San Francisco Giants: FanSided Winter Meetings 2017

The FanSided 2017 Winter Meetings are officially under way and the San Francisco Giants GM representation is already hard at work at making some deals.

Those of us here in the MLB division at FanSided have decided to run an offseason simulation in roughly three days. Representing the San Francisco Giants, is one of your site experts, Daniel Sperry. The goal of this simulation was to run this as close to real life, and official as possible, while having fun and seeing what you could come up with.

The rules are to be followed as close to the CBA as possible. Two of the division members are acting as Commissioner and Super Agent. The Commissioner handles all trades, while the Super Agent handles all free agent offers and player contract extensions.

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The main rules that handicap us is the fact that we are only able to increase our payroll up to 15% from opening day of 2017. For the San Francisco Giants, that number is roughly $207 million dollars, which is $10 million over the Luxury Tax number.

While the Luxury tax number would be awesome to beat, with the San Francisco Giants front office saying they’re willing to go into the luxury tax for 2018 if it means getting together a really good team, then they’ll do it. So for us, we’re willing to go into the luxury tax too. It won’t be to much over though.

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We also have to keep the 40 man roster to it’s closest possible state, and we are locked into the current 40 man roster the Giants currently have. Makes sense, right? Ok so what am I trying to do in this simulation?

The number one priority at the start of this was to move salary and try and acquire Stanton. But thanks to the 15% handicap, the addition of Stanton would likely remove us from truly putting together the most well rounded, competent roster possible to contend, which I would ultimately think is the Giants M.O for 2018. So that effectively removes us from the Stanton discussion, due to the rules of the simulation.

The next items on the docket?

• Cut Salary and bad long term contracts
• Get bullpen help, and lefty bullpen help.
• Add a top 10 3B
• Improve outfield defense while adding quality in center and right
• Fill holes left by salary moved with cheaper, equally productive or simply better replacements.
• Acquire elite prospects in return.

Next: The Giants Should Sign Kaepernick

We have until 6pm pacific time to make as many moves as possible. We already have completed one significant trade, and submitted multiple bids on potential free agents. If we land what we’ve got out right now, you would have to think that the Giants squad currently put together would compete and contend in 2018. We will certainly reveal what we got accomplished in this simulation once it has finished.