Farhan Zaidi responds. Story: https://t.co/Owt6ekJ6SK
— Henry Schulman (@hankschulman) May 12, 2019
Even though we are about 24 hours into this situation, it does provoke questions for the remainder of the 2019 season in San Francisco: how will the Giants begin the rebuilding process? What should it look like? And who will be part of it?
Holland signed a one-year, $7 million contract this off-season, one of the first deals made by Zaidi to solidify the rotation. So it’s understandable why Holland is upset: he probably is thinking “if you didn’t want to be a serious contender, then why did you sign me in the first place?” After all, at 32-years-old, and posting two poor seasons in Texas and Chicago (White Sox) respectively before coming and bouncing back in San Francisco in 2018, there isn’t a lot of time left for Holland’s career, especially as a pending free agent. Holland, as a veteran, wants to compete for a playoff contender, not ride the pine or sit in the bullpen as the Giants determine whether Tyler Beede can be a future starter in the Giants rotation.
And that is frustrating: not just for Holland, but for some Giants fans as well. This team tried to make a run at Bryce Harper this off-season. They signed veteran Gerardo Parra this off-season to solidify the outfield only to DFA him a little over a month later. It seems in some ways, the Giants can’t decide whether they still want to be contenders and live off the glory of 2010–2016, or if they want to rebuild, go young, and try to restock their minor league system through trades and the draft. While Zaidi certainly has a solid track record with the A’s and Dodgers and he should be trusted as the Giants’ top brass guy going forward, he could have done a better job of establishing a clear “plan” for 2019. Yes, they need to rebuild a farm system that is weak and replace a group of aging veterans who are on the decline. They need to look to the future, especially considering they have the oldest roster in the National League (30.3 average years old; they are the only NL Team with an average age over 30). That being said, why pursue Harper for big money? Why trade for Kevin Pillar, who makes more sense on a contender? And why resign Holland, who at 32-years-old, doesn’t want to pitch for a team in rebuilding mode?
It’s hard to fathom when one takes all those moves into perspective. However, it seems like Zaidi has finally gotten a better understanding of the landscape of the Giants organization from top to bottom after a full off-season and first month of the season. And now, he finally is ready to begin a complete rebuild, regardless of the collateral damage (i.e. Parra, Holland, demoting Dereck Rodriguez, etc.).
First off, this Giants roster should have probably begun the rebuilding process after the 2016 season.
The San Francisco Giants earned the NL Wild Card in 2016 after an 87–75 season, their third playoff appearance since 2010, with the previous two resulting in World Series titles. While they did win the Wild Card game against the New York Mets, to give hope to the Giants faithful that another “even year magic” title was in the works, they were handled easily in the Divisional Series by the eventual World Series Champion Chicago Cubs. And they were handled for good reason: the Giants really weren’t that good.
If you look at the numbers, the Giants were led by a top-heavy starting pitching staff (Bumgarner, Cueto, and Samardzija) and some timely hitting, but they were pretty questionable in every other area. Their bullpen, while solid, wasn’t as effective or impressive as their 2010 or 2012 runs (they leaned heavily on Santiago Casilla, who had 30 plus saves, but a FIP of 3.94). They didn’t have a single hitter who touched the 20-hr mark (Brandon Belt had the most at 17), and they ranked third to last in the NL in home runs. And they did this with an old roster, as their average age of 29.2 was the second-oldest in the NL (younger than only the Mets).
General Manager at the time Bobby Evans should have admitted the Giants’ window had closed and begun the rebuilding process immediately after the Cubs series. Instead, he and the Giants organization tried to hold onto the glory of the past and decided to patch problems on the roster rather than deal with it on a big scale. Unfortunately, the last two seasons have demonstrated the flaws with such an approach, and this cost Evans his job after the 2018 season.
They won only 64 games in 2017, and 73 games in 2018, as injuries to Bumgarner and Cueto in the two-year span harmed what had reputationally been a sterling starting rotation from 2010–2016. But it wasn’t just injuries to their aces that had an effect: Samardzija went through a massive decline the next two seasons (though he’s bounced back a little bit this year); the Giants failed to find consistency in the bottom half of the rotation; and the bullpen, once a trademark of the Sabean-era Giants, became a liability, with Hunter Strickland unable to hold the closer’s role. And pitching wasn’t the only problem for the Giants: they ranked last in the NL in OPS+ in 2017 and 2018.
