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Giants admit they’ll do the obvious thing and extend qualifying offer to Carlos Rodón

Gosh, who could have seen that coming.

By Brady Klopfer
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Carlos Rodón reaching back to throw a pitch Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images

In case you missed the news, the MLB offseason is officially underway and the San Francisco Giants are off and running with their regularly-scheduled churn. There will be a lot of moves this offseason. Some will be predictable, some will be surprising, and, hopefully, some will be, like the times, unprecedented.

Mark the following move under “predictable.” As in, the most predictable move of the entire offseason. While meeting with the press, president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi admitted that the Giants will extend the qualifying offer to left-handed pitcher Carlos Rodón.

Well, yes. We all knew that was coming, just as we all knew that Rodón would opt out of the final year of his deal. And just as we all know that Rodón — who would have been paid $22.5 million next year had he opted into his deal — will reject the qualifying offer, which would pay him $19.65 million.

Extending the qualifying offer was not, of course, a play the Giants made with hopes that Rodón would accept it. Instead, they’ll get a pick in the compensatory round if and when Rodón signs elsewhere, and they’ll likely see his market suppressed a tiny bit, increasing their chances of re-signing him (which feels gross to say, but it’s the truth).

The last time the Giants had compensatory picks was in 2020, when they selected Nick Swiney and Jimmy Glowenke with the picks awarded to them after losing Madison Bumgarner and Will Smith in free agency.

It’s at this point that I think we should all take a moment to thank the Chicago White Sox for their service. Rodón reached free agency last year after putting up a 4.9-WAR, 2.37-ERA, 2.65-FIP season. Somehow, someway, the White Sox didn’t extend him the qualifying offer. That paved the way for the Giants to sign him — I’m dubious that they would have parted with a draft pick for one year of Rodón — and it opened up the door for them to extend the offer to him, as players can only receive the qualifying offer once in their career.

Thanks, Chicago!

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