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At best, Johnny Cueto for six years and $130 million gives the San Francisco Giants the bargain of the winter.

Don’t believe it? Check the numbers, the other numbers, the ones that show Cueto with the second-best ERA in the major leagues over the last five seasons. He’s at 2.71, behind Clayton Kershaw but just ahead of Zack Greinke (2.82), the guy who will cost the Arizona Diamondbacks $76.5 million more over the same six years.

Oh, and the 29-year-old Cueto is two-and-a-half years younger than Greinke. And after pitching to that 2.71 ERA while playing most of his home games at the hitter-friendly ballpark the Cincinnati Reds call home, he’s about to move to the pitcher-friendly home of the Giants.

You can make this one sound really good, and you can bet the Giants will when they discuss the deal agreed to Monday (and first reported by Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com).

It could work out great for the Giants, with another ace to team with Madison Bumgarner atop their rotation. It could work out just as well for Cueto, which is why I argued in this space three weeks ago that he should want to sign with the Giants.

That’s could rather than should. It’s could, because the reason the Giants were able to sign Cueto for a fraction of what Greinke and David Price signed for (and less per year than Jordan Zimmermann got from the Detroit Tigers) is that Cueto carries some mystery along with that 2.71 ERA.

There’s been speculation for months about his health, speculation that didn’t completely go away even when he topped 200 innings for the third time in four seasons, or when he made four more starts in the postseason for the Kansas City Royals.

Cueto’s horrible ALCS start in Toronto raised more questions, even though his two huge postseason wins—Game 5 of the division series and Game 2 of the World Series—were better than anything Price has done in October.

If you’re going to pay a guy $21.7 million a year, you’d like him to be dependable enough that you don’t need to carefully pick where he pitches. The Royals felt a need to arrange their World Series rotation so Cueto would pitch only at home.

Then again, if Cueto came with fewer questions, he’d also come with the same $30-plus-million-a-year price tag as Price and Greinke. Instead, the Giants got him at an amount that allowed them to also sign Jeff Samardzija for five years and $90 million.

With Bumgarner, Cueto and Samardzija at the top of the rotation, the Giants can match up to Arizona’s Greinke, Patrick Corbin and Shelby Miller (and easily top anyone the Los Angeles Dodgers can currently team with Kershaw). The Giants can fill out their rotation with veterans Matt Cain and Jake Peavy or with Chris Heston, who had a 3.95 ERA (and a no-hitter) as a rookie.

The Giants could still use something of an offensive boost. Someone such as Justin Upton or Yoenis Cespedes would work, but as Alex Pavlovic of CSNBayArea.com tweeted Monday afternoon, they’ve probably spent their big money for this winter:

The Giants went into the winter with some money to spend, and with a plan to fulfill their every-other-year destiny. The plan was to sign a difference-making pitcher, and while the Giants’ initial hope was that it would be Greinke, they barely had to course correct when he went to Arizona instead.

They quickly signed Samardzija but had enough money left to get Cueto, too.

He was still out there on the market, the one big pitcher remaining. He had turned down $120 million for six years from the Diamondbacks, and when the winter meetings ended last week there, there was some talk that Cueto and his agent Bryce Dixon had made a mistake.

Instead, Cueto ended up in a place he can thrive, with a manager (Bruce Bochy), pitching coach (Dave Righetti) and catcher (Buster Posey) who have a history of getting the most out of pitchers. He should find every bit the comfort zone he had in Cincinnati—the one he eventually found in Kansas City in time to help the Royals win a World Series.

The Giants and their fans even love a little eccentricity. Check out how the team welcomed Cueto on Twitter:

He has that hair, and he has that ring, the one Greinke and Price are still chasing. That’s got to be worth something.

Something like six years and $130 million.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

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Following an eventful 2015 in which he won a World Series with the Kansas City Royals after being traded by the Cincinnati Reds in July, Johnny Cueto is on the move once again, as he agreed to terms on a deal with the San Francisco Giants.

Buster Olney of ESPN was the first to report the deal prior to the Giants’ confirmation. SportsCenter on Twitter reported the deal was for six years and $130 million with an opt-out clause after two years. The Giants welcomed Cueto to the team with his very own emoji:

In the wake of the deal, Giants general manager Bobby Evans told Jerry Crasnick of ESPN the Giants are “still processing their outfield options” after the outlay on Cueto and Jeff Samardzija. Bob Nightengale of USA Today noted the Giants have spent $220 million this offseason.