The attitude from 2010–2018 under Sabean and Evans was simply to lean on Bumgarner, another high-end starter or two, and a solid bullpen. They would “patch” pieces on offense to make sure it was just “productive enough” to give the pitching just enough runs to win, which usually worked since Oracle Park profiles as a pitcher’s park. But when the plan started to fall apart, “just productive enough” not only didn’t work, but it backfired: they went from average to terrible. Vets they had depended on (Pence, Posey, Crawford, Span) declined; vets they had acquired (McCutcheon and Longoria) failed to produce, and vets they wanted (Stanton and Harper) spurned them. Thus, thanks to all those factors, it was no surprise the Giants were one of the worst teams in baseball the past two seasons.
And to be honest, Zaidi initially keeping the same “approach” is not surprising for one big reason: Giants ownership is willing to spend money. The Giants have ranked in the top ten nearly every year since 2010 when it comes to biggest payrolls in the Major Leagues. When that is the case, it’s easy and tempting to resort to the “free agent” strategy to build a roster: it less of a risk to depend on a veteran than a youngster from the minor league system, especially when the team’s system isn’t ranked too high, to begin with. And considering the “free agent” method had produced results from 2010–2016, and with only one draft and off-season under his belt with the Giants organization, it made sense for Zaidi to keep maintaining that strategy at least for another off-season.
But the Holland situation shows that Zaidi may be done with that method for the time being.
The Giants are by no means a “small market” club. This is not the Kansas City Royals or even their East Bay area neighbor, the Oakland A’s. This team has money to spend, and ownership is willing to dish out big checks to help this organization win a title. Just look at the seasons following World Series wins, and their payrolls are rife with overpaid players. Aubrey Huff. Angel Pagan. Hunter Pence. The list goes on. And while some of those deals can make a Giants fan cringe in retrospect, it also isn’t the worst thing in the world: Giants fans can’t complain that ownership didn’t do what they could (i.e. spend money) to win. I’m sure Marlins fans would kill for that kind of commitment after they won World Series titles.
But here’s the problem: San Francisco is just not a landing spot for marquee free agents, especially hitters. Losing Giancarlo Stanton going into 2018 was a tough one, but one could chalk it up to the allure of the pinstripes (i.e. Yankees). But losing out on Harper to the Phillies? That just goes to show that San Francisco doesn’t allure free agents, even if the money is available.
And I think that’s what Zaidi is realizing. Why spend money on mediocre options like Parra and Holland because ownership is willing to open up their pocketbooks? Why keep trying to think that the Giants can “free agent” their way back to a World Series title? Nobody does that anymore. The Cubs, Astros, Red Sox, and Dodgers, all World Series winners and/or contenders, did it with players developed in their own system or acquired through trade with still years of club control. They used free agency to complement their homegrown talents, such as Baez, Altuve, Betts, and Bellingers, not the opposite way around, like the Giants have tried. The Giants need to develop a superstar, especially offensively, and I think Zaidi has realized that after a month of play. It could be Joey Bart, last year’s №2 pick, but he’s suffering from injury, which puts his development on hold for a bit, much to Zaidi and the Giants’ chagrin.
I don’t think Zaidi is trying to get the Giants to lose on purpose “NBA style”, as Holland may be implying. I honestly believe the Giants are doing all these call-ups and demotions in an effort to see what pieces in Sacramento (the Giants’ Triple-A affiliate) are worth keeping and which ones aren’t. Can Mac Williamson transition his Triple-A stats to San Francisco or is he another John Bowker? Can Beede be a starter, like they projected he would be when they drafted him in the first round? Or is he strictly a bullpen arm? Yes, it comes at the cost of Holland losing a spot in the rotation temporarily, and Rodriguez getting demoted. But Zaidi and the Giants need to know this information now so they can start formulating possible trades sooner rather than later. The closer it gets to the trade deadline, the harder it is for the Giants to get players of value, especially if they continue their current projection in the NL West (i.e. the bottom).
It hasn’t been pretty in Zaidi’s first year, and it would have been nice to see more consistency when it came to roster acquisition and compilation earlier in his tenure. But what the Giants are doing now makes sense, and it will make more sense in the coming months.
Sorry, Derek. You’re in the wrong, here. It’ll be interesting to see if you’ll be around in a month or two when the Giants’ “rebuilding plan” becomes so much clearer and more obvious.
