Giants give MASSIVE update...

We just got a massive update on arguably the biggest disaster of the Buster Posey tenure in San Francisco so far. We'll break down the latest with one of the Giants outfielders and their relationship with the organization as things currently stand here on SF Giants Digest. If you're new here, welcome to the channel. I am your host Michael Monreal and if you've been here before, welcome back to SF Giants Digest. We are so so glad you found your way back to the channel. Now before we get into today's video, let me know down in the comment section your predictions for next year's opening day outfield. There are a lot of options at this point in time, but I want to hear what you guys think down in the comment section below. Also, if you haven't yet, make sure to go down below, hit that like button, hit that subscribe button. About 75% of you guys who watch the videos are not actually subscribed to the channel. It's completely free, takes just a second of your time, and really does help us continue to bring some of the best Giants content and analysis on YouTube. So if you enjoyed today's video, go down below, hit that like button, hit that subscribe button. That'd be much appreciated by myself and everyone here at Digest Media. Now we can get right into today's video. Of course, I'm sure you could tell from the intro, from the thumbnail, but we are talking about the one and only Harrison Bader. Now I mentioned this in the intro, but I do think this is going to be one of the biggest negatives in the entire Buster Posey tenure in San Francisco as a president of baseball operations. Of course, not as a player, but even if Buster Posey is the po-bo for another six years, another 10 years, whatever it may be, I think we will always look back to this deal, this contract, and what happened afterwards as one of the biggest downfalls of Buster Posey's tenure as an executive. Now, of course, yesterday was the Giants post-season presser, where they basically break down what happened this year, what went wrong, what went right, and what to look forward to as we head into the off-season and, of course, the 2027 season. And, of course, Buster Posey was asked about the latest with Harrison Bader and what's going on between him and the San Francisco Giants. And Buster Posey kept it very short. He said, everybody, including Harrison, is disappointed about how this thing unfolded. Right now, he's under contract for next season. Now, before he said all of this, he did mention how there's an investigation going on between Major League Baseball and the MLBPA, the Players Association. So, there wasn't a ton he could actually comment on what's going on with the investigation, his current status, and all of that side of things, that entire conversation. But he did give a very executive, presidential answer, I guess you could say, that could be taking a lot of different directions. But right now, he's under contract for next season, which I think is going to rub a lot of fans the wrong way, thinking that, OK, Harrison Bader is going to be back. But I really don't think this means much, if we're being completely honest, because, of course, throughout the off-seasons, the Giants could release him at any time and just decide to eat the $10 million that is owed to him for next season. For those that may not remember, Harrison Bader was signed to a two-year, $20 million deal last winter and, of course, played part of this year. And the whole scooter debacle happened. He was drunk, ran into a fire truck, hurt the foot that was already injured, even worse, the day before going to see that specialist for an update on said foot. That's what's going on right now. Now, Alex Pavlovich of NBC Sports Bay Area also wrote about it in an article for NBC Sports Bay Area, and he said this. The Giants have not given updates on Bader since that July 31 press release, noting that because it was an off-field injury, they cannot talk about Bader's medical situation. Bader himself has not addressed the injury in any form and was never seen by reporters over the final two months of the season. Per team sources, he was at Oracle Park often during that time, but he did his rehab early and then departed before the media and most teammates had arrived. Bader was said to be in good spirits, according to multiple people who have spoken to him over the past month. So yeah, I'd probably be in pretty good spirits too if I'm getting paid. Well, I guess his pay was suspended, but you know, he's showing up to Oracle Park and that would be a little facility in order to not have the stress of playing every day. So I'd assume that's why he's in good spirits, but I'm sure he's not happy about having to get that pay suspended. He's not getting paid by the San Francisco Giants. He's not playing for the San Francisco Giants. So it does seem like he's a little, I don't know about worried or scared or what to say, but it does seem like he has no interest in being there with his teammates and being there with the media because I'm sure he's probably embarrassed. He doesn't want to answer. He doesn't want to talk about it because it is an embarrassing situation. And again, that's why we can call it one of the biggest disasters of the Buster Posey tenure so far as an executive with the San Francisco Giants. Now, John Becker of FanGraphs actually did mention this, but he put out an article basically talking about the Giants roster crunch heading into the winter. They