ESPN Stats & Info noted the Giants are the first team to ink two pitchers to deals worth $90 million or more in the same offseason.

Cueto is slated to take his physical with the team Wednesday, according to John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Cueto had one of the most unusual seasons for an elite pitcher in recent memory, as his splits between Cincinnati and Kansas City show:

Making those numbers even more mind-boggling is the situation Cueto found himself in following the trade, as the Royals had the best defense in MLB, and Kauffman Stadium is more conducive to pitchers than Great American Ball Park. 

Despite the disappointing two-month regular season for Cueto in Kansas City, the 29-year-old likely regained some value in the postseason with two starts (vs. Houston and New York) in which he allowed a total of four hits and three runs with 12 strikeouts in 17 innings. 

Using those two games as a barometer will work out well for Cueto, as Rany Jazayerli, formerly of Grantland, noted he did something that had only been done two other times in MLB history:

There will always be a risk factor with Cueto, given his health history. He made 11 starts in 2013 and needed an MRI last May to determine if there was any significant damage to his pitching elbow after missing a start. 

ESPN.com’s Keith Law had Cueto ranked ninth on his list of the top 50 free agents, noting his new team “might get an ace” if his past elbow problems really are behind him. 

Every contract contains an element of risk, though, especially for pitchers. But Cueto has earned a reputation as one of the best in the business with two top-five finishes in Cy Young voting since 2012, and that puts the upside of this deal as high as any hurler’s in this year’s class. 

Cueto joins a starting rotation anchored by Madison Bumgarner and will slot in behind him along Samardzija, Jake Peavy and Matt Cain. While Cueto can be frustrating from time to time, he proved with the Royals that when the spotlight is brightest, he’s more than capable of rising to the challenge.

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The San Francisco Giants did not land their man. 

Zack Greinke was the team’s No. 1 target this offseason, locking them into a battle with the Los Angeles Dodgers for the ace’s services. But the Arizona Diamondbacks undercut both division rivals to swipe Greinke, leaving both to reassemble their offseason game plans.

The Giants have already executed part of theirs by signing free-agent right-hander Jeff Samardzija to a five-year contract for $90 million Saturday. The deal is pending a physical. It’s not the impact move that Greinke would have been, but it just might be a solid start to building a good rotation behind ace Madison Bumgarner for the next handful of years.

History shows the soon-to-be 31-year-old is not a consistent front-of-the-rotation starter, but it also tells that he is capable and talented enough to be one.

“Even in tough times [last year] he still put 200-plus innings on the board,” Giants general manager Bobby Evans told Alex Pavlovic of CSN Bay Area. “You look at his track record, you look at his presence that he brings on the mound, you look at back-to-back-to-back 200-plus [inning] seasons, and you realize this guy is a force to be reckoned with. There’s a reason why we targeted him and a reason why we focused on him as one of our top priorities.”

Samardzija entered last season with massive earning potential coming off a year in which he had a 2.99 ERA and made his first All-Star team pitching for the Chicago Cubs and Oakland A’s.

But after being traded to the Chicago White Sox in his contract year, Samardzija struggled for most of the summer, putting up a 4.96 ERA and 4.23 FIP in 214 innings. He also led the American League with 228 hits allowed, 29 home runs allowed and 118 earned runs allowed. His strikeout rate also dropped to a career-low 6.9 strikeouts per nine innings as a full-time starter.

Things could change with the Giants, and in the National League West, where he will pitch in three parks that favor pitchers, including his new home, AT&T Park. The innings totals—647.1 over the last three seasons—are also attractive to the Giants, a team that dealt with several injuries in their rotation to just about everyone not named Madison.

And the innings to come should be aplenty since Samardzija spent his first four seasons in the majors mostly as a bullpen weapon.

“You’ve got a guy who has made the conversion from reliever to starter and has done that well,” Evans told Pavlovic. “There are a lot of innings left in that arm.”

The quality of those innings is unknown and unpredictable at this point in Samardzija’s career. Last season highlighted those facts and severely limited his value on the open market.

