Giants offered same deal that Shohei Ohtani accepted from Dodgers

Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi conducted a conference call with reporters on Tuesday evening. 

San Francisco’s baseball operations leader touched on the club’s pursuit of new division rival Shohei Ohtani now that he’s free to speak about that process publicly.

Zaidi told the media the Giants offered essentially the same contract terms as Ohtani wound up accepting with the Dodgers. 

The defending AL MVP is guaranteed $700M on a 10-year contract, but $680M of that money is deferred to be paid between 2034-43. MLB calculates the deal’s actual value around $460M for competitive balance tax purposes. 

According to Zaidi, the Giants made clear they were willing to do the same thing.

“The proposal that was made was very comparable if not identical to what he wound up agreeing to,” the Giants baseball ops president said (relayed by Janie McCauley of the Associated Press). “We offered what would have been the biggest contract in major league history. I’m guessing we weren’t the only team that did that.”

Zaidi confirmed that Ohtani’s camp also lobbied for a heavily deferred contract in their negotiations (something he reportedly pursued with every team). 

“It was pitched to us in a similar way, the notion that he’s a player who’s got a ton of endorsement deals, makes a lot of money off the field, and it was sort of a vehicle to create some flexibility for the team — but also get to a really big number on the overall value of the contract, which is important in its own way,” he said (via Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle).

“But yeah, I mean, it’s certainly advantageous and you can understand why it was done. … The CBA is very clear there is no maximum or no limitations on deferring salary, that’s very black and white, so I don’t really have editorial comment. It’s something that if it’s pitched to us in a way that we think makes sense for the player and the team we would be open to it, and we certainly were in this case.”

Despite the “comparable if not identical” offer, Ohtani chose the Dodgers. Zaidi suggested that was likely due to a preference for remaining in Southern California, where the superstar has spent his entire career. 

It also seems fair to presume Ohtani viewed the Dodgers as better positioned than the Giants for sustained competitiveness over the coming decade.

The Giants have moved quickly in the wake of the Ohtani decision. They agreed to terms on a six-year, $113M deal with KBO star Jung Hoo Lee to man center field. (The team has yet to confirm that deal.) 

Evenly distributing the salaries on Lee’s contract would bring San Francisco’s 2024 payroll projection to roughly $166M, per Roster Resource. That’s about $22M shy of last year’s season-opening payroll. They’re roughly $48M below next year’s base luxury tax threshold.

There’s clearly still room for further acquisitions. Zaidi reiterated his desire to add another starting pitcher and a complement to 22-year-old Marco Luciano at shortstop (via Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area). 

San Francisco is among the teams to meet with NPB ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto in recent days.