Kurtenbach: Aaron Judge’s SF Giants rejection defines Farhan Zaidi’s time in charge

The Giants didn’t land their man.

Again.

This isn’t just a trend. This is now the expectation: When the Giants have a top target in the offseason, they’re the player’s second choice.

First, it was Giancarlo Stanton. Then it was Bryce Harper. And Wednesday, it was Aaron Judge, who returned to the Yankees on a nine-year, $360 million deal.

The Giants are always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

They say that in baseball, right?

Regardless, the Giants coming in second place (or worse, as might have been the case this time) for top free agents defines president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi’s time in charge. That will remain true no matter what he and the Giants do for the remainder of this offseason.

It would be a different story if Zaidi and Giants ownership didn’t consistently sell the dream that the Giants can land the biggest names in baseball. If expectations were set to a more reasonable place, I, for one, might be more reasonable today.

Instead, the Giants keep pushing the idea that if they land one big-time player, it’ll be a big-market organization once again.

But things don’t work that way. And needing that validation from a player is a surefire way to not land the star. You’d think the nerds who run the Giants would have learned that from high school. (I sure did.)

No, recruitment is a two-way street.

What have the Giants done under Zaidi to make the team attractive to top free agents?

Or, a more accute question: What players have the Giants developed or acquired that top players pine to play alongside?

In 2019, the Padres sold free agent Manny Machado on the promise of Fernando Tatis Jr. and the organization’s robust farm system. A few years later, the Padres have three MVP-caliber players in Machado, Tatis (the 2021 National League MVP), and Juan Soto, who San Diego traded for in August.

The Dodgers, too, developed their own top-flight players and traded for many more. That made the Dodgers attractive to a player to Mookie Betts, who agreed to a trade and extension with the team, and Freddie Freeman, who signed after an MVP season in 2020.

Logan Webb is great, but he’s not going to sell a player like Judge on moving across the country.

Right now, the Giants can really only offer money and a solid market to top-flight free agents. That’s the same pitch they could have made with Brian Sabean at the helm. At least he could have tossed some World Series rings on the table.

The team’s player development program isn’t much use to a top-flight free agent, after all.

And yet, without much but hope and a prayer, the Giants consistently make a big, public push to be chosen by the hottest name on the market, only to be turned down.

Fans can only take so much rejection before it’s internalized.

The organization should have internalized the lessons of the Stanton and Harper rejections. The lesson of the Warriors. The lessons of the most overrated baseball movie of all time:

If you build it, they will come.

Of course, the Giants, having not built much of anything, suggested that the gargantuan slugger and reigning American League MVP would break the cycle of rejection.

The Giants said they weren’t going to be outbid for the Northern California kid who grew up a Giants fan. Judge had reason to want out of New York after the Yankees low-balled him on a contract offer before the 2022 season and the fans booed him after a poor postseason following a 62-home run season.

The Giants even used Steph Curry as part of their recruitment. Who says no to Steph Curry?

Everything pointed to the Giants landing him as the West Coast went to sleep Tuesday.

By the time we woke up [even those of us with infants at home (there’s hope for us all)], the news had broken. A bit of East Coast Bias to top it all off.

Now what?

In past failures, the biggest mistake came in response to missing out on big names. The organization didn’t land the big fish and used it as an excuse to cheap out on bait. As such, fans have been left with teams that are provincial and fiscally prudent. They’re a respectable version of the A’s.

That’s simply not good enough to consistently win in modern baseball.

That’s why even when the team had wild success in 2021, winning 107 games, it was correctly viewed as inexplicable and irreplicable.

We are five years into Zaidi’s reign. The Giants haven’t developed a big-time position player. It can’t sign one, and the team’s farm system is middle-of-the-pack, so it can’t trade for one, either.

It’s all unacceptable. Faith in Farhan has worn out.

And if any of the prior facts don’t change in the coming year — If the Giants can’t show that a major step change has been made (just in time for Shohei Ohtani to become a free agent) — an even larger change will be necessary.