Samardzija is not seen as a front-line starter at this point, and that is why his signing is a definitive downgrade from what the Giants were shooting for with Greinke. But that does not mean the deal is destined to be a bust.

The Giants believe in Samardzija’s stuff. He still carries a fastball that sits at 94 mph and topped out at about 98. The Giants have one of the more renowned pitching coaches in the game in Dave Righetti, a big reason why they believe they can get better results out of Samardzija.

The Giants also feel, according to Pavlovic, that Samardzija suffered last season because he pitched in front of the worst defense in the majors. The White Sox had a minus-41.5 overall defensive rating, according to Fangraphs, easily the worst in the game. The Giants were at 30.2, the second best in the majors behind the Kansas City Royals.

However, Samardzija cannot be the Giants’ only get this offseason. While the club might be confident it can fix whatever has made him inconsistent, it would be foolish to totally rely on that for next season, especially with the Dodgers already being linked to Johnny Cueto, Kenta Maeda and Hisashi Iwakuma and with the Diamondbacks having Greinke in their rotation.

Since the Giants will not be spending the money on Greinke, they might use it to not only ink Samardzija, but also possibly an arm like Mike Leake, who pitched for the Giants last season.

Samardzija is not Greinke, obviously. But the signing shows the Giants are serious about upgrading to stay in the mix in the NL West with the Dodgers and Diamondbacks. And they might not be done adding pieces.

That being the case, losing out on Greinke and adding Samardzija does not look as bad. And this deal could be the start of the Giants again constructing a quality rotation that keeps them among the league’s elite.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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Pitcher Jeff Samardzija signed a five-year deal with the San Francisco Giants on Saturday, according to Alex Pavlovic of CSN Bay Area.

The Giants announced the deal later Saturday, while Jon Heyman of CBS Sports reported Samardzija received a limited no-trade clause. Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports reported the contract is worth $90 million.

Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle provided more financial details:

Samardzija went 11-13 last season with a 4.96 ERA for the Chicago White Sox, who finished in fourth place, 19 games behind the World Series champion Kansas City Royals, in the American League Central. Samardzija had plenty of support from the Chicago offense, as he ranked 36th in the majors with 4.19 runs per start.

San Francisco is Samardzija’s fourth team in the past two-plus seasons. 

Scott Merkin of MLB.com passed along White Sox pitcher Chris Sale’s take on Samardzija:

Whatever team gets him is going to get a steal. Really, he’s relatively young, and he’s got a strong arm with not a lot of innings on it. And he’s a competitor. Say what you want about him, he competes as hard as anybody. That’s his mentality, how he’s always been. I think the football comes out in him sometimes. You need that. If you don’t have that passion, don’t play the game, right? At the end of the day at least you know he (cares).

In 2014 with the Chicago Cubs, Samardzija was one of the better pitchers in the National League despite a 2-7 record. He had a 2.83 ERA and was selected to his first All-Star team.

But before the All-Star break that season, Samardzija was dealt to the Oakland Athletics, and in the second half he went 5-6 with a 3.14 ERA—a relatively low mark for an American League pitcher. In December 2014, he was traded to the White Sox. 

Samardzija’s one-year deal worth $9.8 million expired at the end of the 2015 season. 

The Giants are getting a passionate pitcher who rarely backs down from a challenge. And although that sometimes might get him into trouble—he was one of the main culprits in the White Sox-Royals brawl in April—his competitiveness could help spark San Francisco.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

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Because 2015 was an odd year, the San Francisco Giants‘ having a down year was inevitable. As evidenced by their World Series titles in 2010, 2012 and 2014, even years are their jams.

So, obviously they’ll be back on top in 2016.

So we can cheekily assume, anyway. However, the Giants themselves must not cheekily assume anything. They’re not in a position to sit back and wait for their customary visit from the Even-Year Magic Fairy. They’re going to have to own the offseason market and make the blasted thing show up.

For executive vice president of baseball operations Brian Sabean and general manager Bobby Evans, the goal is to take a team that won 84 games and missed the playoffs in 2015 and upgrade it to a championship-caliber club for 2016. To this end, the good news is that they need not start from scratch.

