Locked On Giants – Daily Podcast On The San Francisco Giants

On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick answers questions from listeners about the state of the San Francisco Giants. Among the questions asked and answered are:

What player are you most excited to see going into next season?

Who produces more value in 2022: Thairo Estrada, or Tommy La Stella?

Could you see a La Stella/Evan Longoria platoon at 3B next year? Both hit well against their respective sides. Both are injury prone so they get plenty of rest. Plus it opens up for Estrada to get more time at 2B

When is this damn lockout ending lol?

Let's say Giants don't win the Seiya Suzuki sweepstakes (or even if they did), What do you think of Jorge Soler as a DH/LF RH power bat to add to the Giants?

107 wins was incredible and very unlikely to be matched. But I am having a hard time figuring out what my expectations should be this year. 90 wins?

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On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick, who covers the San Francisco Giants, discusses the latest with the state of the Major League Baseball lockout. On Thursday, for the first time since the lockout began on Dec. 2, MLB made a core economics proposal to the MLB Players Association. To absolutely no one's surprise, the players were not impressed with the league's proposal. The league's proposals ranged from modest to absurd, including a bizarre attempt to address service time manipulation that would see teams rewarded with a draft pick if prospects ranked in the top 100 (inherently subjective) win Rookie of the Year or finish in the top three in MVP or Cy Young voting in their first three years after being placed on an Opening Day roster in their first year.

In other areas, MLB's proposal included only modest change, and more importantly, the league did not address the players' biggest concerns. There was no change to the competitive balance tax, currently $210 million. The players have proposed an increase to $245 million. There were no changes to arbitration and free agency. The MLBPA has sought to have players reach arbitration a year sooner (two years instead of three).

There were, however, some areas where it's not impossible to see an agreement come together. Both sides have proposed a lottery system for the bottom teams in the draft. The league proposed the bottom three teams enter a lottery; the players have proposed eight. The league has proposed expanding playoffs to 14 teams; the players have proposed expanding it to 12. The league also continued to propose a universal designated hitter, something that the players have wanted for a long time, as it adds another player on every roster.

Ultimately, it's hard to call this a productive meeting. Spring Training is likely to be delayed as the teams continue to negotiate, and Ben believes the regular season is likely to be delayed as well. Eventually, economic pressure on both sides caused by missing games seems most likely to incentivize the coming together on a new agreement. It's just a matter of when that happens.

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On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick answers questions from listeners about the state of the San Francisco Giants. Among the questions asked and answered are:

Farhan kept mentioning making changes to the roster via trade. If that's the case, what team(s) do the Giants best match up with for a deal, and what Giants prospects or active roster players could be trade bait?

I’ve been seeing a lot of Instagram pages saying we should trade for Tyler Mahle. Is this realistic, or are people just hyping him up because of the success Reds pitchers have had with the Giants?

MLB Trade Rumors mentioned the Giants should pick up Matt Olson from the A's and use Brandon Belt as DH (if implemented). Olson is 27 and can hit for power and average, and is under team control until 2024. SF would have to give up a lot but worth it in my opinion.

Number of regular season wins doesn't necessarily equate with going deep in the playoffs. Which do you think the front office thinks more about when building the team? And don't say both - please pick one.

How much do you think the Giants are willing to spend for Seiya Suzuki?

Barry Bonds getting in the Hall of Fame??

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On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick discusses the latest news with Major League Baseball and the San Francisco Giants. The first order of business is the major news that Yankees hitting instructor Rachel Balcovec will become the first female manager in affiliated professional baseball. She will manage the Yankees' Low-A team beginning in 2022, and it puts her on a path to greater things in years to come. Notably, Giants manager Gabe Kapler interviewed Balkovec in 2019 for the position of quality control coach, where she would have worked as a hitting instructor and in strength and development. Balkovec opted to stay with the Yankees, and the move seems to have paid off. Kapler later hired Alyssa Nakken as a major league coach, and she became the first female to hold such a role in major league history. In the past year or so, many women have broken significant barriers, including Kim Ng becoming general manager of the Miami Marlins, the first female to hold that role.

