1 quality that has been pleasantly absent from the SF Giants this winter

The 2024 - 2025 offseason is officially in the books as the SF Giants gear up for the regular season. I wanted to focus on one quality that has been pleasantly absent from this offseason - drama.

1 quality that has been pleasantly absent from the SF Giants this winter

There had been way too much drama for the Giants in recent offseasons for a number of reasons. Some of that included failed pursuits in free agency or self-inflicted wounds that come with the optics of certain decisions.

December 2022 was an especially painful month for Giants fans. There had been a lot of excitement that they would finally land a top free-agent target. They had been heavily connected to Aaron Judge. For a moment in time, it looked as if they were going to sign him away from the New York Yankees, but that turned out to be premature.

That same month, the Giants agreed to a term sheet with Carlos Correa for 13 years and $350 million. After a failed physical, his agent, Scott Boras, moved quickly in another direction to sign with the New York Mets. Correa encountered the same problem with the physical and ended up with the Minnesota Twins instead. It was a brutal couple of weeks for Giants fans as they went from nearly having Aaron Judge to finally getting a star player in Correa to sign only for it to fall through right before the introductory press conference.

Last offseason was more of the same for the Giants. They pursued both Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, only for them to both sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Giants probably were not going to sign either player in the first place as they had not proven to have a consistently competitive roster in a way the Dodgers could offer.

San Francisco did end up signing several top players, headlined by Matt Chapman, Blake Snell, Jung Hoo Lee, and Jorge Soler. There was a lot of excitement following these moves. However, there was plenty of self-inflicted wounds as well.

The Giants signed Nick Ahmed to a minor league deal, signaling that Brandon Crawford's 13-year run had come to an end. They made the right decision, but the optics of the move were not great. Crawford added to that when he conveyed to the media that it felt like Farhan Zaidi was the one who did not want him to return. Communication became an issue with the Giants and Crawford in recent seasons, and this was yet another example of that.

Not to be outdone, the Giants famously let go of J.D. Davis in a cost-cutting move. Following the Matt Chapman and Jorge Soler signings, the Giants had no room for Davis. There was more to this story as Davis won his case in arbitration, but going to arbitration in the first place made his contract non-guaranteed. It was a poor reflection of the Giants' negotiating tactics, and just felt like they did Davis dirty for lack of a better phrase.

Lastly, the Giants parted ways with wildly popular PA announcer Renel Brooks-Moon in yet another move from last March that brought too much negative attention to the club. This looked to be a contract dispute between Brooks-Moon and ownership, but it was poor move nonetheless.

Drama has been quietly absent from this offseason. The Giants parted ways with Farhan Zaidi and immediately replaced him with Buster Posey. There was no drawn-out process in search for a replacement or anything like that. Posey taking over as the head of the front office was well-received by the fanbase despite his lack of traditional experience in that role.

There was no failed pursuit in free agency. While the Giants had been connected to Corbin Burnes for much of the offseason, their interest was not as serious as has been reported.

The Giants brought in a couple of high-charatcer players in Willy Adames and Justin Verlander. One of the criticisms of recent Giants teams has been the lack of continuity and cohesion. The Giants have worked to correct that by locking up Adames and Matt Chapman to long-term deals. They know who will take over the left side of the infield for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps, they were not the most aggressive team in free agency despite having quite a few holes to fill. They did manage to avoid the types of stories that have plagued the team all too much for the past couple of winters.