The Giants have the best catcher in baseball in Buster Posey, who’s still in his prime heading into his age-29 season. Playing in front of him is an entirely young infield—Brandon Belt, Joe Panik, Matt Duffy and Brandon Crawford—that was the class of the league in 2015.

The Giants also have excellent anchors for their rotation and bullpen in ace left-hander Madison Bumgarner and rejuvenated right-hander Sergio Romo, respectively. The man in charge of it all is Bruce Bochy, who may be baseball’s best manager.

With all these pieces in place, the Giants have a very, very strong foundation for a contending team. The word is that Wolverine wants to liquefy it and use it to replace his adamantium claws. True story.

Sounds good. Now all the Giants need is the rest of a contending team.

The list of needs starts with their rotation. Giants starters did rank 11th in MLB with their 3.95 ERA in 2015, but that figure was heavily skewed by certain, ahem, Bumgarner-y forces. And through the offseason’s first month, he remains the only solid starter penciled into the club’s 2016 rotation.

Then there’s the outfield. FanGraphs put it at 19th in MLB in WAR in 2015, and a big improvement isn’t in the cards as long as Gregor Blanco, Angel Pagan and Hunter Pence are penciled into starting roles. Pence should be fine after an injury-marred 2015, but Pagan is generally bad, and Blanco‘s ideal role is as a fourth outfielder. 

Lastly, there’s the bullpen. It was pretty good, ranking seventh in MLB with a 3.33 ERA. But with Jeremy Affeldt now off to the rocking-chair-filled world of retirement, the Giants could use at least one more able body in the pen.

There’s your Giants offseason checklist in a nutshell: definitely starting pitching, definitely an outfielder and ideally a reliever. And the bigger the names, the better.

As those who have been listening to the rumor mill will know, that seems to be what the Giants are thinking as well.

Particularly when it comes to their need for starting pitching. The Giants have been strongly linked to ace right-hander Zack Greinke, who opted out of his contract with the rival Los Angeles Dodgers after leading MLB with a 1.66 ERA in 2015. And though the Dodgers won’t let him go without a fight, Jon Heyman of CBS Sports heard that the Giants are a real threat to steal Greinke and pair him with Bumgarner.

“We don’t want to keep up with them,” said Evans of the Dodgers and their typically awesome starting pitching, via Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News. “We want to pass them.”

Indeed, which explains the club’s list of alternatives.

A scroll through the Giants’ page at MLB Trade Rumors will take you to buzz linking them to still-available aces Johnny Cueto and John Lackey. Re-signing Mike Leake, whom the Giants acquired in a July trade, is also in play. Same goes for a trade for young Atlanta Braves ace Shelby Miller.

Likewise, the Giants also have some notable names on their outfield and bullpen radars. Among the outfielders they’ve been linked to are Yoenis Cespedes, Ben Zobrist, Jay Bruce and Marcell Ozuna. Among the relievers they’ve been linked to are Darren O’Day and Joakim Soria.

In all, it definitely doesn’t sound like the Giants are going to get cheap on us. They haven’t made any noise yet, but they’re window shopping at places where only big spenders are welcome.

The thing is, there’s a slightly concerning lesson to be learned from the Giants’ recent history.

When you look back at what the Giants did after missing the playoffs in 2011 and 2013, what you expect to see is a championship-hungry team that went wild on the offseason market.

Instead, you see a team that displayed a Fonzie-like level of cool. After 2011, the Giants’ big moves were a pair of upside-play trades that netted them Melky Cabrera and Angel Pagan. After 2013, their big moves were signing Tim Hudson and Mike Morse to cheap, low-risk contracts.

Of course, these four moves ended up paying significant dividends. Because of that, Sabean and Evans do have something of a comfort zone to fall back on if they miss out on their top targets this winter.

You know, sort of like how they did last year.

Though the Giants were coming off their third World Series title in five seasons last year, they still had a lot of work to do. Pablo Sandoval’s free agency created a hole at third base, and the Giants also needed to add some rotation depth behind Bumgarner.

The Giants made no secret of their desire to go big to fill these needs, but…yeah…that didn’t go so well.

The Giants whiffed on re-signing Sandoval, and then whiffed on Cuban slugger Yasmany Tomas, who was rumored to be their Plan B at third base. Up next was a shot at Jon Lester, who spurned them for the Chicago Cubs. There was some buzz at the time pointing them toward Max Scherzer or James Shields, but both got away.

