SAN FRANCISCO — On a relatively dreary day in Detroit a little more than two years ago, Logan Webb took a leap of faith of sorts. He signed a contract that tied him to the San Francisco Giants a full three years longer than anybody else in that clubhouse.
That’s no longer the case today.
“I’ve got way less years here than those guys do on their contracts now,” Webb mused from his locker in the starters’ corner of the home quarters at Oracle Park, two floors below the club level where the team introduced its new slugger, Rafael Devers, an hour earlier.
The deal Buster Posey swung to acquire the 28-year-old, three-time All-Star — sending Jordan Hicks, Kyle Harrison and two prospects to Boston — came as a surprise because teams aren’t typically eager to trade players of Devers’ caliber or age, especially with six weeks still to go until the trade deadline.
It was atypical for another reason: Devers is in the second year of a 10-year extension he signed last spring that was meant to keep him in a Red Sox uniform for life. The relationship soured and Posey leaped at the opportunity, agreeing to take on the remainder of the contract.
The Giants’ new president of baseball operations toppled the team’s record financial commitment — which once belonged to him — for the second time in a matter of months.
Between Devers (nine years, $284 million remaining), Willy Adames (seven years, $182 million), Matt Chapman (six years, $151 million), and Jung Hoo Lee (five years, $104.75 million), the Giants possess a veritable core that didn’t exist when Webb inked his five-year, $90 million extension two Aprils ago.
“I said at that press conference I love being a Giant and that I want to win as many World Series as I can while I’m here,” Webb said. “I think them coming in and adding to that, I wouldn’t say they’ve done it around me, I just think everyone in this place is pretty sick of losing. It was time to put our best foot forward, and I think we have.”
Of course, Webb is the one cashing the checks, not the one writing them.
That would be the club’s ownership group, represented by chairman Greg Johnson, who has taken flak in the past for his stated pursuit to “break even.” But Johnson said he didn’t bat an eye when Posey came to him about the possibility once the talks, which began around the end of May, heated up.
Some industry sources in other publications praised the Red Sox for getting out of Devers’ contract and getting value in return.
But Johnson compared signing off on the deal to swinging at a hanging slider. “It just was too good of an opportunity,” he said.
While there is no hard salary cap in baseball, the Competitive Balance Tax sets an artificial limit on most teams’ spending by imposing penalties in the form of draft picks and dollars for teams that go over the threshold, which for 2025 was set at $241 million. The Giants paid the tax from 2015-17 to keep the core of their World Series teams together but didn’t go over the threshold again until last season, when their $249 million payroll made them one of seven taxpayers.
Because of the structure of Devers’ contract — which includes deferrals through 2043 — his 2025 salary only counts as about $15.8 million in CBT terms, which is largely offset by the $11 million owed to Hicks that the Red Sox agreed to pick up, so Posey isn’t necessarily hamstrung for the rest of this season.
According to Cot’s Contracts, the Giants have about $20 million to play with before bumping up against the first luxury tax threshold.
But look ahead to 2028, the last year of Webb’s extension, and there begins to be a bit less flexibility.
Only the Dodgers, Yankees and Padres have more money already on the books than the Giants, who are projected to owe five players $115.6 million, plus another $20.67 million in other CBT costs, for a total commitment of $136.37 million. Devers will be 31 years old with five years left on his contract; Adames will be 32 with three years left; Chapman 35 with two years to go. Lee can opt out after 2027, or the Giants will be on the hook for $41 million over his age-29 and 30 seasons.
And that’s not accounting for the Giants’ homegrown core that includes Heliot Ramos, Patrick Bailey and Hayden Birdsong, who will all become eligible for raises through arbitration during that time frame. If all goes well, the Giants hope to pay top prospects Bryce Eldridge and Carson Whisenhunt big bucks one day, too.
“That certainly is always a concern when you lock up that much payroll over a long period,” Johnson said. “But it’s much outweighed by getting the core group together for that period and getting the kind of player that eases that concern.”
Related Articles
SF Giants’ Rafael Devers on pitcher-friendly Oracle Park: ‘It’s the same baseball. Nothing changes’
SF Giants fall 3-2 to Cleveland Guardians in Rafael Devers’ post-trade debut
SF Giants’ Verlander ‘excited’ to return after missing month to injury
Rafael Devers on SF Giants trade: “I’m here to play wherever they want”
Red Sox defend trading Rafael Devers to SF Giants
Webb has seen both sides of the coin in terms of roster-building strategy, beginning his career in the embers of the dynasty from the 2010s before growing into a face of the franchise during the churn-and-burn Farhan Zaidi era. Now, with Posey in charge, roster stability is back in fashion.
One way is better than the other to build a winning baseball team, Webb believes.
“I mean, I don’t really look around baseball and see teams moving a lot of guys around that go very far,” he said. “I think all the best teams in baseball have a set lineup every day, a set rotation and a core group of guys. I think we have that here now.
“It’s fun for me to see that. When I came up, it was that. It was Bum, it was Craw, it was Belt. There was a core group of guys, and I think we’re starting to get to that.”