Buster Posey, Giants focused on pitching in offseason, but spending limits exist

LAS VEGAS -- For much of Buster Posey's first season as the Giants' president of baseball operations, the focus was on simply watching and listening. 

Posey was a regular in the Giants' dugout during batting practice, often sitting on a folding chair in the back corner and observing workouts as he chatted with any coach or team leader who would stop by. Despite having four young children, he was a presence on road trips. The entire front office gathered in the same city multiple times, giving Posey a chance to listen to not just those who work at Oracle Park, but also the player development staffers from Arizona, international scouts based in Latin America, and members of the amateur scouting group.

Posey learned that there's value in pushing a rival exec to complete a surprise trade in June, and also that there's danger in extending a contract before you're 100 percent certain. He saw how deadline plans can go up in smoke over the course of a bad homestand. He watched the lineup complete thrilling comebacks, but also go into slumps that were hard to watch. 

But mostly, Posey discovered the same lesson as everyone else who has ever led a baseball operations department. 

"It was definitely a learning experience for me to learn that that old adage -- you never can have enough pitching -- is definitely true," Posey said last month.

Giants officials felt their rotation depth went nearly into double-digits last spring, but by September, they were scraping the bottom of the 40-man roster and turning to bullpen games. Their relievers were as good as anybody in the first half, but by the end of the year, the pen was made up mostly of inconsistent young pitchers and veterans who had been added over the course of the season.

During every media appearance this offseason, Posey has said pitching is the priority. He reiterated that on Tuesday during his time with reporters at the annual General Managers Meetings, and the exact same conversation is happening every day in internal meetings and Zoom calls. 

One Giants official recently put it this way to some others: Every time there's a conversation about spending on another position or using trade capital to upgrade at second base or right field or backup catcher, everyone needs to take a step back and ask whether those resources would be better spent on more pitching.

The Giants enter the offseason with three locked-in starters in Logan Webb, Robbie Ray and Landen Roupp. You could make the argument that they need to add at least three more, given the lack of experienced depth behind those three, Roupp's elbow scare in 2025, and the fact that Ray has just one year left on his deal. You could also argue that they need just one starter, leaving the fifth spot to a competition between guys like Carson Whisenhunt, Blade Tidwell, Trevor McDonald and Hayden Birdsong. 

Realistically, it seems Posey needs to sign or trade for two, but during an appearance on Thursday's Giants Talk podcast, he said it's hard to pinpoint an exact number right now. 

"It would depend on what's available on the open market for us to say whether it's one or two (additions)," Posey said. "The hope is that one or two or three of these (young) guys are really going to grab the bull by the horns and take hold of some of those spots at the back end of the rotation. Hopefully their (mindset) is like, no, I don't want to be considered a back-end guy. I want to be a frontline guy."

While this is not considered a particularly strong free agent class overall, there are plenty of pitching options. Dylan Cease, Framber Valdez and Ranger Suarez are expected to get nine-figure deals and Michael King, Zac Gallen and Brandon Woodruff lead a large group of veterans in line for healthy multi-year contracts. 

There will be future Hall-of-Famers (Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, one of Tony Vitello's closest friends) likely looking for one-year deals, and interesting flyers like former Dodgers right-handers Walker Buehler and Dustin May. 

The trade market is expected to be active, and Tarik Skubal and Freddy Peralta will likely see their names on MLB Trade Rumors often. There are also quite a few international options, led by Japanese star Tatsuya Imai, who could go well over $100 million after he's posted. The Giants want to be more active in that market, and Posey and general manager Zack Minasian saw Imai pitch when they made a trip to Japan early in the season.

Posey will have choices, although a few might not be discussed too much. Giants chairman Greg Johnson recently told The San Francisco Standard that the Giants would be "very cautious" about pursuing pitchers looking for $100 million deals. Asked by NBC Sports Bay Area about those comments and how he views long-term deals as opposed to shorter multi-year deals and one-year contracts like Verlander's, Posey said he wasn't sure how much he could say publicly about the market. 

"I'll plead the fifth a little bit on that and just say that we all have our thoughts and opinions and there's examples of good and bad in all of those scenarios," he said. "So I think you just have to keep an open mind."

You can say the same about closer contracts, and that's another glaring roster hole as the Giants enter the offseason. Camilo Doval was traded, Randy Rodriguez had Tommy John surgery and Ryan Walker had a difficult season, so the Giants could be looking for two or three new late-inning arms ahead of next spring. 

On that front, the front office is currently more focused on minor league free agents and adding depth. Posey noted that relievers are "volatile" and hinted the Giants will stay away from the higher end of the closer market. 

"It's probably more likely to come down to a competition is the way that it'll play out," he said of the closer role. "But again, we'll look and see what's available, either something via trade or another route."

Posey was behind the plate when Mark Melancon's implosion started, but even if he stays away from closers looking for three- or four-year deals, the Giants still could add intriguing arms for the ninth. This market has plenty of former closers who might be available on lesser deals, like Pete Fairbanks and Ryan Helsley. 

The bullpen is where Posey will see the biggest difference from his first offseason to this one. He inherited a good and experienced group, but trades and injuries have changed that in a hurry.

Posey signed Verlander to a one-year deal last winter but otherwise pretty much left the pitching staff alone. He talked often in the spring about how much young depth there was, but that evaporated pretty quickly, with Kyle Harrison getting traded and others struggling. 

The Giants were surprised that they ran out of pitching, and the goal is to make sure that doesn't happen to Vitello in his first year in charge. This might be more of a quantity-over-quality effort, though. It's a good offseason to be looking for a high-end starter, but the Giants have massive future commitments to a position player core led by Rafael Devers, Willy Adames, Matt Chapman and Jung Hoo Lee. Webb and Ray are due a combined $48 million next year, too, and after that, there's labor uncertainty for the entire industry. 

Posey said there's "no question" that those payroll commitments impact how the Giants will view this offseason. The young pitching dried up last season, but given that lack of long-term payroll flexibility, it'll be crucial that the Giants find some new contributors from their farm system. There's nothing more valuable than cost-controlled young pitching, and Posey still sees plenty of young Giants who can help solve the organization's pitching shortage. 

"We want to put the best product on the field and we're going to consider every angle to do that, but you also have to look to the future ... we're going to have to have players from our minor league system be impact players," he said on Giants Talk. "I got to see it when I was playing and I feel like we're kind of creeping our way there to having some guys that can do that. 

"I always think, too, whether it's right or wrong, obviously talent is going to win out but sometimes when you have that player in your system that comes up and makes a drastic impact, it profoundly affects the rest of your system. They're looking and saying, 'This guy was just my teammate and I played alongside him and he's not that much different than me' and confidence grows. It's a long-winded way of saying we're going to do everything we can to put the best and most entertaining team on the field."

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