The Giants’ response to these whiffs was to retreat into their comfort zone. They pulled off a small trade for Casey McGehee to replace Sandoval and brought back Jake Peavy and Ryan Vogelsong to round out their rotation. Additional deals for Sergio Romo and Nori Aoki rounded out their depth chart.

One can imagine the Giants backing away from their top targets and pursuing a similar strategy this winter.

After all, Alex Pavlovic of CSN Bay Area did note that Evans was coy about pursuing top starting-pitching targets at a year-end press conference in October, saying, “You don’t necessarily need to solve the rotation for the next seven years this offseason.” It’s conceivable that the Giants could move for cheap options and hope to find impact players from within, like they did with Panik and Duffy. They could do the same with their outfield and bullpen needs.

What they need to remember, though, is that the low-risk approach can fail.

You know, like it did in 2015. McGehee lasted about a month before he was cut loose, and Peavy and Vogelsong contributed little to the club’s starting pitching. In all, the Giants learned the arguably overdue lesson that, yes, trying to be clever rather than bold can fail.

That’s one reason for them for them to keep their eyes on the big prizes this winter. There’s also the other one: The Giants really have no excuse not to go big.

For one, there’s the reality that their two biggest areas of need (starting pitching and outfield) also happen to be the two deepest areas of what might be the best class of free agents in MLB history. Even if the Giants don’t land one of the market’s top starters or outfielders, they have a variety of strong secondary options to choose from.

For two, it’s not as if the Giants are lacking in financial flexibility. As Jeff Todd wrote at MLB Trade Rumors, that was actually the big benefit of last year’s offseason whiffs:

As a result of that relatively quiet offseason a year ago, the Giants now have ample future spending capacity to deploy this winter. The team has a fair amount of cash on the books already for next year (about $120MM, before arb) and 2017 (~$73MM, pre-arb), but little thereafter. And this is an organization that pushed its Opening Day payroll over $170MM last year.

Lastly, now is a pretty good time for the Giants to make a move on the Dodgers.

Greinke‘s absence leaves their rotation extremely vulnerable. Their bullpen is still weak. They basically don’t have a second baseman. And as always, their outfield has its share of question marks. As currently constructed, the Dodgers are in no position to go chase a fourth straight NL West title.

Given all this, it’ll be an upset if the Giants don’t turn their big offseason plans into big offseason action. Doing so will require wandering outside their comfort zone, but there’s enough cash in their pockets and items on the shelf for them to make it work. 

And if they do, this time there would actually be a solid explanation for their even-year magic.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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We spend a lot of time early in the free-agent season discussing good fits and where players would like to go. And then it still almost always comes down to which team offers the most money.

It probably will with Johnny Cueto, too, but in his case, maybe it shouldn’t. Well, maybe it should, if the team that offers the most money is the San Francisco Giants.

Cueto and the Giants feel like the ultimate good fit, especially from the pitcher’s standpoint. And if there’s any player on this winter’s free-agent market who should be shopping for the best fit, it’s Johnny Cueto.

The Giants may well favor Zack Greinke, and as I wrote a couple of weeks back, he would be a great fit for them. Cueto wouldn’t be a bad second choice for them—and they would be a great first choice for him.

With their pitcher-friendly ballpark and their pitcher-friendly combo of manager Bruce Bochy and Dave Righetti, the Giants would be a nice, comfortable choice for any pitcher. But if there’s one pitcher this winter who seems to thrive on comfort, it’s Cueto.

Remember in the World Series, when the Kansas City Royals arranged their rotation with the main goal of making sure Cueto would only pitch at home? The Royals said publicly they believed Cueto could pitch anywhere but acknowledged privately they had an ultra-sensitive ace who responds best in an environment where he’s comfortable.

Sure enough, Cueto pitched like a no-doubt ace twice during October, both times in crucial games—both times in his Kauffman Stadium comfort zone. He beat the Houston Astros there in Game 5 of the division series and was even better in his World Series Game 2 complete-game win over the New York Mets.