Ben also discusses the latest with the major league lockout. ESPN's Jeff Passan reported today that MLB is going to make a core-economics proposal to the MLB Players Association on Thursday. While this is extremely welcome news, as this will be the first of its kind proposal by either side since the lockout began on Dec. 2, Ben urges listeners not to be overly optimistic about the proposal leading to any significant momentum. It's entirely possible, if not likely, that the MLBPA will not respond positively to the proposal and we'll be back to square one.

Finally, Ben discusses the Giants denying the Mets permission to interview pitching coach Andrew Bailey for the Mets' open bench coach position. It's debatable whether the position would be a promotion, and it's pretty late in the offseason for teams to be willing to give up a key member of their staff. Ben relates the situation to the Giants losing Donnie Ecker to the Rangers much earlier in the offseason, when they were willing to allow him to explore the role, one which he eventually was offered and accepted. Ben also discusses Austrailian LHP Genevieve Beacom becoming the first Australian professional baseball player over the weekend. The lefty tossed a scoreless inning and featured a fastball/breaking ball mix.

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On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick answers questions from listeners about the state of the San Francisco Giants. Among the questions asked and answered are:

What do the Giants have to do to maintain their status as an elite team next season?

Based on the current roster and philosophy towards player acquisitions, do you see the Giants maintaining their current success next season around 100 wins? Or do you think it’s more likely they regress to finish at what most fans expected them to heading into 2021? 83ish wins.

Will spring training happen?

Do we bring back Kris Bryant?

What does the potential market for Bryant look like? Any chance he’s back on a less than monstrous deal?

Would Patrick Wisdom be a trade candidate? Right-handed power guy who can play multiple positions and at 30 years old, hopefully wouldn’t cost a premium. He’s also from California.

For the Hjelle of it: what do you see as Sean Hjelle’s future with the Giants? SP, RP, tweener, or maybe a 3 innings reliever?

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On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick details the state of the MLB lockout by reviewing an ESPN piece by Jeff Passan that explores the subject in great detail. Ben goes through the Passan article, using direct quotations to provide listeners with up-to-the-minute updates about what's happening (or not happening) between MLB and the MLB Players Association. The league locked out the players at midnight on Dec. 1, and a whole lot of nothing has happened since. But that doesn't mean Passan's update isn't jam-packed with important information.

Passan speaks with numerous sources to gather information about where we are and where we're headed. He compares the state of affairs to the "disastrous" negotiations about how to start the 2020 season after Covid-19 cancelled spring training. Although Commissioner Rob Manfred says those talks are irrelevant to the current negotiations, Passan (and Ben) disagree. They clearly demonstrate how toxic the relationship currently is between the parties.

Passan details what the players are looking for in a deal. Whether it's raising the CBT threshold, earlier free agency, earlier arbitration, raising the minimum salary, and a whole host of other desires, the players want fundamental change across the board, which doesn't bode well for the season starting on time. Passan says that the next step in the process appears to be that the players need to define their top priorities, because it's impractical to expect the league to meet all of their numerous demands.

In terms of key dates, Passan and his sources don't expect anything substantive to happen until at least late January/early February. After that, March 1 is a key date. If serious progress hasn't been made toward a deal by then, the start of the season will be in jeopardy. Given how the negotiations, or lack thereof, have gone so far, that seems like a more distinct possibility by the day.

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On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick discusses the MLB Network decision not to bring back universally respected journalist Ken Rosenthal. The tension between the network, which is owned by the league, and Rosenthal reportedly originated after Rosenthal was critical of commissioner Rob Manfred when the league and players were attempting to negotiate new terms to start the 2020 season, which was on pause due to the then-emerging Covid-19 pandemic.

