Upon taking over the GM role early in 2020, Nick Genova made it clear after thoroughly analyzing the position of the team, that a 3-4 year turnaround plan would be required. This was actually fairly well received by fans since many pundits believed the team was as much as 5 or 6 years from being a serious playoff team again. Further pleasing fans, Genova also promised that even though it would take time to right the ship, that on field improvements would be seen almost immediately and he promised that the team would improve every year during this 3-4 year plan. A very active 2020 season ensued and Genova made right on his promise, as the team showed dramatic improvement in 2020. Refer here for a more detailed summary of the 2020 Saint’s season.

But much work remained and many outstanding promises to the fan base needed to be kept, leading to a very active offseason once again for the club. The following report summarizes the Saints offseason moves and reveals the expected opening day lineup.

2020 LINEUP

Catcher:
Starter: Ramiro Davila
Backup: Yvan Fitipaldi

Davila signed a four year extension early last season and then proceeded to have a career year putting up a line of .284/.399/.463 good for a VORP of nearly 40. He will obviously return in the starting role. Due to the acquisition of Fitipaldi in the Rule V draft, Hyeon-san Song will be replaced in the backup role. Fitipaldi was traded away by the Saints in 2020 as part of a blockbuster deal. Saints had always viewed Fitipaldi as a promising young star, but clearly Virginia Beach viewed him as a secondary component in the trade, failing to protect the player in the Rule V Draft. The Saints are thrilled to have him back in the fold.

First Base:
Starter: 1B David Encarnacion – Promoted from AAA
Pinch Hitter/Platoon: 1B Juan Bocanegra – Returning Player

Bocanegra returns for a second year with the club, but at the age of 36 will move into a secondary role as rising star Encarnacion takes over first base duties. Projected as a high contact / high power hitter, Encarnacion compiled a .382 batting average and 7 HR’s in only 76 at bats after he was promoted to AAA towards the end of last season. He is expected to play in the #4 slot in the lineup, at least to begin the year. Bocanegra should see plenty of action against left handed pitching and in pinch hitting duty.

2nd/3rd/SS:
2B Ed Lee – Signed as a Free Agent
3B Paul Johnson – Acquired in Trade in the offseason
SS Scott Gomez – Acquired in Trade last season

The infield remains one of the teams primary weaknesses, but is considered at least slightly improved from last season. Ed Lee, formerly with Toronto, signed a 2 year deal out of free agency. He won’t hit for a high average, but he’s an on base machine with decent gap power. He is also a valuable left handed middle infielder.

Paul Johnson was acquired in trade from Edmonton for Cristobal Ramirez. Many questioned this trade given Johnson’s relatively weak fielding abilities and lack of major league experience. That said, his numbers in AAA have been phenomenal to say the least (0.975 OPS in 2020) and the team hopes that at least some of that success translates to the major leagues.

Gomez is the core middle infielder for the team. Capable of fielding most any position well outside of catcher and centerfield while putting up decent offensive numbers. The one hole in his game is that he greatly struggles against left handed pitching, but its likely the team will start him in that role anyway given his fielding ability.

Utility:
Wei-fang Rao – Returning player
Scott Whaley – Returning player

Rao and Whaley both return, and will likely fill a similar role as last year. Providing rest for the starters and getting frequent starts against left handed pitching. Jesus Hernandez and Lai-hsiang Sun were waived in order to create roster room for some of the other additions.

Outfield:
Denver Smart – Returning player
Oliver Cadenhead – Rule V Draftee
Jesus Cantu – Returning player
Charles Aaron – Returning player
Joe Richardson – Rule V Draftee

When looking at the saints outfield, there’s no doubt about who the anchor is – Denver Smart. Signing a deal that will seem him stick around in San Francisco through the 2026 season, Smart has incredible offensive skills…when he’s healthy. A ruptured finger tendon very early in the season caused Smart to miss nearly 4 months in 2020, but his offensive prowess showed through after returning from injury as he finished with a line of .310/.386/.625, good for an OPS of 1.011. Fans love the guy, and it should be fun watching what he can do in his prime if he can stay healthy this season.

Oliver Cadenhead was brought in through the Rule V draft and will serve as the teams starting Centerfielder. Genova did make some calls on center fielders during the offseason, but wasn’t able to find a deal he liked. Cadenhead has average offensive abilities for an outfielder, but his superb fielding ability at the CF position is where his true value lies. It will be interesting to see how Cadenhead performs in his first year in the big leagues.

Charles Aaron and Joe Richardson will provide rest for the starters and both will see ample playing time in a platoon role as well.

2020 PITCHING STAFF

Perhaps the most dramatically overhauled area since Nick Genova took over as GM after the 2019 season is the pitching staff, specifically the starting rotation. As shown below, not a single starter from 2019 remains on the active roster, and only one player remains with the club at all.

