Ultimately, the Giants’ calculated, aggressive pursuit of free-agent Aaron Judge ended in a familiar, disappointing place.
Judge became the latest superstar who got away from the Giants when he agreed late Tuesday night to a record-setting, 9-year, $360 million to remain a New York Yankee.
Like Bryce Harper, Giancarlo Stanton and Shohei Ohtani before him, Judge offered the allure of not only further legitimacy but even more World Series titles for San Francisco. And, like Harper, Stanton and Ohtani, Judge playing for the Giants just turned out to be a big tease.
Now Judge’s rejection gets heaped onto the pile of pain still lingering for the Giants and their fans over not being able to lure other game-changers here. Giants baseball: Still torture after all these years.
It was exactly five years ago Thursday when the Giants couldn’t convince the two-way superstar Ohtani to pick them. He’d come from Japan with a particular goal of playing for a successful team on the West Coast. And yet he chose the Angels.
It was also exactly five years ago Thursday that the Giants got another dose of bad news. They had agreed to a trade for Giancarlo Stanton, who was just coming off an NL MVP season for Miami. But Stanton refused to waive his no-trade clause to come to the Giants. He instead agreed to a trade to the Yankees.
Three years ago, Harper’s free-agent tour was reportedly down to the Giants and the Phillies. The Giants offered Harper a 12-year, $310 million contract, but the Phillies offered 13 years, $310 million and a better chance to win.
We could go back more than 15 years ago when free-agent stars Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Lee were wined and dined by the Giants’ front office before signing elsewhere. But why belabor old pain when there are fresh wounds to examine?
Make no mistake, Judge’s decision to bypass the Giants stings more than the others. And not just because we won’t get to see hundreds of grown men and women wearing long, black gowns and powdered wigs while replicating “Judge’s Chamber” in a corner at Oracle Park.
This time the fit seemed undeniable. Way before free agency even began this winter, Judge just seemed destined to become a San Francisco Giant. He adored the Giants while growing up in the tiny, dusty town of Linden, which sits 15 miles outside of Stockton and is home to just over 2,000 people. There, where the churches (6) outnumber the markets (2), restaurants (2) and traffic lights (0), Judge made a declaration to his high school sweetheart years ago that he’d one day marry her and he’d also play for the San Francisco Giants.
The happy news for all is last December Judge followed through on his promise to marry Samantha Bracksieck. The Giants, though, weren’t able to convince the 30-year-old Judge to follow his childhood dream of playing in the same ballpark where his idol, Rich Aurilia, once roamed.
It didn’t matter that the Giants reportedly offered Judge a similar deal to the one he accepted from the Yankees. It also didn’t matter that the Padres apparently were ready to offer him a 10-year, $400 million deal.
Free agency is a zero-sum game. Or, borrowing a crude line from modern-day philosopher Ricky Bobby, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.”
Now Judge is headed back to New York, where he’s reportedly set to become the first Yankees captain since Derek Jeter as he continues what should become a Hall of Fame career.
And Wednesday’s news leaves us with one compelling question: Why does this keep happening to the Giants?
First off, it didn’t help that the Giants had losing records from 2017-2020. In fact, it may have been the biggest factor in San Francisco striking out in free agency.
“The most important thing is people want to go somewhere where the team’s going to be competitive and going to win,” Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi told reporters in San Diego. “That’s by far and away the biggest concern that free agents have at almost any level.
“A lot of times there are questions about the payroll and what that’s going to look like. But players know there are a lot of ways for a team to achieve success, and it can’t just be through free agency. You get asked about your farm system. You get asked about your player development staff, your coaching staff, what you do to make guys better, the reputation of your front office — all these things factor in. Free agents want to win.”
The Giants’ 107-win season in 2021 should have assuaged concerns about the franchise’s direction. Then came last year’s scramble just to finish at .500. This begs the question: Is winning cyclical for the Giants?
Regardless, there are other factors in play in San Francisco that might give free agents some concerns.
Former Giants general Brian Sabean, who was dealt his share of free-agent rejections in his day, once said, “To entice a free agent to come to San Francisco, we’re almost in an overpay situation. … You’ve got the state of California taxes. (San Francisco) is a long way from where some of these guys live in the offseason. It’s not a hitters’ ballpark, so you can scratch that side of the fence.”
Zaidi said when he’s met with free agents he’s consistently had to address his ballpark’s reputation as a real challenge for hitters.
“I don’t think we’ve talked to a free agent, position player where the ballpark didn’t come up at some point,” Zaidi said. “We try to be prepared and you know, lay out what the impact looks like. And if there’s a concern, the concern is usually greater than the reality. So that’s just a good thing for us to be prepared to be able to present.”
So prospective Giants are shown statistical analysis, including ballpark overlays, showing how Oracle’s reputation as a hitter-unfriendly place is probably unfounded.
In fact, there are analytic studies showing Oracle Park is much friendlier to hitters than its previous iterations (Pacific Bell Park, SBC Park and AT&T Park). It helped that the Giants shrunk the ballpark dimensions in 2020 — making the fence in center field eight feet closer, the fence in left-center was moved in five feet and Triples Alley was reduced some six feet.
Hitters actually seemed to thrive at Oracle after the park’s alterations last year.
Forbes’ study showed Oracle was the fifth-best park overall for hitters. (Of course, the infamous San Francisco winds had a little to do with that – the study found that popups fell in for hits at Oracle at more than three times the MLB rate.)
It didn’t really affect the home runs, which are still hard to come by in San Francisco — it had baseball’s third-worst homer park factor last year, according to Forbes. Still, new Giants free agent Mitch Haniger’s data showed that his home runs hit while with Seattle wouldn’t have been depressed much at all at Oracle.
New #SFGiants outfielder Mitch Haniger’s career home run spray chart overlaid at Oracle Park: pic.twitter.com/JrpUqsw7FJ
— Ben Kaspick (@BenKaspick) December 7, 2022
By perusing Judge’s home run chart it’s hard to conclude Oracle would present a challenge for the 6-foot-7, 285-pounder. It looks like six of Judge’s short-porch home runs at Yankee Stadium wouldn’t have gone out at Oracle. Conversely, six of his doubles at New York’s more expansive left-field territory would have been home runs at Oracle.
In case you were wondering, Oracle Park wouldn’t have been a home run deterrent for home run king, Aaron Judge. The chart proves that! #SFGiants pic.twitter.com/CJx0ZKv1nf
— Jon Becker (@JonBecker28) December 7, 2022
Perhaps it’s ironic that the only two ballparks Judge has never played in are home to the Padres and Giants, the two teams that came closest to convincing him to leave his Yankees legacy behind.
It won’t be much consolation for the Giants nor their fans, but Judge will still be playing in the Giants’ season opener on March 30. The problem is he’ll be in his familiar spot – wearing No. 99 in pinstripes at Yankee Stadium.
Source: www.mercurynews.com