I presume that new San Francisco Giant pitcher Jordan Hicks will start the same way that Ryan Walker and John Brebbia started games.
As in, they pitched the first, and sometimes the second inning, and then they took a seat for the rest of the game.
But no matter if Hicks is an opener, a true starting pitcher, or a back-end option to pair with closer Camilo Doval, he’s a nice pickup for the Giants.
He will not, however, satiate Giants fans’ lust for a star free agent. Hicks, who reportedly agreed to a four-year, $44 million deal Friday, is a far cry from Shohei Ohtani (700 million IOUs from the Dodgers) or Aaron Judge ($360 million real dollars from the Yankees last offseason).
He’s not even in the same category as Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman, or Blake Snell, the second-tier free agents in this class who remained available as of Hicks’ signing.
But Hicks is better business — a pitcher who can help the Giants win today, tomorrow, and likely for all four years of his contract. If he’s a true starting pitcher of any quality, he’ll be a coup of a signing for Farhan Zaidi. If he’s in the bullpen, he’s still a nice pick-up. (Bullpens win divisions, after all, and the Giants should have the best in the National League West this upcoming season.)
Forgive me for providing some baseball analysis — I know Giants fans don’t want to hear that stuff right now. They want pop, flash, and glamour. They want someone noteworthy from the outside to come and back up our superiority complex in the Bay by saying, “Yes, this is the place to be.”
Thank goodness the Giants’ front office has kept its head enough to sign guys like Hicks amid that noise.
For all those who have lost their heads — who demand a big-money star — may I offer some advice:
Give up.
Let go of this notion that San Francisco is a worthy landing spot for top free agents. Suppress the feeling that the Giants are one of baseball’s biggest organizations and brands.
Yes, those things are true. San Francisco and the Bay are still the best. Even our downtimes are better than 99.9 percent of the world’s best. And, of course, the Giants logo still carries weight. There’s no arguing that the ballpark is still superb. Sure, there’s a larger conversation to be had about ownership, but the bar for bad ownership has been lowered so far by the A’s John Fisher that it’s in bad taste to have that conversation right now.
I am asking you to push away these feelings of free-agent envy because, even if you were to get what you wanted, I’m not sure it would be fulfilling. (Do you feel any better about the Giants now that Jung Hoo-Lee is here?)
I’m not Draymond Green’s therapist, and I’m not trying to be hokey, but in life and baseball, true happiness comes from within.
That’s where our collective focus — and the Giants front office’s focus — should be.
Desperate teams and fanbases believe one player will fix everything.
These Giants reek of desperation.
It’s no wonder no superstars want to sign here.
And now that the Giants have failed to land the big guy yet again and we’ve moved to the second tier of options, the response should not be “We need two” but rather “How can we make our own?”
Dollars are one currency in baseball. Quality prospects are the most valuable currency in the game, though.
Call that small-market thinking all you want. I don’t see the Atlanta Braves as a small-market team. The Astros might be bush league, but they’re not minor league. This is how those organizations operate.
In football, if you have the quarterback and head coach right, little else matters. Just look at the playoff field.
In basketball, you need not one, but two star players. After that, you can nickel-and-dime your way to a title.
But baseball’s greatness is that it is still a team sport. Greatness cannot stem from one, two, or three great players — even the best of the best.
The Angels had the two best players of all time on the same roster and never won a playoff game. The Mets spent like crazy before last season — landing some pretty good players in the process, and are now taking a year off from competing.
And yes, the Rangers have recently spent big money in free agency, and then they won the World Series. But that spending coincided with their development system graduating key prospects and working wonders on under-the-radar pickups. That team could spend because the team had a strong foundation on which to build — they weren’t buying legitimacy or star power. They were filling established gaps.
The Giants have plenty of big-league players, but is anyone in the lineup established?
San Francisco has only three players on the projected Opening Day lineup that are expected to have a WAR of 2 (the value of a league-average player) or higher this season.
The Dodgers have seven such players.
So, no, the Giants are not a player or two away from competing with the Dodgers. They’re a half-decade of great drafting, trading, and developing away.
Luckily, the rest of baseball is equally behind.
Moving forward, the Giants need to put all that effort wooing and hand-wringing (“Do you think he likes us?”) into something more productive, more internal.
Is any of this easy?
Hell no.
But it’s the right move for this team at this time. The foundation isn’t set in San Francisco.
I get it: We all want the new, flashy thing. It’s so much easier to buy than build. We all want to keep up with the Joneses.
But that way will always leave you wanting more.
Let the fools throw big money at players whose brilliance will never outlast their contract.
After all, the big-time free agency route has only brought losses for the Giants. All those losses have demoralized the fan base. It’s a vicious cycle.
And it doesn’t have to be this way.
So, let’s forget Bellinger and Snell and think about Marco Luciano and Kyle Harrison and prioritize a new question:
What are the Giants doing to turn those two top prospects into the Bellinger and Snell of tomorrow?
