SAN FRANCISCO — The final stop of the offseason will take place on Saturday, when Willy Adames, Heliot Ramos and others meet fans in Sacramento as part of the FanFest tour. When that’s over, players will next be seen at Scottsdale Stadium, but the Giants still will have another week or so until pitchers and catchers report, and Buster Posey intends to try to use it.
On a Zoom call to discuss the addition of outfielder Harrison Bader, Posey said the front office still could look to make upgrades to the roster. But he also said he likes the group they have put together thus far.
“We’re excited. There’s definitely a lot of excitement on our end,” Posey said of the offseason. “A couple weeks out, we still have some balls in the air here and we’ll see how it pans out. There’s nothing guaranteed but we’ll keep working.”
With Bader in center field, the only place to upgrade the lineup would be second base, and the Giants have had extensive trade talks with multiple teams throughout the offseason, especially the St. Louis Cardinals, who have dangled Brendan Donovan. But the Giants also do have Casey Schmitt, Christian Koss and Tyler Fitzgerald on their 40-man roster, with much bigger needs on the pitching side.
They added Tyler Mahle and Adrian Houser to the rotation and Sam Hentges and Jason Foley to the bullpen, but there are durability concerns with the entire class. Foley won’t be available until midseason and neither starter has a track record of consistently making even 20 starts a year.
During a slow offseason for the industry in general, there still are high-end starting options available, most notably former Houston Astros ace Framber Valdez. The left-hander was connected to the Giants early in the offseason and again over the past week, although a league source said those earlier rumors, coming after the GM Meetings, were massively overblown. If Valdez currently is in the picture, Posey didn’t tip his hand.
“We’re happy with our rotation right now,” he said when asked about high-end starters. “Again, (look at) some of the adjustments that Houser made last year (and) we feel like Mahle is in a good place physically. You’re never going to close doors, but we feel good with the group that we have.”
If the Giants do not add to their rotation, they will at some point have to lean on young starters like Hayden Birdsong, Carson Whisenhunt, Blade Tidwell and Trevor McDonald. A few of those guys could also end up in a bullpen that currently looks like the roster’s weak spot.
Posey mentioned that there is a lot of trust that some of the young options will take a step forward. Ryan Walker enters as the favorite to be the Opening Day closer, but Posey echoed manager Tony Vitello, who said recently that he expects a camp competition to determine who pitches the ninth.
“As we sit here today, I think we’re hoping that Ryan Walker can get back to some of his ’24 form, but having said that, without discussing (this) with Tony in depth, I guess the way that I would see it now is we’ll see who steps up,” Posey said. “I think we’re not coming into this season necessarily with one guy that we say ‘you are going to be the closer.’ Now there’s a chance that somebody takes the reins and does slot into that closer role as we get into the season, but right now I wouldn’t say that there’s one person that we’re targeting that the ninth inning will be theirs.”
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