Welcome, Giants fans, to Giants Baseball Corner.
The 2025 season finds the Giants with the fourth lowest active payroll in the NL West.
The Billionaire Bums have DOUBLE the active payroll and Total Payroll of the San Francisco Giants.
In fact, the Dodgers have a payroll that is $8 million higher than the 2nd highest Mets, and then at least $50 million higher than any other team.
sigh.
The Dodgers are champs and have spent to maintain their status, but I will remind you:
MLB STILL HASN’T HAD A REPEAT WORLD SERIES CHAMPION IN THE 20TH CENTURY.
(Yanks repeated ’99/00)
If these Billionaire Bums are to do something as yet unprecedented in the 2000’s, in the NL West, after Spring training, it’s the Giants who look most primed to play spoiler.
Tony Lavullo’s Snakes may be able to do it again, but it certainly won’t be the San Diego Padres – who are struggling at the managerial level after the death of their owner, CEO and Controlling Partner Peter Seidler, in November of 2023 – likely from non-Hodgkins lymphoma from which he was a two-time survivor.
PADRES MANAGEMENT ISSUES
I met Peter, on the last day of the season in 2022 – great guy, personable. It’s a shame he passed away … just five years older than me.
In January of this year, 2025, Peter’s widow Sheel Seidler, filed a complaint in probate court contesting ownership of the team and charging Peter’s brothers, Matt and Bob Seidler, of fraud and breaches of fiduciary duty as trustees of Peter Seidler’s trust
MLB gave managerial control to another Seidler brother, John, only last month.
It’s going to be an ugly year for the Padres in probate court that can affect everything from management to trade requests to play on the field – a la the Bums in divorce court a few years back.
So, the success of the Giants in Cactus League this season can be met with a view of opportunity.
Last night’s game against the Pads in Scottsdale was a good example of what our lineup could look like behind Robbie Ray in the regular season, sans Jung Hoo Lee and Tyler Fitzgerald – every other player is a likely starter: Bailey, Chapman, Adames, Wade, Jr., Yasztremski, Matos and McCray.
ROBBIE RAY LAST NIGHT, THIS SPRING, AND THE STARTERS
Ray was good. But looked like he was working hard to be good. He allowed two hits over five innings, had two K’s and allowed no earned runs. It’s important to note the Padres were playing mostly scrubs (again, possibly because management is a mess).
So when we talk about the starters, we can say, hopefully, that our number three starter has had a successful spring season – two wins, no losses, a low ERA – and looks like a man fighting to get back to the form that won him a Cy Young in 2021.
But I heard a commentator on the MLB Pre-Season coverage say, Justin Verlander is going after 300 wins and is going to get 17 this year.
LMAO.
That is not happening.
JUSTIN VERLANDER
I am as excited as anyone that JV looks good. But I saw the last pitcher to get 300 wins. He was 45 years old, and got his 300th and final win as a Giant. The game was in Washington DC and it was sheeting down rain.
Honestly it should have been called, but they let them play so Randy Johnson could register the precious “last 300 win pitcher” status.
He went 8 – 6 with the Giants that year, 2009, at the age of 45. Johnson went 11-10 with the D-backs the year before at the age of 44 and 4 – 3 with the snakes in 2007 at the age of 43.
Randy Johnson did have 17 win seasons in the two years before that at the age of 41 and 42 – um, for the New York Yankees. Maybe that’s why people think that at age 42, JV can do it.
But we aren’t the Yankees. We invented the term “getting Cained.”
Verlander was 5 – 6 last year with the Astros. 13 – 8 the year before that, at age 40, with the Mets and ‘Stros in 2023.
Plus there is the question of injury. Can he even give us 150 innings?
I just don’t see this guy getting 17 wins or getting to 300. My hope is 13 wins from Justin Verlander as a Giant this year. My expectation is 10.
So that means we have Logan Webb as an ace, JV as a semi-reliable second starter and Robbie Ray still climbing back. It’s not as rosy as it seems.
Jordan Hicks is a significant question mark. I’m going to see him pitch tonight against the Royals. I really hope the off-season workouts and build-up, put him in as a 10-win starter.
I do like the work Harrison, Birdsong, Whisenhunt and Roupp are putting in, but it is time to listen to JV as a mentor and step it up. They need a reliable mix of pitches and to comprehend ‘command,’ to be successful.
JUNG HOO LEE/ GRANT MCCRAY
Jung Hoo Lee’s MRI showed no major damage in his back, thankfully. whew. But what is it with this guy? We need him on the field. The news that he won’t be in Cincy for Opening Day is a bummer, well, a set back.
This puts JHL’s replacement, Grant McCray’s bat, square in the spotlight. Kid just strikes out WAY too much.
Well that’s enough for today. I am excited to write about Adames and Buster and some of the huge positives, but I am still shaking off Writer’s rust.
I am going to the Giants game against the Royals tonight at Surprise Stadium in AZ – Cactus League fun!
see ya,
mtk
Giants Baseball Corner 