The San Francisco Giants were not making headlines with splash signings or big trades during the Winter Meetings, but they still had a great four days.
The San Francisco Giants remained quiet and uninvolved in trades and the free agent market during the Winter Meetings. Yet, the organization still came from the four-day event as winners.
The Giants were showered with accolades as many of the club’s faces from the past and present took home awards.
“Jeff Kent, who won the 2000 NL MVP Award in a Giants uniform, was elected by the Today’s Game Committee to the Baseball Hall of Fame and signaled his intent to represent San Francisco on his plaque in Cooperstown, N.Y.,” Giants senior writer Andrew Baggarly detailed in a recent article. “The club’s longtime media relations director, Matt Chisholm, received the Robert O. Fishel Award that recognizes excellence in public relations. Its senior home clubhouse manager, Brad Grems, was voted Clubhouse Manager of the Year.”
Other awards were distributed to key parts of the Giants’ operation, and perhaps the biggest win came during Wednesday’s MLB Draft Lottery when San Francisco secured the No. 4 pick.
“It’ll be just the fifth time in franchise history they will select so high,” Baggarly wrote. “And it’s their best draft position since 2018, when they took catcher Joey Bart with the second pick. And next year’s draft class is considered very strong at the top, according to our resident expert, Keith Law, with at least four high-profile college hitters and one high school hitter who could merit consideration as the top choice.”
“The lottery results are a potential windfall for an organization that has struggled to grease the wheels on its player development system, that hasn’t netted any recent value in the first round besides catcher Patrick Bailey (in 2020) and that felt the squeeze in lost draft picks for signing qualified free agents such as Matt Chapman, Blake Snell and Willy Adames.”
The last four years have seen San Francisco paralyzed by mediocrity and absent from the playoffs. Following another 81-81 finish, speculation about how the front office will improve the roster rose to the surface. Despite no big trade or splash signing, the Giants can celebrate their victories from Orlando.
“I didn’t want to get too far ahead of myself,” said Giants vice president of player development Randy Winn after earning the selection. “But I did know that based on how things worked, if we weren’t called by 15 that we would be inside the top six.”
“Once we weren’t six and then once we weren’t five, I was like, ‘Well, maybe.’ Drafting is hard, but we’re definitely excited to be picking so early in the draft. It’s been a while since I believe we’ve drafted this high. We’ve got some time, and we’ve got some work to do ahead of us.”