A big shakeup is in process for the front office in San Francisco. The Farhan Zaidi era came to an end last month and now Giants legend Buster Posey will be calling the shots as president of baseball operations. Since Posey has so little experience in running baseball operations, it's hard to know exactly what to expect, but there are some signs that the club will move from a measured approach to a bolder focus on acquiring marquee players.

Guaranteed Contracts

Option Decisions

Total 2025 commitments (assuming Snell opts out while Ray and Flores stay): $110.75MM Total future commitments (assuming Snell opts out while Ray and Flores stay) : $439.75MM

Arbitration-Eligible Players (projections via Matt Swartz)

Non-tender candidates: Yastrzemski, Doval

Free Agents

The Giants did some good things under Zaidi's watch but the club was mostly defined by mediocrity in his time. The club finished just below .500 in his first two seasons. They shot up to an amazing 107 wins in 2021 but were eliminated by the Dodgers in the playoffs and crashed back to earth after. They finished at .500 in 2022 and just below in the next two years, making the 2021 season look like a clear outlier.

On top of the on-field results, there were some unsatisfactory elements elsewhere. The club's offseasons often focused on the players they didn't acquire, as guys like Aaron Judge and Carlos Correa came close to becoming Giants but ultimately didn't. Also, the club struggled to graduate many of its top prospects, with guys like Joey Bart, Luis Matos and Marco Luciano struggling to establish themselves at the big league level.

There were some nice finds on the pitching market, but mostly on short-term deals that allowed the players to get their big money elsewhere. Both Carlos Rodón and Kevin Gausman were able to resurrect their careers as Giants, but both quickly returned to free agency and got their big deals from A.L. East clubs, Rodón with the Yankees and Gausman the Blue Jays. To a lesser extent, guys like Sean Manaea, Alex Wood and Anthony DeSclafani had some good results with the club but are no longer in San Francisco. The club recently snapped up Blake Snell when he lingered unsigned into early 2024, but he now seems destined to depart like the others.

Last month, it became apparent that the franchise was growing weary of this generally tempered approach. Third baseman Matt Chapman, who had also signed a short-term deal like Snell, was signed to a six-year extension to stay by the Bay. But it was quickly reported that Posey had taken a lead role in getting that deal done, talking with Chapman directly in order to work around Zaidi and Chapman's agent Scott Boras.

Many smelled smoke in that report and the fire was later confirmed, as Posey was then given Zaidi's job. Posey said that he views baseball as a "memory-making business" at his introductory press conference. "Sure, winning is great," Posey said, per Maria Guardado of MLB.com. "Ultimately, that's our goal, to be a playoff team every year and compete for a championship. But I think just the overall big picture of being a part of something that's bigger than yourself was really appealing."

Does this mean that the Giants are now going to take a more free-wheeling approach, with less concern about squeezing the value of every dollar at the margins of every transaction? Will the plan be just to get things done, even if that means being a bit more reckless and perhaps overpaying from time to time?