Rosenthal was harsh but fair in his article in The Athletic, which was published in June 2020 under the title "Rosenthal: Manfred must strike a deal with the players or ruin his legacy." The network's decision not to retain Rosenthal, one of the top baseball journalists there is, speaks volumes into its intentions. They are clearly more interested in perpetuating propaganda than the truth. It's a sad move for the sport, and one that Ben believes will backfire. Whatever negative publicity may have come from Rosenthal will come back around many times over from other journalists witnessing the ill-fated move. The league has lost a lot of credibility in recent years, and they just lost a big chunk of whatever they had left among members of the media, Ben included.

Finally, Ben ties this in with the San Francisco Giants. Ultimately, Rob Manfred is employed by the owners, which of course includes the Giants' ownership. But Ben believes the Giants are a far better organization than most when it comes to valuing their fans and their place in the community. Also, Ben makes the point that front offices aren't the ones who should take criticism when fans are upset with a team at large's behavior. For example, many fans have been accusing Giants President of Baseball Operations Farhan Zaidi of being "cheap" lately. This is factually incorrect, but also, it's not Zaidi's money. If fans believe a team is choosing not to spend money that would help them be a significantly better team, that anger should be directed towards ownership as opposed to the front office. The front office is clearly incentivised to make the team as good as possible, or else they risk losing their jobs. However, they always have to obey their bosses and keep them happy. Just food for thought...

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On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick answers questions from listeners about the state of the San Francisco Giants. Among the questions asked and answered are:

Will the Giants regret trading Caleb Kilian and Alexander Canario in the Kris Bryant trade?

Are the Giants in on Seiya Suzuki? Seems like a much-needed right-handed bat and probably much cheaper and better defense than Bryant and Nick Castellanos.

Do you think teams will begin secretly working out trades that they can announce after the lockout ends?

How would you rate Michael Conforto as a potential outfielder pickup?

Over/under on wins next year? 81?

What do the Giants have to do to maintain their status as an elite team next season?

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On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick answers questions from listeners about the state of the San Francisco Giants. Among the questions asked and answered are:

Is the Giants’ platoon system just a short-term solution to a rebuild or do you think it is the long-run goal? We saw how cheap and affordable it can be to find platoon players, but I’ve got to think SF is hoping for mostly everyday contributors in a couple years. Thoughts?

With the Giants having so many platoon positions currently, do you see more teams implementing methods to take away the platoon advantage? What might be the best way for the Giants to combat this in the future?

Which minor leaguers do you see being on the big league roster on opening day and/or at some point during the year. Both players making their debut and also guys who have been up but for just short periods of time.

Do you think the Giants could pull off four starters and have relievers interspersed to cover the fifth day a la Sean Hjelle, Sammy Long, Tyler Beede, etc.?

Do you think the Giants would consider a six-man rotation to protect some of the fragile arms that are presently in the starting rotation?

Why not bring Johnny Cueto back as fifth starter?

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On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick examines the state of the San Francisco Giants' farm system. He dives into The Athletic's Melissa Lockard's Top 30 Giants prospects list, getting to the top five names. By this point, almost everyone knows that Marco Luciano is considered the Giants' top prospect. But what should we make of his 2021 season? He dominated in Low-A San Jose, but struggled after a promotion to High-A Eugene. He then struggled in the Arizona Fall League as well. Thankfully, his stock hasn't really fallen, because he was so much younger than the competition where he struggled. The sky remains the limit for Luciano.

Next on the list, without giving away any spoilers, is some combination of Joey Bart, Luis Matos, Kyle Harrison, and Will Bednar. It's refreshing to have two pitchers emerge within the top five in the system, and Matos' emergence should be exciting for Giants fans. Bart has fallen in recent seasons, but how far? What should fans expect from Bart in 2022, when he's expected to get most of the playing time at the catcher position with Buster Posey deciding to retire?

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