Three 2023 New Year's resolutions for the SF Giants

It's been a turbulent offseason for the SF Giants and their fans. JD Salazar takes a moment to consider the bigger picture as 2023 rolls around.

Ah, New Years Day. A time for rebirth. For redemption. For getting off your feet and putting some elbow grease into those New Years resolutions! I wish you the best of luck with that - I’m probably taking a nap as you read this. For the SF Giants’ organization, though, the new year is the perfect time to take a second to pause, reflect upon an offseason that’s largely been wrapped up, and figure out how best to approach an uncertain future. I mean, I think it is. They might be huddled around a table at this very moment, wearing haunted expressions as grim readouts of Mike Yastrzemski’s xwOBA pour out of an overworked printer. So in case the Giants’ tireless pursuit of the juggernauts down south precludes a restful and reflective holiday season, I’ve put together three resolutions for a happier and healthier 2023.

SF Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford. (2022) / Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports

1. Make Amends with Brandon Crawford

Buster Posey is gone. Brandon Belt’s future is unclear. And now that Evan Longoria is officially taking his retirement tour in the Arizona desert, Brandon Crawford is all that’s left of a powerful veteran core that stretched from the magical 2010 season through a magical 2021 season. San Francisco, both as fans and as a baseball organization, should treasure him as the kind of player that transcends regimes.

…Which is why the front office really dropped the ball with the whole Carlos Correa thing, informing a Wall of Fame player that he’d no longer be fielding the only position he’d ever played. Only for that deal to fall apart. But hey! It’s the new year, and dropping balls is in the holiday spirit - just ask New York. Resolving to do better is what the season’s all about, and the Giants have every incentive to do so. Without permanent fixtures around him, the Giants will need Crawford’s veteran leadership and Gold Glove fielding to lead a patchwork infield back to defensive competency.

Still, Crawford will be 36 when the season begins, and he won’t be able to fill the the same everyday shortstop role that he once did. The Giants wouldn’t have been in the market for Correa otherwise. The best thing they can do is build around him with backup shortstop options so he can take 10 or 20 games off, rather than have to grit through a final, injury-demolished season. Better yet? They could finally get Marco Luciano into the big leagues.

2. Up the “Wow!” Factor

The Giants, unfortunately, do not have a marquee free agent that will turn around the increasingly pedestrian attendance numbers they’ve seen over the past few seasons. It is what it is, and hopefully doesn’t overshadow that the Giants have upgraded all over the diamond in free agency. The Giants can (and should) plan on contending, even if it’s contingent on making a big move in the trade market. But as 2021 showed us, outperforming expectations with a gestalt baseball machine won’t fully bring back the magic. The Giants need something bigger.

The great news is, they don’t need to wait until they’re ten games above .500 to start implementing marketing attractions. Just look around the pro sports scene. The Mets made Edwin Díaz’ walkout song an international attraction. Aaron Judge probably stayed with the Yankees because they created an upscale seating section called The Judge’s Chambers in his rookie year. Hell, the Giants are even getting upstaged by the Sacramento Kings, who’ve debuted their awe-inspiring Beam. After years of sensible upgrades and quality-of-life improvements to the ballpark experience, it’s time for the Giants to get flashy.

Now, far be it from me to tell anyone how to market a multi-billion dollar franchise. I’m just some schmuck watching from home most of the time like everyone else. But there’s opportunity to be had, here. Maybe they turn the stadium lights orange before high-leverage innings to help everyone get in the zone. Maybe they offer a million-dollar bounty to whoever can hit 30 home runs for the first time since 2004. Maybe they pay the Angels $150 million in cash for both Trout and Ohtani. At this point, anything should be on the table.

3. Sell at the Trade Deadline

If you read this far, then I think you’re ready for the kind of nuanced discussion that this entails. The obvious caveat here is that you never really want to sell at the trade deadline because that means you’re giving up. And in the expanded Wild Card format, giving up is more infuriating than ever. You have to be a special kind of bad to want to throw in the towel when the Phillies and the Braves have made such compelling postseason runs the past two years. And the Giants have deserved a lot of credit in the past for hanging onto otherwise valuable trade chips.

But 8 years removed from the team that brought the last championship to the Bay Area, sticking to the firm “never sell” mantra that the Giants are known for will end up hurting them. Arguably, it already has, given that Carlos Rodón’s beautiful 2022 season means exactly diddly squat for the Giants in 2023. It’s a slippery slope to operating with the stomach-churning ruthlessness of the Rays or the uncanny ability of the A’s to completely throw away talent, but if the opportunity cost is missing out on Soto? Missing out on Ohtani? The Giants have to find a way to make these deals work.

And to a degree, they’ve already set themselves up for this kind of savvy trade maneuvering. Seemingly half the roster is on extremely short-term deals, and between Webb, DeSclafani, Wood, Cobb, Manaea, Stripling, and Junis, the Giants are rostering seven starting pitchers. If July rolls around and they can flip a resurgent DeSclafani for the kind of prospects they’ll need for the next Juan Soto or Trea Turner trade, maybe they do it.

Sure, it’s risky. In this particular case, you’d probably be asking Kyle Harrison to be a steady member of a rotation with playoff aspirations. But even if that’s not a risk they’d be willing to take - maybe the next Chili Davis comes out of nowhere to create a logjam in the outfield, or David Villar and Thairo Estrada become valuable enough to make J.D. Davis fungible - there will almost certainly be some way for the SF Giants to squeeze value out of such a depth-over-starpower roster. At this point, they’ve tried basically everything else. Now, more than ever, it’s time to examine the state of things and plan out how to make such tricky decisions work. It’ll certainly be bumpy. But if you can’t weather a bump, you’ll never be able to take a leap.