The primary starters used in 2019:
Hildebrand Boone – 5-20; 6.70ERA…not re-signed, ended up signing internationally
Von Davis – 6-8; 5.96ERA…demoted to AAA to start the 2021 season
Larry Matthews – 7-17; 6.84ERA…not re-signed; currently a free agent
Ryosei Suzuki – 0-22; 11.15ERA…released, currently a free agent
Jonathan Weeks – 3-17; 8.68ERA…traded
Steve Yard – 0-7; 10.37ERA…released, currently a free agent

The primary starters used in 2020:
Pancho Cuevas – 14-14; 4.66ERA
Von Davis – 5-14; 6.32ERA
Larry Matthews – 7-14; 5.75ERA
Jorge Gonzalez – 12-7; 4.56ERA
Matias Romero – 12-5; 4.32ERA

2021 Expected Starting Rotation:
Sadaharu Matsuo – Acquired in trade from Toronto during the offseason
Matias Romero – Acquired in the Virginia Beach blockbuster trade in 2020
Luis Rodriguez – Acquired in trade from Toronto during the offseason
Pancho Cuevas – Returns for second year with club; originally signed a 1 year $950K contract in 2020, returning for $1.1 million in 2021
Conner Griffith – Signed as a free agent in the offseason

Cleary, improving the pitching staff has been a primary focus for the GM since taking over, which isn’t necessarily surprising as the team was coming off an FCB record worse year in 2019, reporting a team ERA of 6.41 for the season! This figure improved to 5.14 in 2020, and most analysts predict further improvement in 2021. Von Davis will start the year in AAA, a long overdue demotion as he’s no where near ready to compete at the ML level. Larry Matthews’ contract was not extended and while Jorge Gonzalez had his $1.2 million team option exercised given serviceable performance in 2020, his future took a murky turn over the last few weeks. First off, he came into camp in poor physical shape (not surprising given his notoriously low work ethic) which led to an awful spring training that saw him turn in an ERA over 7.00. This prompted team scouts to drop internal projections for him and in turn prompted the team to DFA him until they elect what to do.

Essentially, the team headed into the offseason needing to replace Matthews and Davis, but the free agent market for SP was extremely thin and the talent that was there was aggressively pursued by multiple teams creating quite the bidding war. Genova was able to snag Conner Griffith; the 30 year old signed with the club in late December and has been given a second chance at a starting role despite a fairly rough past season with the Los Angeles heroes (7-12; 5.93 ERA). Management is hoping Griffith can bounce back to his 2018/2019 form which saw him put up a cumulative 4.12 ERA and 18-16 record. Outside of the Griffith signing, Genova was unable to strengthen the rotation like he had hoped. Adding insult to injury, the Gonzalez fiasco meant that with a few weeks till opening day, the team STILL needed to find 2 capable ML level starting pitchers. Granted, the Saints have several young studs in the minors, but none of them are ready for promotion (Hector Cuellar is closest, but needs more time to work on his control).

Genova did pursue a man by the name of Carlos Lopez, who basically appeared out of nowhere. Scouts felt he had several solid pitches, good control, decent stuff…all this despite never having pitched internationally, in college, in high school…nope, the guy has been throwing in beer leagues for years now basically plowing the competition and eventually a scout happened to see the guy throw. Since many teams in the FCB were desperate for pitching, teams started throwing offers at the guy left and right (Saints included) for several million dollars per year…some offers reportedly worth as much as $30 million over the life of the contract. All this despite never having pitched in any professional capacity! In the end, Lopez decided he’d much rather sit around, smoke weed, and enjoy life rather than “throw a baseball every god-damn day.” He was later seen checking in here and hasn’t been heard from since.

After failing to add Lopez and with a dwindling free agent pool, trading seemed like the only option left. Not wanting to sacrifice the future for a mere stopgap until the stud prospects are ready, Genova worked the phones night and day all through Spring Training. It began to look grim as opening day approached, but a deal was finally consummated which brought in the much needed two ML level pitching arms. In the trade, Saints acquired Luis Rodriguez, who was the primary player targeted in the deal and is a promising young pitcher who put up very nice numbers in AAA last year (1.18 WHIP; 2.63 ERA; 15-1 Record). A star by no means, but likely a mid rotation workhouse once fully developed. In order to obtain Rodriguez, Toronto wanted to move Matsuo’s contract which sees him paid approximately $10 million per year for the next 3 years. Despite a clear decline in performance in 2020, some SF analysts believe Matsuo may still have gas left in the tank. In fact, many speculate that Matsuo could rebound in a similar fashion as he did 2 years ago, which saw him improve his ERA from 5.63 to 3.04 year over year (granted his 2019 season was cut short by a rotator cuff injury). In a worst case scenario, the Saints have plenty of room to absorb his contract.

In a shocking turn of events, Harold – GM of the Toronto Maniacs – was let go hours after the trade was consummated. The owner held a press conference later that evening and when asked if missing the playoffs last year had anything to do with the firing, he responded: Link

Set-up/Closer:
Jordan Saunders – Returns for 4th season with the club
Leonard Crosby – Former Saint, traded away last year in the Pedro Gonzalez trade; brought back in as a free agent on a 1 year term
Jarod Driscoll – Returning player; Acquired in the 2020 Pedro Gonzalez trade referenced above

For the most part, the relief roles remain fairly familiar. Crosby started out last year with the club but was traded to Montreal, where he went on to win the first and probably only championship of his career! However, after spending his entire career with the Saints organization, he greatly desired to return to his former club; the fans missed him as well. As a result, management brought him in on a one year deal that will pay him $4.8 million and he will likely end up retiring in a Saints uniform.

The young 23 year old Jarod Driscoll, after bouncing back and forth between AAA and the big league club is expected to stick with the club for the entire year after putting up extremely impressive numbers during spring training (16.1 innings; 22K’s; 0.98 WHIP; 1.10 ERA). He will start off serving as the teams closer.

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So when all was said and done, the Saints head into the 2021 season reasonably optimistic that they can once again fulfill promises made and demonstrate year over year improvement on the field and in the standings. While ownership has made it clear that they expect around a .500 season, the GM has gone one step further stating that anything less than 82 wins would be a failure. Could the Saints gel at the right time and make a run at the playoffs in what is known as the weakest division in the FCB? Only time will tell…