© Jayne Kamin-Oncea | 2019 Feb 19
Two significant events took place since we last heard from Giants VP of Baseball Operations Farhan Zaidi: On the baseball side, the team fell short in their pursuit of free agent outfielder Bryce Harper, who ended up signing with the Philadelphia Phillies for a record-breaking 13-year, $330 million contract. Off the field, Giants CEO Larry Baer stepped away from the organization, after an ugly incident between him and his wife, Pam, was caught on video.
Zaidi broke his silence on Thursday afternoon, speaking to reporters in Scottsdale, AZ on both topics. Regarding life after Harper, Zaidi detailed that “Plan B” could take a long time to come to fruition.
“Obviously we had sincere interest (in Harper) but we’re going to be able to do things not just before the start of the season but over the next few years that having him on the roster might have made it more difficult to do,” Zaidi said via Kerry Crowley of the San Jose Mercury News. “With the kind of investment and duration of a guy like Harper, the ‘Plan B’ really takes place over 12 years, not just a couple of days.
Zaidi also seemed to indicate that the team is looking to add a right-handed outfielder to the mix, but indicated that it’s hard to get good value for veteran free agents this late into the offseason, according to Crowley. It seems the Giants are likelier to make an acquisition via trade.
“We’re going to have in all likelihood three left-handed hitting infielders and one or maybe two left-handed hitting outfielders,” Zaidi said via Crowley. “You want to feel like you have right-handed bats coming off the bench that can either platoon, spell those guys or come in against a tough lefty late in the game.
“You can still bring guys in on a non-roster basis and give them at-bats on the minor league sign and evaluate them that way but it becomes harder and harder to know exactly what you’re going to get.”
Regarding Baer’s absence, Zaidi says that for the time being, he’ll be reporting to the club’s board of directors.
“I’ve had the opportunity to meet the board in my interview process,” Zaidi said. “We’ve had a couple of board meetings and Larry did a great job of making sure I’d had some direct contact with them and had relationships there.
“We don’t necessarily have another Harper situation imminent or brewing that’s going to require real active involvement from the board. But as decisions need to be made, we have a really strong infrastructure in place.”