The Royals traded for Cueto as a rental ace, and those two wins justified the price they paid. They’ll let him move on now, fine for him because while Kauffman Stadium was a great place for him to pitch, the American League as a whole wasn’t.

So now he’s a free agent, in a market heavy on starting pitchers but featuring just two true aces in David Price and Zack Greinke. Or maybe it’s three aces, if you can count Cueto.

You can count him, if he’s the guy we all saw in the World Series. You can count him, if he’s the guy whose National League ERA since the start of the 2011 season is 2.51, second to Clayton Kershaw (2.11) and better than Zack Greinke (2.75) and Madison Bumgarner (3.05), among others.

Remember, Cueto made half of those starts in homer-friendly Great American Ball Park, where he’s the only guy to survive at least 10 career starts with an ERA under 3.00.

Imagine what he could do at AT&T Park. Or instead of imagining, check out Cueto‘s three career starts in San Francisco, where he pitched 21.1 innings and allowed just four earned runs (a 1.69 ERA) and 14 hits.

We’ve gotten a long way into this without mentioning Cueto‘s health, not because it’s not an issue, but simply because we don’t really know. His agent made the point that he looked plenty healthy in that World Series win over the Mets, but the Giants or any other interested team will want assurances from their own medical staff before proceeding.

The whispers about his elbow have been around for months and gained steam when the Cincinnati Reds pushed back a couple of Cueto‘s starts early in the season. He was still able to top 200 innings for the third time in four years and was able to make all his starts in October without any hint of health issues.

Cueto‘s October included those two outstanding starts against the Astros and Mets, but also that total clunker in Game 3 of the ALCS in Toronto. He seemed overly concerned about possible sign-stealing, just as he had seemed to get overly rattled by the sing-song “Cue-to! Cue-to!” chants during the 2013 National League Wild Card Game in Pittsburgh.

If you’re shopping for an ace who will command the type of money Cueto will likely get (Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com predicted a six-year, $144 million contract), maybe you want a guy who doesn’t get rattled. But every free agent comes with warts. Price is going to get more money than any free-agent pitcher on the market, and he has never won a postseason start.

Cueto had two huge wins just last month. Put him in his comfort zone, and he can pitch like a true ace.

Put him with the Giants in AT&T Park, and he can earn that title.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball. 

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In the span of eight days, Brandon Crawford became the most decorated San Francisco Giants shortstop in franchise history, and he also became its richest.

Already holding two World Series rings in his pocket, the 28-year-old Crawford added an unexpected Gold Glove award and an expected Silver Slugger trophy within the last week in the same season in which he made his first National League All-Star team.

The year got even better Tuesday when Crawford and the Giants, the team he wildly cheered for as a kid, agreed to a six-year, $75 million contract extension, per Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, making him an organizational pillar well into his 30s. The deal buys out Crawford’s last two arbitration years and four free-agent seasons, making him a Giant through age 34 and a potential bargain for the Giants.

Giants general manager Bobby Evans had this to say, per MLB.com:

Brandon is an exceptionally talented baseball player who has earned this through his hard work, dedication and competitive spirit. He took great strides both offensively and defensively last season, winning his first-ever Gold Glove and Silver Slugger award. This is a great day for Brandon and his family, for the Giants and for our fans.

Crawford had been a defense-first shortstop through his first four seasons, compiling just a 91 OPS+, but he has been among the very best glovemen at his position. He ranks third among major league shortstops in defensive runs saved since 2011, according to Fangraphs, despite playing in just 66 games that season, his rookie year.

Had Crawford continued to be a defensive whiz, the Giants certainly could have lived with him at the position for the foreseeable future.

But in 2015, his bat caught up with his glove, as he set career bests in batting average (.256), runs (65), doubles (33), home runs (21), RBI (84), OPS (.782), OPS+ (114) and wRC+ (117). He also had the best Baseball-Reference WAR (5.6) and the best Fangraphs WAR (3.1) of his career.

It is this breakout season that pushed the Giants to lock up Crawford, realizing he has become a premier player at a premium position. The year also put him in elite Giants company, with Crawford becoming the first Giant since Barry Bonds in 1997 to win a Gold Glove and Silver Slugger in the same season.

Tentative breakdown on Brandon Crawford’s contract: $1.2M signing bonus, $5.8M next year, $8M in 2017, then $15M in subsequent 4 years.

