For a while there, it seemed like the Giants might not secure a big-name free agent. Despite all the optimism surrounding Aaron Judge signing with his hometown team, he played his hand to perfection and signed a nine-year, $360 million deal to stay with the Yankees.
But on Tuesday, the Giants got their guy, signing star shortstop Carlos Correa to a reported 13-year, $350 million deal.
It’s the clear highlight of an offseason which has involved the additions of pitchers Ross Stripling and Sean Manaea to identical two-year, $25 million deals (with second-year options), and outfielder Mitch Haniger to a three-year, $43.5 million deal.
Former Giants outfielder Hunter Pence joined the Murph & Mac Show on Wednesday to discuss the moves, and raved about them:
We made some really smart moves already. I gotta tell you, San Francisco, you have a lot to be excited about this year just because I love Mitch Haniger. I think we’re gonna fall in love with this person, the personality of the leadership, the player he is. He’s just very sound.
I think also Ross Stripling, extraordinarily under the radar just consistently pitches really well. extremely smart pitcher. I got to work out with him one offseason. I just I think that’s a sneaky huge signing.
So we’ve made some really smart deals, typical Farhan-type offseason. But then they get the little oomph. We needed a little oomph and we missed on Judge.
We didn’t get the deGrom or Verlander, which honestly, I think was our bigger need because you know, I’m partial, like Crawford’s, one of the greatest shortstops we’ve seen of his time and our time.
But Correa is a lot of oomph so it doesn’t hit our exact need, but it makes a huge impact. And I think there’s a huge day to kind of tie in the whole offseason that we’ve had so far.
That begs the question, would Pence rather have the current offseason haul for the Giants, or Aaron Judge?
He said it’s a close call, but he prefers what the Giants got, especially in the long term.
“Man, I think I’d take what we have. The only reason that it’s close is just because Judge kind of more hits the nail on kind of what we needed, exactly,” Pence said. “But I think long term, if we’re looking long term, I this is definitely a big win for us if that was the exchange. So I think long term — if we’re looking at just next year, that’s debatable — but I think it’s closer. And I still think I like this this group that we got more than just the Judge.”
Pence also raved particularly about Correa’s prowess at shortstop, calling him the most athletic player he’s ever seen at the position.
He described him as a “magician” and said Correa’s taken away hits from him in mind-boggling ways.
Listen to the full interview below. You can listen to every KNBR interview on our podcast page at knbr.com/podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Catch Murph & Mac weekdays from 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. on KNBR 104.5 / 680 and streaming live on KNBR.com.