MLB Winter Meetings slow as Shohei Ohtani decision looms for SF Giants

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Day One of the MLB Winter Meetings concluded Monday with nary a peep of activity.

The San Francisco Giants are expected to be major players here and, depending on how things go, deeper into the offseason. But when president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi took a seat in the club’s sixth-floor suite he welcomed reporters to the “most awkward session of the year.”

As in: There’s about to be a whole lot of questions I can’t answer.

Prohibited from talking publicly about current free agents, Zaidi zigged and zagged around naming names — we can: Shohei Ohtani — while attempting to explain the lack of transactions that so far have defined this winter and the first day of baseball’s offseason gathering.

“It almost feels like this year there’s more of an awareness of some of the bigger dominoes that may fall. My sense is that there’s more patience for things to play out,” Zaidi said. “In one sense there’s a little bit more of a traffic jam dynamic. But in the other sense, for teams that are sort of hunting at the top of the market, it’s good because you want to feel like there are a lot of options on the board once things start happening.”

So, are the Giants playing at the top of the market?

“Yeah, I would say that,” Zaidi said. “Yeah.”

Front offices have operated with a paranoia of sorts on any news regarding Ohtani, whose contract will almost certainly set records once he puts pen to paper. He was said to be taking meetings with finalists this week at his agency’s offices in Los Angeles. Zaidi, new manager Bob Melvin and part-owner Buster Posey were photographed Saturday outside Oracle Park, where it was speculated that they were meeting with the two-time MVP, two-way sensation.

Asked about the perception of their home ballpark as a deterrent to free-agent hitters, Zaidi had a certain stat line handy off the top of his head.

“For specific players who have specific batted ball profiles, we can make the case that, hey, this is maybe only going to impact your offense by 1 or 2 percent, not some doomsday scenario,” Zaidi said.

Such as … a certain left-handed power hitter known to be available?

“You mean Barry (Bonds)?” Zaidi interjected.

“Barry had better numbers at Pac Bell than on the road for the eight years he played there. He hit more homers and his OPS was better at home. … Not that I looked that up for any reason. Other than just genuine curiosity.”

While Zaidi couldn’t talk about Ohtani, plenty of Giants fans on social media buzzed about starting pitcher Logan Webb becoming the two-way star’s 177th account followed on Instagram. Any morsel of hope can fuel the fervor around Ohtani’s free agency.

Outside of Ohtani, the Giants may be more active pursuing free-agent starting pitchers than position players, Zaidi said. Those lineup pieces were more likely to come through the trade market, which so far has produced little more than negotiations around the league.

“Some of the things we’re looking to do on the position player side – athleticism, speed, defense – oftentimes trades are better avenues to accomplish those,” Zaidi said. “It’s not necessarily that simple, but I think that’s been the demarcation of our approach. On the position player side, we’re having lots of trade conversations to try to fill some of those needs that we talked about.”

At the top of the pitching market is Japanese right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who could command the largest contract of any starter, even reigning NL Cy Young winner Blake Snell. But the 25-year-old three-time Sawamura Award winner isn’t likely to make his decision at the meetings, reportedly set to take a tour of interested teams — numbering 11 to 14, according to agent Joel Wolfe — before his Jan. 4 deadline to sign.

The decision to pursue long-term, high-priced contracts with pitchers is a pivot for Zaidi, who hasn’t handed out a contract longer than three years and balked at re-signing Kevin Gausman and Carlos Rodón after they re-established themselves in San Francisco.

It’s a product of their system’s pitching depth, Zaidi said, calling it the best of any organization he has been in while listing off Kyle Harrison, Tristan Beck, Keaton Winn, Carson Whisenhunt, Mason Black, Landen Roupp, Hayden Birdsong, Reggie Crawford and Kai-Wei Tang.

“Strategically it’s just easier to make that kind of commitment when you feel you have a lot of depth, as opposed to feeling like you have multiple holes to fill,” Zaidi said, acknowledging Oracle Park still makes it easier for the Giants to lure free-agent starting pitchers than hitters. “I think strategically it’s easier, and I think that’s a strong selling point to veterans. Hey, we’ve got this group of pitchers that you can help lead. We have a chance to have a lot of stability in our rotation going forward because we’ve got some guys in Double-A or Triple-A that are really close and can be rotation partners with you for the duration of your deal.”

But everything comes back to Ohtani.

For now, they are playing the waiting game.

“It seems like we’re building toward some things happening in the next week or two,” Zaidi said. “But it’s hard to say. We do the work we can on the players we’re interested in, but agents and players kind of control the cadence of if and when they’re able to roll up their sleeves. This is day one of the meetings, so if some deals start happening in the next week, that’ll put us on schedule or a little ahead of schedule as an industry.”

Notable

More tidbits from Zaidi …