One has been arguably their best player, the other a potential Willie Mac Award winner. And both are set to hit the open market.
Starting pitcher Carlos Rodon and infielder Wilmer Flores will have decisions to make this offseason as to whether they want to stay in the Bay Area. Giants beat writer Susan Slusser joined Papa & Lund on Tuesday, and discussed the potential future of both.
Flores has said he wants to return next year and Slusser believes that’s the case.
“Any agent will tell their player, always say you want to go back,” Slusser said. “There’s no downside to saying that. It helps you in the market, it helps you potentially with that team. You’ve gotta say it, I think that it’s genuine. I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t want to come back, but there’s no guarantees.”
Slusser believes that Flores — whose 127 games played this season is the most for any Giants player — is Gabe Kapler’s favorite player in the clubhouse.
“It’s going to be fascinating because in that piece I wrote about Flores a few weeks ago, there is no doubt that he is Gabe Kapler’s favorite player on the roster. It’s so funny when you pick out postgames, little things he’ll bring up.
“You know he wants him back, I can’t imagine that the team wouldn’t want him back. But the interesting thing is they do have options. They do have options on their current roster. J.D. Davis might not be as flexible as David Villar might be at these certain spots, but there’s also going to be a guy on the market who’s very much like Wilmer Flores but a little bit younger and that’s Chad Pinder. Who fits sort of the same bill and is an excellent sort of cornerstone guy when you talk about team leadership.
“The Giants have options there which is great, but it will be fascinating because everyone loves Wilmer, loves him.”
The Rodon situation is a little trickier. He’s established himself as one of the best pitchers in the major leagues, and also holds a player option. Could he decide he wants to sign an extension with the Giants instead?
“I mean I’m sure they would like to, that’s just not really something [Rodon’s agent] Scott Boras does,” Slusser said. “There is a player option that kicked in for a reason, they want to go back out if he has a good season and see what he’ll get on the open market.
“I can’t imagine that would be something Boras would do. Rodon made it clear that ‘Scott works for me, I don’t work for Scott. If I say this is what I want, this is what we’re going to do.’ So there’s always the chance that Rodon says ‘I love it here, let’s just like talk to them about an extension.’ I don’t know that that’s happened.”
If Rodon opts out, the Giants could still re-sign him, but it would be pricy.
“I think a conservative estimate would probably be the five [years] and $100 [million]. Look it’s all speculation, nobody knows what the market will be. Usually they kind of get set with the first big contract especially for a starting pitcher. You just don’t really know. But that seems based on some of the deals that we’ve seen the past few years a good jumping off point.”
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