— Andrew Baggarly (@extrabaggs) November 18, 2015

The deal could end up being a huge win for the Giants. Neither the Marcel nor the Steamer projection systems see Crawford duplicating his offensive prowess in 2016, but if he exceeds their expectations for the next few seasons and can remain a quality defensive player, he will be paid well below market value for a player of his sudden ilk.

To compare, Los Angeles Angels shortstop Andrelton Simmons is the superior defender at the position and, until last season, was a comparable offensive player to Crawford. The Atlanta Braves signed him to a seven-year, $58 million extension before the 2014 season, which at the time was the largest average annual value ever for a player with one-plus years of major league service time.

The Baltimore Orioles signed J.J. Hardy, who is not as good as Crawford defensively and was nowhere close to him offensively in 2015, to a three-year, $40 million deal before the 2015 season.

And the king of the shortstop paydays, Troy Tulowitzki, is not as good as Crawford defensively and had major Coors Field splits while with the Colorado Rockies. He signed a 10-year, $157.75 million contract in 2010.

This offseason, Ian Desmond, who struggled majorly on defense this past year (27 errors) but could be better with the bat going forward, could get north of $75 million as a 30-year-old.

ZiPS thinks the Crawford extension is fair, but I still think I rather have the 2 years of arbitration rather than the 6 year deal.

— Dan Szymborski (@DSzymborski) November 17, 2015

The deal could always end up as just a “meh” kind of deal for the Giants if Crawford were to revert back to the below-average offensive player he had been before 2015. Not to mention the team entered into extension talks when Crawford’s stock might never be higher.

Even if Crawford starts to regress in the next three seasons, it’s possible the Giants could still be getting him at a reasonable price if he is a league-average hitter and remains a strong defender. It’s the last three years, the age-32-34 seasons, for which the Giants might end up overpaying.

That is the part that makes the no-trade clause baffling. The $15 million a year he will be owed could end up burdensome, but a team like the Giants certainly can absorb that if Crawford ends up a below-average shortstop in the second half of the deal.

Crawford’s breakout season put him right in line for this extension, and the Giants, banking on his continued offensive production, were willing to negotiate with him from a position of minimal leverage. That is how much Crawford potentially means to the franchise, especially as it enters its lucky even-year season.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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The MLB offseason is less than a week old, and the San Francisco Giants already made some news.

Andrew Baggarly of the Bay Area News Group noted the 2014 World Series champions declined the options on the contracts of outfielders Marlon Byrd and Nori Aoki. According to Spotrac, Byrd’s option was worth $8 million, while Baggarly said Aoki’s was worth $5.5 million, although he gets a $700,000 buyout.

Baggarly also pointed out Aoki is cleared of concussion symptoms that bothered him this season, but it is “tough” for general manager Robert Evans to commit the money this early in the offseason. The writer offered his take on the situation and the team’s mindset with the decisions:

Byrd played 39 games for the Giants after they acquired him from the Cincinnati Reds for a potential postseason push. He hit .272 with four home runs and 31 RBI and finished with 23 long balls in 2015. It marked the third consecutive season he topped the 20-homer mark.

Even at age 38, Byrd provides power in the middle of the order, although he is an average defender at this stage of his career. According to Fangraphs, he accounted for one total defensive run saved above average this season, and it is logical to assume his range will decrease as he continues to age. 

As for Aoki, he dealt with health concerns throughout the 2015 campaign and only played 93 games. He still stole 14 bases and tallied a .353 on-base percentage, which put him in impressive company, as Matthew Pouliot of Rotoworld.com highlighted:

While Aoki gets on base as a speed threat at the top of the order (he has 81 steals the last four years), his defense is inadequate in the outfield. According to Fangraphs, he posted a minus-one total defensive run saved above average in 2015 and a minus-eight total defensive runs saved above average in 2014 as a member of the Kansas City Royals.

These are two veterans on the wrong side of 30 (Aoki is 33) who bring plenty to the table on offense but not as much on defense. With the entire offseason ahead of them, the Giants elected to keep their options open.

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Nothing warms the heart quite like good sportsmanship—or good pizza.

