Ex-Giants President opens up about falling short in Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, Bryce Harper free agency pursuits

The San Francisco Giants moved on from Farhan Zaidi after the 2024 season, firing the president of baseball operations to end his six-year tenure with the franchise.

Zaidi joined the Giants in 2018, and during his reign, San Francisco managed to clinch a postseason berth only once in 2021. He was replaced by franchise legend and former catcher Buster Posey in the offseason.

Although the Giants didn't enjoy much success under Zaidi, the franchise always aspires to improve its performance by adding marquee players to the roster. During Zaidi's tenure, the Giants were linked with superstar free agents Bryce Harper, Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge. However, San Francisco failed to sign either of the players.

In Wednesday's "Foul Territory" episode, the former Giants president of baseball operations shed light on missing out on the star trio in their free agency.

He said (7:57 onwards):

"When you talk about Harper, Judge, and Ohtani, these are three of the five best players in baseball. So, I guess we took some big swings. Obviously, what happened with Carlos Correa was very unfortunate. But we took big swings, and each of those guys -- Bryce, I think, had some concerns about the ballpark, which can happen at times when you're trying to sign a position player. Not always, but it's something that position players have some concerns with.

"Some guys are just East Coast guys and want to be there. I look at Aaron Judge, he had a legacy with the New York Yankees, one of the signature franchises in baseball, and it was just kind of hard to pull him away from that. We tried, but ultimately it didn't work. And then you look at Shohei, he was building a house in Southern California, obviously the Dodgers have been really successful."

All three players signed mega deals in their free agency. Bryce Harper signed a 13-year, $330,000,000 deal with the Philadelphia Phillies in 2019. Aaron Judge signed a franchise record nine-year, $360,000,000 contract with the Yankees in 2022 while Shohei Ohtani signed a whopping $700,000,000 deal with the Dodgers in 2023.

The Giants heavily pursued Judge in his free agency and reportedly tabled a nine-year, $360 million offer in 2022. However, the two-time MVP returned to the Yankees instead.

Farhan Zaidi pushed back on Giants not being attractive for players

The Giants' failure to land the coveted free agents started a notion that San Francisco wasn't an attractive ballpark for top players. Farhan Zaidi pushed back at the narrative by mentioning Willy Adames' seven-year, $182,000,000 contract earlier this month:

"I really push back hard on this narrative nobody wants to play in San Francisco, nobody wants to play for the Giants. It's a great city, it's a great organization. I have been so happy in my time in San Francisco and I wish the organization the best and I know they're going to be able to attract players and Willy Adames just a couple of weeks ago is the last example."

To Farhan Zaidi's credit, the Giants also signed Matt Chapman and Blake Snell as two top names in free agency last offseason. According to reports, the ex-Giants man is linked with a return to the Dodgers.