Farhan Zaidi has been watching FX’s “The Bear.”
He hopes the franchise he has run for five years can turn out like Richie, the affable cousin who finally found direction after discovering his calling by meticulously cleaning forks at a fancy restaurant. Richie learned the value of attention to detail, under the mantra of “every second counts.”
Richie becomes the unexpected hero of season two, the character whose arc takes its most mature shape.
But unless Zaidi and the Giants knock this offseason out of the park, they risk ending up like main character Carmy — trapped in a walk-in freezer and locked in a spiral of self-inflicted anxiety.
Maybe that’s a tad dramatic. But this winter is pivotal for a Giants team at a crossroads. Zaidi, entering the last year of his deal, has a roster to overhaul and a top-heavy but weak free agency class to target. He has no manager and two consecutive mediocre seasons to pitch prospective people on.
He has a brand to uphold and an on-field product to fix. A culture to rediscover.
“That’s what we want our brand to be — every second matters,” Zaidi said in a cramped Oracle Park dugout.
“Every detail matters. Whether it’s holding runners on, whether it’s bunting at the right time, whether it’s hitting the cutoff man, whether it’s pinch hitting in the right spot to get a matchup and help win the game. Whether it’s a pitching move that helps you win the game. All that stuff kind of works together. That’s what we want our brand to be. We don’t want to be a team that plays sloppy baseball and then pinch hits in the ninth inning and people are left wondering why are you even bothering? We want it all to work together.”
Sounds good. Great, even. But it only works with talent. Star talent. The type of talent the Giants will have to get creative to acquire this offseason.
At least for this winter, that falls on Zaidi’s desk.
Hints at new manager
The Giants’ search for a new manager will ramp up imminently, with internal interviews slated for the end of this week and the team asking permission to interview other clubs’ coaches shortly thereafter.
Although the process is still in its infancy, Zaidi dropped a few clues about what the organization could value in its next manager.
The Giants would be open to a first-year manager, Zaidi said. Although many of the people Zaidi has hired in the past had crossed paths with him either in Oakland or Los Angeles, that level of familiarity isn’t a prerequisite.
Could he even be… old school?
“I’ve worked with seven managers in my time in baseball, and they all had different styles,” Zaidi said. “I think five of them won Manager of the Year. My role’s been different in those different organizations, but my relationships have been different with them too. At least from my experience, one thing I’ve learned is there are no absolutes.”
Zaidi has said he wants his next manager to be able to put his own imprint on the team. One that has the latitude to do so; someone whose job will entail more than just saying “Yes, Chef!” to the front office. Any potential candidate should expect as much.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the Giants’ next manager will need to be an asset to anyone who the franchise might be interested in bringing in — whether that be a free agent or a star via trade.
“We want someone who can be an effective recruiter, and as we go into free agency,” Zaidi said. “We want to build a brand of players wanting to come here and play here. I think the manager is a big part of that. There are guys who don’t have managerial experience but maybe they’ve just ended long playing careers, and they have relationships and they can be effective recruiters, be sort of attractive leaders for players. That’s certainly going to factor into it.”
That last concept is oddly specific. A thinly veiled reference to Stephen Vogt, perhaps?
The 2024 shortstop
For the past 13 years, the Giants never had to worry about the shortstop position. But Brandon Crawford, the franchise’s most decorated shortstop ever, is likely done donning the orange and black.
So the team, Zaidi said, is turning the position over to top prospect Marco Luciano.
“We want to give Marco Luciano the chance to be the everyday guy next year,” Zaidi said.
It could be a fitting passing of the torch. When the Giants subbed Crawford out in the ninth inning of his sendoff game, he stopped at the top of the dugout steps to hug Luciano.
In 14 games this season, Luciano hit .231 with a .641 OPS. He didn’t hit a home run and drove in just one run. He didn’t play enough to qualify, but his batted-ball metrics paint a picture of a slugger waiting to break out; he connected on seven balls with exit velocities of at least 105 mph, topping out at 111.8 mph.
Luciano’s average exit velocity of 93 mph would put him between stars Rafael Devers and Julio Rodriguez.
The rookie looked confident at shortstop at first, but made multiple defensive mistakes after his strong start. There have always been questions of his long-term viability at the position, but interim manager Kai Correa said he has seen substantial improvements from Luciano and is optimistic he can play shortstop.
He’ll get his first crack at doing so starting next year.
Handing the position to Luciano is a risk, for sure. The 22-year-old has dealt with back and other injuries in his career. He’s unproven. But sometimes, betting on inexperience can pay dividends, like Carmy (played by Jeremy Allen White) entrusting Sydney (Ayo Edibiri).
For what it’s worth, Zaidi called the idea of Crawford returning as a backup and veteran presence as a “challenging fit.”
A broken record
Like he did last year, and seemingly after every season, Zaidi tabbed getting more athletic and better defensively as two focuses for the winter.
He said the same after 2022, when the Giants ranked last by a wide margin in Fangraphs’ catch-all defensive metric. This season, San Francisco led MLB in errors by 16 and particularly unfurled down the stretch.
Zaidi must hope that repeating the same goal will have a different result. That might feel like the definition of insanity. Or, kind of like being a chef.
“It would be weird to work in a restaurant and not completely lose your mind,” Sydney said in Season 1 of “The Bear.”
To get more athletic and better defensively this time around, the Giants will probably need to turn more of their team over to their young players. Casey Schmitt, Luis Matos, Tyler Fitzgerald, Blake Sabol and Luciano are among the Giants’ most dynamic athletes.
But simply giving them more playing time won’t solve the Giants’ defensive problems. Luciano is probably a downgrade defensively from Crawford. Matos had some troubles in the outfield and isn’t yet a base-stealing threat. Schmitt, who has as high a defensive potential as anyone, committed eight errors in 42 games while toggling between positions. Sabol is still learning the catcher position behind rookie savant Patrick Bailey.
Plus, none of those players yet have any power (except Sabol, who hit 13 home runs). Getting more dynamic with them would likely cost the team a lot of offense — the area SF struggled most in. The Giants broke their franchise record for striking out and ranked just 19th in home runs.
“If you’re asking ‘do you want to improve the offense or the defense,’ obviously the answer is both,” Zaidi said. “But you know, a real point of emphasis for us is to get more athletic, cover more ground defensively.”
The quickest way to improve on both sides of the ball? Get players who can contribute everyday at an All-Star level. That type of player isn’t easy to acquire.
Players of that caliber who are free agents this winter or could possibly be made available via trade include Shohei Ohtani, Cody Bellinger, Mike Trout, Pete Alonso, Juan Soto or Luis Robert. For trades, the Giants have a plethora of MLB-ready pitching prospects, including Kyle Harrison, Tristan Beck, Keaton Winn, Hayden Birdsong, Mason Black and Carson Whisenhunt to dangle.
The Giants’ pitch to the above players is murkier now than it is before. There’s instability in both the manager’s office and the executive suites. Logan Webb is the only true star on the roster. A crop of young players is ready to break into the league, but it’s an open question how many — if any — are capable of breaking out. Zaidi can be diplomatic about concerns related to San Francisco as a city, but it’s clear that some baseball players prefer playing elsewhere (for any number of reasons).
The same way to get more athletic and better defensively is the key to the next chapter of Giants baseball: hoping the next wave of talent actually develops into stars. Whether they do or not will define the franchise’s direction.