Of the 14 names on the list of players who received a qualifying offer, Joc Pederson’s was the most surprising.
Although he was an All-Star in 2022, Pederson endured brutal, weeks-long slumps. He’s proven incapable of putting together competitive at-bats against left-handed pitching.
Most of all, he gave back almost everything he provided at the plate with incompetence in the outfield.
Despite hitting a team-high 23 home runs, Pederson registered 1.3 WAR — 139th in MLB. Those players don’t get the one-year, $19.65 million deal that derives from the average salaries of the sport’s 125 highest-paid players.
Still, for president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, bringing back Pederson was a “pretty easy choice.”
“We’re very happy to have him back,” Zaidi told reporters Tuesday on Zoom. “You always like it when somebody who’s part of your Plan A winds up on your roster.”
The qualifying offer came after discussions of a potential multi-year deal, Zaidi said. Accepting it was a difficult decision for Pederson, who saw several other playoff-caliber teams as good fits.
But ultimately, Plan A was mutually appealing. The Giants return their most powerful hitter from last year. Pederson hangs on with the organization he called the most first class he’s experienced — and can reassess things after the year.
For the Giants’ Plan A to succeed, Pederson must be the first of multiple high-impact moves to come this offseason. And for him to reach that high-impact level, he needs to address his fielding.
“It wasn’t a great defensive year,” Pederson said. “Some things didn’t go my way. I can prepare better, and I’m preparing right now to continue to play the outfield for a lot more years — not just next year. So yeah, I’ll be better in the outfield and on defense than I was last year.”
If the rest of Plan A involves signing Aaron Judge and adding other players who could help defensively, that would be a home run. Pederson and J.D. Davis could then form a DH platoon. The outfield could consist of all plus defenders. The Giants could support their excellent starting pitchers more by converting balls into outs, plus providing more home runs.
Plan As don’t typically come to fruition, at least not entirely. Zaidi won’t get everyone on his wish list; that’s the reality of free agency.
Most likely, the Giants will need Pederson to play the outfield — at least a little bit. They still have Davis. They have Wilmer Flores, who could probably benefit from getting off his feet every so often. They might still have Tommy La Stella, who also needs to figure out how to put his glove on again. They will have players who undoubtedly deal with injuries, thinning their outfield depth and adding to the DH glut.
Inevitably, Pederson will be penciled in at left field. If Plan A turns into Plan B or C or D, it might happen fairly regularly.
“I’ve seen him be a good defender,” Zaidi said. “He has that capability. To your point, the defensive metrics were below average last year. I think we will try to construct the roster in a way in which DH-ing him is an option. But if the defense is where we think it can get, then we’ll have the option to put him out in the outfield as well.
SF’s defense was by far the biggest weight holding the club back. It ranked last in Fangraphs’ catch-all defensive metric. Pitch counts ran up and the bullpen got taxed earlier because the defense behind the mound let the staff down over and over again.
“Some things got ugly last year,” Pederson said. “All around. I think a lot of stuff in baseball is contagious. Good baseball’s contagious and bad baseball’s contagious. It was just not a good defensive year for a lot of guys on the Giants. It was extremely frustrating. One play would lead to another and then lead to another. Overthrow, miss the cutoff guy and then they’re running a merry-go round. We need to be better. And it’s not something that we’re not aware of. So we’ll put the work in to fix it and execute more.”
By bringing Pederson back, the Giants may already be at their limit of poor defenders on the roster if they want to see improvements.
Except Pederson doesn’t have to be a poor defender. He came up as a former standout high school receiver playing center field. He’s only 30 years old, just three years from being a very good outfielder. In 2019 with the Dodgers, he was worth 10 defensive runs saved.
He completely fell off last year, when his DRS was -15. Fielding Bible’s metric ranked him as tied for the third worst fielder in all of baseball. Despite posting an elite 144 OPS+, Pederson generated the WAR of a bench player.
It didn’t take advanced metrics to diagnose Pederson’s shortcomings. It was tough to watch.
He routinely let fly balls drop because he either didn’t take efficient enough routes or wasn’t fast enough to track. Drives into the gap trickled to the wall. He made easy plays look hard and hard ones look easy.
Asked what he’s doing to be better prepared in the outfield, Pederson mentioned working on explosion-type drills to improve his first step, working on reads during the season and making his throws.
He’ll need to dedicate the same effort he commits to refining his hitting to preparing for the outfield.
“I know it’s something we’d like to work on with him,” Zaidi said. “I know it’s something he wants to work on. He’s generally a guy who takes pride in his defense and would want to get back to where he was earlier in his career, to give us more options as we manage the roster.”
Pederson doesn’t necessarily need to be worth the $19.65 million. Unless signing him prevents the Giants from acquiring more talent, the money doesn’t really matter.
But Pederson will have to help the Giants win games. And to do that, he’ll have to perform at much closer to an average level in the field — whenever he’s called on.
Pederson’s goals are pure. He publicly expressed his frustration with being out of the playoff hunt for the first time last year. On Tuesday, he reiterated that disappointment, but projected confidence that the organization can return to 2021’s highs.
It’s no secret how he can help them get there.