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LAS VEGAS — A clouded haze hung over the first tentpole event of the MLB offseason, and no, it wasn’t the cigarette and cigar smoke on the casino floor of the ARIA Resort and Casino, where the league’s annual general managers meetings continued Tuesday.
Nobody knows what the sport will look like come Dec. 2, when the current collective bargaining agreement expires and owners are expected to lock out the players until the sides can come to an agreement on a new CBA as the league pushes for a salary cap.
Including the teams’ top executives.
“You can sense the uncertainty,” Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey said following his second day of meetings with players’ agents and other teams’ brass.
The GM meetings rarely offer anything more than an appetizer for the rest of the winter. But the anticipated lockout means there will be no winter meetings, the typical main course. If a new CBA hasn’t been ratified by 11:59 p.m. ET on Dec. 1, teams will be barred from making any major-league transactions or even contacting players or their representatives.
In other words, the stove will hardly have time to heat up before the gas gets shut off.
Posey possesses a minority ownership stake in the Giants, in addition to his title as the team’s top baseball official, but said that he would “not [be] a part of any of the bargaining.”
He is more focused on turning around a team that lost 97 games last season. In the next three weeks, he will try to add pitching, pitching and more pitching. The Giants’ 4.34 ERA as a staff ranked 23rd out of 30 teams, while their strikeout-to-walk ratio was fourth from the bottom.
“Obviously the bullpen for us was a big talking point with our struggles last year,” Posey said. “So our focus is going to be trying to improve the rotation.”
With only Logan Webb, Landen Roupp and Adrian Houser in the fold, the Giants are expected to target at least one free-agent starting pitcher. And after going most of last season without a defined closer and their most electric late-inning option, Randy Rodriguez, returning from Tommy John surgery, at least one high-leverage reliever is also on their shopping list.
But can Posey realistically get anything done before hitting the pause button?
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “Maybe it is; maybe it isn’t. I wish I could say definitively, but I can’t.”
The Giants have had about six weeks to evaluate their roster and the upgrades available to them in free agency, which officially kicked off last Monday. They have a list of priorities.
Given the circumstances, those talks could move more aggressively than in other winters.
“Probably, yeah,” Posey said. “But there’s a lot of variables that go into before you get to a final yes or no. … It’s interesting having different conversations. You get some agents that are much more direct with what their expectations are and what their players’ expectations are, versus some [who] are just a little bit more guarded and not going to give you as much.”
When it comes to bullpen help, Posey said his “preference would be more than one.” However, Posey added that the Giants may shy away from free agents with a qualifying offer attached, which would require them to part with a draft pick, potentially limiting their late-inning options.
Eight players received qualifying offers, including arguably the two best relief arms on the market in Adrian Morejon and David Bednar. The Orioles also extended one to Trevor Rogers, one of the starting pitchers who might have piqued the Giants’ interest.
“I think it’s gonna be harder for us” to sign anyone from that group, Posey said.
Posey, a three-time world champion, knows better than anyone that the Giants’ results weren’t up to snuff last season. He’s now on the clock to turn it around for 2027.
And this winter, time only seems to be ticking faster.
“I think we have to be realistic with where we are right now,” Posey said. “I do think we underperformed. … I do think we can contend. I’m also realistic in knowing we lost 97 games last year, and we have to be willing to do some things differently.”