have to DFA a ton of guys. There's going to be a lot of cuts because they have 17 guys on the 60 day IL. So he basically wrote about all of that, who could be candidates to get cut, to stay on all of that. But he wrote about the most puzzling situation here is Bader, while it's smaller scale than the contracts of Adamez and Chapman, which have been a mixed bag so far, the Bader deal is probably the single biggest disaster of Posey's tenure. Now, I actually didn't realize he used that word because that's basically the term I've been saying this entire video, but that's really what it is. It has been an absolute disaster. We'll get into the numbers in a second, but first of all, he didn't play very much this year. Of course he was hurt for the entire time before the scooter incident. And then the scooter incident just made everything worse. But as I mentioned, when he was on the field, he was awful for the San Francisco Giants. This was his worst season in major league baseball by basically every stat. Now it was only 30 games and only 111 played appearances, which actually feels more than we saw. But anyways, in that span, he slashed 170, 198, 358, good for a 49 WRC plus, negative 0.4 wins above replacement, walking just 3.6% of the time and striking out north of 30% of the time. For those that may be wondering, those are not good numbers by any thought, any idea. Those are absolutely abysmal numbers to put up. And you look at his career, you know, yeah, he's had some down offensive seasons, maybe 69, 84, 84 in terms of WRC plus, but he was still a positive war player in all those years because he was a good defender. He didn't even defend necessarily great with the San Francisco Giants. He was more of an average defender. So he really didn't bring a lot to the table for the Giants when he was on the field. And then of course, as I've mentioned, there was everything that happened off the field that just made this entire thing a disaster. Now there's another aspect of this entire conversation that makes it really, really intriguing. And that's the fact that the Giants have a ton of options in the outfield to head into 2027 with where you can almost say they don't need Harrison Bader. Now I'm sure a lot of people are saying that, but Harrison Bader does have a proven track record outside of this past year of being an above average big leaguer, whether that's with the bat, whether that's with the glove, he's been a pretty decent contributor everywhere he's been. But we can look at the Giants outfield from this past season. The top five in F4, outside of L.A. Ramos, are guys that are going to be there next year. Drew Gilbert, 1.3 war. Jung-Hoo Lee, 1 war. Jonah Cox, 0.8 war. Turner Hill, 0.0 war, but we saw flashes of what could be a very fun major league hitter. So these are the top options. I think Jonah Cox and Drew Gilbert are shoo-ins to be maybe the center field platoon heading into next season. Both should probably be on the opening day roster because, again, I've said this a lot, but I don't think the Giants need to spend a single penny on their position player group. So there's these options. Yeah, and Jung-Hoo Lee, we've seen flashes. I'm not sure what the plan is with him because who knows with his contract and all of that. But that's not even talking about these two guys, Bo Davidson and Scott Bandura. Now, I don't necessarily know if Bo Davidson is going to be on the opening day roster, but it could be a Bryce Eldridge situation where a month into the year, the Giants offense is struggling. Hey, bring this guy up. We need a boost of energy. We need a boost of pop. Bring Bo Davidson up. And Scott Bandura was one of the most underrated hitters in minor league baseball this year. I know his tenure with the Giants the last two weeks of the season wasn't the best, but still, you know what you're getting with Scott Bandura. He shouldn't strike out a lot. He'll walk a decent amount and he'll hit for a average, which is something we know. Buster Posey, Zach Manasseh, and this entire regime, who apparently none of it is going to be gone hitting his next year, they love those type of players. So you mix, you talk about the Jonah Coxes, the Drew Gilberts, the Scott Banduras, the Bo Davidsons, the Turner Hills. The Giants have a plethora of outfield options and that's not even mentioning a guy like Victor Barracuda, who we know Tony Vitello has loved during his tenure as the manager of the San Francisco Giants. So there's a lot that goes into this conversation. But again, this is a massive update considering that we haven't heard anything about Harrison Bader for months at this point since the scooter incident, since that announcement that his pay has been suspended. And it is really intriguing to think about what the Giants could do as we get deeper into the soft season and they have to make a lot of cuts heading into free agency. Let me know down in the comments your thoughts on Harrison Bader. Do you think it makes sense for the San Francisco Giants to cut, to release Harrison Bader? I personally think it does. I don't think and we know the Giants have a lot of money. They can risk eating that 10 million bucks, but I want to hear what you guys have to say down in the comment section below. If you enjoyed today's video, go down below, hit that like button and hit that subscribe button. That'd be much appreciated by myself and everyone here at Digest Media. As always, thank you so much for watching. We will see you next time.