The San Francisco Giants brought the two together on Monday, ordering 25 pizzas from a Kansas City pizzeria for the newly crowned world champions, the Kansas City Royals.

It was even delivered with a personalized note:

Dear Royals,

Have fun planning the parade! Enjoy the ride!

Sincerely,

The San Francisco Giants

[San Francisco Giants, h/t For The Win]

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Zack Greinke‘s original team, the Kansas City Royals, just won a World Series, helped in no small part by his decision to talk his way out of town five years ago.

Next questions: How does Greinke win one for himself? And how do the San Francisco Giants go about keeping their every-other-year thing going, setting themselves up to win in 2016 the way they did in 2010, 2012 and 2014?

Well, stealing Greinke away from the rival Los Angeles Dodgers wouldn’t hurt. It wouldn’t hurt the Giants, and it wouldn’t hurt Greinke.

It would only hurt the Dodgers, but that’s kind of what the Giants are in business to do, isn’t it?

This World Series is over, and free agency is just about to begin. Greinke isn’t even a free agent yet, not until he goes through the formality of opting out of the final three years and $71 million of the six-year, $147 million contract he signed with the Dodgers three winters ago.

He’s going to opt out, not because he hates Dodger blue or Southern California, and certainly not because he doesn’t want $71 million. He’s going to opt out because he’s coming off an historic season and there’s absolutely no doubt he’ll get more years and more dollars from whatever team signs him.

We know the dollars are key, and not just because they always are. Greinke is maybe the most honest player ever, and when he talked to Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com a few months after signing with the Dodgers, he said the money was “obviously the No. 1 thing.”

If the big-bucks Dodgers really want to keep Greinke now, it’s hard to see how the Giants could stop them. Then again, with Greinke having turned 32 in October, there’s a chance Andrew Friedman’s analytics wizards will let the numbers dictate a less-than-top-dollar final offer. They could leave the door open for San Francisco, which Heyman and others have tabbed as a possible Greinke suitor.

It makes perfect sense, for him and for them. The Giants need another top starter to pair with Madison Bumgarner, much the way the Dodgers paired Greinke with Clayton Kershaw. Greinke needs a team with the money to pay him and a roster that says “win now.”

Money may well be “the No. 1 thing” for Greinke, but we also know from his past decisions that winning matters. He pushed for a deal away from the Kansas City Royals five years ago because he was tired of losing and didn’t see things changing, and he basically nixed a trade to the Washington Nationals because he thought with what the Nationals would need to give up to get him, they wouldn’t have enough left to win.

He ended up going to the Milwaukee Brewers in a deal that worked out for everyone, but especially for the Royals. With Greinke, the Brewers came within two wins of going to the World Series for the first time since 1982. With the players they got directly or indirectly in the Greinke deal (Alcides Escobar and Lorenzo Cain directly, Wade Davis and James Shields indirectly), the Royals have been to the World Series two straight years and just won it for the first time since 1985.

You could say Greinke was wrong when he didn’t see a chance to win with the Royals, but you could also say the Royals don’t get there without trading him. In any case, it’s hard to see how they still would have had him now, since they weren’t giving him a $147 million contract.

Regardless, what’s of greater concern now is where Greinke is going to pitch in 2016 and beyond.

The Giants would need to stretch their budget a little to make it work for them, but in this case they should. As one scout who follows the National League West closely said Monday, “There’s only one guy out there who’s a real game-changer for the Giants, and it’s Greinke. Get him, and you’re going to get [to the playoffs].”

Put Greinke with Bumgarner, and you’ve got Greinke/Kershaw but with a better supporting cast in the rotation and a better bullpen. You’ve also destroyed the rival Dodgers’ biggest strength and sent them scrambling into a free-agent market, where David Price is perhaps the only comparable starting pitcher.

You’ve changed the NL West, which is basically about the Giants and the Dodgers until one of the other three teams takes the significant steps necessary to compete.

You may even have changed baseball, because while Greinke proved to be a good postseason pitcher in his three seasons with the Dodgers, Bumgarner has already shown he’s a great one.

The Giants won the World Series three times in five years, without ever having an overwhelming team everyone thought would win. Add Greinke, and maybe they have that team as they try to make it four titles in seven years.

And if he has to beat the Royals in a World Series to do it, so much the better.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball. 

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