SF Giants free-agent breakdown: Atlanta SS Dansby Swanson

An elite defender with power is hitting the market. But will the SF Giants look past Dansby Swanson's middling career numbers?

It’s time to talk about Dansby Swanson's potential fit with the SF Giants.

Like other shortstops in their walk years - Trea Turner, Carlos Correa, and Xander Bogaerts come to mind - Dansby Swanson had an electrifying 2022, and he’s looking to cash in on the open market as a valuable two-way player at a premium position. With stats comparable to the league’s biggest stars, Swanson is looking for a massive contract on a team he can spend most or all of the rest of his career with. Unlike the other top-flight shortstops, though, Swanson averaged less than 1.5 WAR per year until his breakout 2022. If he’s only had one good year in his career, why on earth even consider him?

Could Dansby Swanson be the latest Vanderbilt product to don a SF Giants uniform? / Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

Because this offseason is when the Giants are expected to make a huge splash. Maybe not just one big free agent signing, but perhaps two, or even three if the roulette wheel lands on green. The point is they’ll spend big money. And as long as Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi is at the helm, the team is guaranteed to spend small money in about 20 different ways too. But focus on the big money, because this offseason is going to get wild.

This is the Giants we’re talking about. The only predictable thing about them, especially after missing out on so many high-profile players recently, is that they’re going to be unpredictable. Even if they land the biggest fish on the market, like they did with Barry Bonds in ’94, it won’t be straightforward. And it shouldn’t! An offseason of signing Aaron Judge and a bunch of minor league free agents would be organizational malpractice after last year’s dud of a season. They’ll need to make a lot of moves, and that means shopping around.

Unlike a bonus round of Shop Til You Drop, though, they won’t just get to pick out a nicely-sized box from the hardware aisle and a little envelope from the kids’ section. They’ll need backup plans, especially in the case they don’t land Judge. Their backup plans will need to meet other backup plans in a chance encounter at a coffee shop on the way back from work. They’ll find they have contingencies in common, and fall in love over a shared interest in possibilities. Eventually, they’ll break the news - they’re having options! Someday, one of those little eventualities will grow up big and strong, and we’ll all be so proud that little Johnny “Dansby Swanson/Jacob deGrom/Jean Segura” Results is leading the Giants to a championship berth in 2023. In the meantime, the Giants will be hunting for every conceivable outcome out of free agency, which brings us back to Swanson.

There’s a lot to like about Swanson, starting with his breakout 2022. Last year, he absolutely crushed the ball, slashing .277/.329/.447 with 25 home runs and 18 stolen bases. But Swanson also posted a career year in the field, putting up phenomenal numbers by pretty much every metric out there. Statcast had Swanson as the second-best defender at any position in 2022, both by Outs Above Average and by Runs Prevented. All of this added up to Swanson’s most decorated season yet: 5.7 WAR, an All-Star appearance, a top-20 MVP finish, and a Gold Glove award.

There’s another aspect to Swanson that makes him very appealing to suitors around the league: his durability. Over the past three years, Swanson has missed one game. Not “missed one game due to injury.” He’s missed one game. Since the start of 2020, Swanson has played in 382/383 games for the Braves.  Swanson has demonstrated the most valuable ability for any player in it for the long haul: availability. 

In all of these regards, Swanson represents the perfect free-agent signing. He’s only 28 (he turns 29 in February of 2023), which makes the first five years of his deal look a little friendlier to whoever signs him. His defense is also elite despite a lower-than-average arm strength, which means physical decline should be less of a factor than it would be for other shortstops.

Brandon Crawford is a shining example of how you can retain elite defensive production without plus athleticism, and Swanson should be able to replicate that trend even into his mid-30s. Combine all of that with the idea that last year represented Swanson finally putting it all together, and you get a model free agent that gives you prime seasons without making you pay for past production. It’s the platonic ideal of smart spending on the open market.

Those upsides are, of course, tempered by the uncertainty that’s inherent with signing a player who broke out in a contract year. If 2022 represented a career peak, and the Dansby Swanson of tomorrow lies somewhere between there and his career average, whichever team signs him will be underwhelmed.

Prior to last year, Swanson had only put up a league-average bat in one full season, the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign. The next year, he’d find his power stroke, banging out 27 home runs… but only a .760 OPS, right about league average. His strikeout and whiff rates, never a strength, have plummeted to the bottom quartile of the league since. He hits the ball hard, but his ability to see the zone without totally selling out for power might not be good enough for Zaidi and Co. to justify pursuing.

The other problem is that pulling Swanson away from Atlanta might be harder than for most other free agents. Swanson’s been a fan favorite there, a fixture in every Braves postseason lineup over the past four years, and they might be eager to retain his talent after letting Freddie Freeman walk last offseason. Atlanta may simply tell him “whatever offer you get +1” and rely on a busy shortstop market to keep that offer from hurting their bottom line too much. They could always pull another Freeman and let Swanson go to try to sign, say, Turner, but it’s fair to say that Swanson has more value in terms of name recognition in Atlanta, much like Crawford in San Francisco.

Speaking of Crawford, perhaps the biggest downside to signing Swanson in lieu of Correa, Turner, or Bogaerts is that there’s not really anywhere to put Swanson if the Giants do sign him. Swanson’s never logged a plate appearance while playing a defensive position other than shortstop. Signing Swanson would be a great way for the Giants to make a difficult organization decision completely unavoidable, which is great if they want to do something crazy like make Crawford half of a DH platoon or release him outright, and bad if they want to have a reasonable roster construction in 2023. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it would require retooling the roster in exactly the kind of “no stones unturned” way that the Giants may be considering in free agency and the trade market. Moreover, if Swanson were forced to play a less important defensive position, there would be even more pressure on his bat.

What will it take to sign Swanson? Mets writer Tim Britton clocks him at 7 years, $168 million ($24 million a year). Former Reds GM Jim Bowden predicts that Swanson will end up with the Red Sox on a 6 year, $154 million pact ($25.6 million a year). Spotrac estimates that Swanson’s market value is 6 year and $149 million, just a hair under $25 million a year. And honestly, that’s where the temptation lies. Is Trea Turner, who might push a $300 million contract, better than Dansby Swanson? Absolutely. Is Trea Turner better than TWO Dansby Swansons? That’s a much much harder question to answer.

However you look at it, acquiring Dansby Swanson is a risk. He’s younger than the rest of the field, but not by much. He’s been a postseason stalwart, but he hasn’t been good enough to make you sure he’d push the Giants past the Dodgers. He’s shown he can play at a high level, but he’s also shown he can just kind of be there filling space. He’s a big free agent, but he isn’t Judge. More than anyone else we’ve covered in the free-agent breakdowns, there’s no set path here. It’s not superstardom or bust. He could also fizzle. He could also just be kind of decent for a few years.

So should the SF Giants go for Dansby Swanson? Maybe. I think it would depend on market conditions and free agent permutations in a way the Giants have no control over for Swanson to want to come to the Bay. He’s a good player who might be great, and who might need far less of a commitment than any other top free-agent shortstop. It could work, it really could. But it would take a big gamble to pick Swanson over the better track records of the other top free-agent hitters.