From the perspective of roster composition, the San Francisco Giants had a relatively mild offseason. They added Willy Adames and Justin Verlander. They lost Blake Snell, Michael Conforto and Taylor Rogers. Their roster retains much of last year’s core.
But take a step back and it’s been a sneakily busy offseason in San Francisco.
Buster Posey and Zack Minasian are now running the show. Bob Melvin’s coaching staff looks remarkably different. And, yes, there are a couple new faces who will don the orange and black.
With pitchers and catchers set to report to Scottsdale, Arizona today, let’s summarize all that’s gone down since the last time the Giants played a game:
New regime
Immediately following their final game of the 2024 season, the Giants fired Farhan Zaidi as the team’s president of baseball operations and replaced him with Buster Posey all in one fell swoop. The move set the stage for the ensuing front office shakeup.
Posey’s first major decision was to hire Zack Minasian to serve as his general manager. With Minasian being elevated from vice president of pro scouting, the Giants hired Hadi Raad as the team’s director of pro scouting. Additionally, San Francisco hired Pike Goldschmidt as the team’s director of baseball strategy and Randy Winn as the vice president of player development. Former GM Bobby Evans and Jeff Berry, Posey’s former agent at CAA, were hired as advisors as well.
Pete Putila, the team’s GM under Zaidi, subsequently left San Francisco to join the Atlanta Braves. Putila would be joined in Atlanta by Michael Schwartze, who was the Giants’ director of baseball analytics.
Coaches in, coaches out
The shakeup to San Francisco’s coaching staff wasn’t as drastic as that of the front office, but there were notable moving parts on this front as well.
Alyssa Nakken, the first woman to be part of an MLB coaching staff among other accolades, joined the Cleveland Guardians following five seasons in San Francisco. Along with Nakken, Bryan Price stepped down as pitching coach following one season while Justin Viele and Pedro Guerrero, the team’s assistant hitting coaches, joined the Texas Rangers and Miami Marlins, respectively.
In response to the departures of Price, Viele and Guerrero, San Francisco elevated J.P. Martinez to pitching coach and hired Damon Minor and Oscar Bernard as assistant hitting coaches. Taira Uematsu was promoted to major-league quality control coach as well.
New faces
The Giants’ biggest need heading into the offseason was shortstop, and the team addressed the position by signing Willy Adames to a seven-year, $182 million contract, a deal that usurps Posey’s own $167 million extension as the largest in franchise history.
Adames, 29, is coming off the best offensive season of his career, one where he set career highs in homers (32), steals (21), RBIs (112), runs (93) and hits (153). Prior to acquiring Adames, the Giants used 13 shortstops from 2022-24. That group produced 7.1 WAR, according to FanGraphs, which ranks 20th among all teams over the last three seasons.
San Francisco’s second-biggest need of the offseason was the starting rotation. The team was unable to land Corbin Burnes, who shocked the baseball industry by signing a six-year, $210 million deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks, but signed future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander to a one-year, $17 million deal.
Verlander, who will be on 42, begins his time in San Francisco fresh off the worst season of his career, posting a 5.48 ERA over 17 starts. Results aside, Verlander’s stuff still rates out above average. Verlander also dealt with neck and shoulder issues last season and hopes the changes he made to his offseason routine will allow him to stay healthy as a Giant.
Rogers twins broken up
The Giants made a salary-cutting move in late-January, trading left-handed Taylor Rogers and cash to the Cincinnati Reds, breaking up the Rogers twins in the process. The return for the southpaw was minor-league reliever Braxton Roxby, who hasn’t pitched above Double-A.
According to The Athletic, the Giants sent over $6 million of the $12 million that Rogers is set to make. While the move saves San Francisco a couple million dollars, the team is unlikely to allocate those resources elsewhere.
With Rogers gone, the Giants enter spring training with Erik Miller as the only left-handed reliever on the 40-man roster.
Along with Rogers, the Giants traded catcher Blake Sabol to the Boston Red Sox and right-hander William Kempner to the Miami Marlins, both in exchange for international bonus pool money. That extra international bonus pool money helped the Giants landed shortstop Josuar Gonzalez, the second-best prospect of the 2025 international signing class behind Roki Sasaki. And speaking on the subject of Sasaki…
The rich get richer
The Giants had a fine offseason; the Dodgers’ offseason had the masses clamoring that they ruined baseball.
Fresh off their second World Series title in the last five years, the Dodgers won the Sasaki sweepstakes; added Blake Snell, Michael Conforto, Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates and Hyeseong Kim; re-signed Teoscar Hernández, Blake Treinen and Kiké Hernandez; and signed Tommy Edman to an extension. On Tuesday, they re-signed Clayton Kershaw, too. Along with the players, Farhan Zaidi, fired as the Giants’ president of baseball operations in September, is reportedly re-joining Los Angeles as a special advisor as well.
Baseball has not had a back-to-back champion since the Yankees rattled off three straight titles in 1998, 1999 and 2000. The Dodgers, who have long taken the Yankees’ torch as the big-spending villains, have more than enough firepower to do so.