The Giants and Padres are among the teams showing interest in free agent center fielder Harrison Bader, tweets Jon Morosi of MLB.com. Both teams also remain involved on KBO star Jung Hoo Lee.
San Francisco president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi called center field a priority at the start of the offseason. The Padres created a pair of outfield vacancies with the blockbuster trade that sent Juan Soto and Trent Grisham to the Bronx.
The Giants have a wider array of possibilities tied to their greater financial flexibility. San Francisco’s 2024 payroll projects around $40M below this past season’s opening mark, as calculated by Roster Resource. That makes San Francisco a legitimate threat to land any player on the open market, including top center fielder Cody Bellinger.
A run at Bellinger isn’t likely for the Padres, but the Soto trade clears some room to attack the middle tiers of the market. Roster Resource pegs the Friars’ payroll around $156M, while their luxury tax number (which uses contracts’ average salaries) sits in the $209M range. Dennis Lin of the Athletic wrote Thursday that the Friars prefer to keep their tax number below next year’s $237M lowest threshold.
That’d be more than enough to accommodate Bader. He’s a rebound target after perhaps the worst season of his career. The 29-year-old hit .232/.274/.348 in 344 plate appearances with the Yankees and Reds. That marked his personal low on-base and slugging marks. Bader had a trio of stints on the injured list, missing time with oblique, hamstring and groin strains.
While that’s clearly not how he envisioned his platform year playing out, Bader had combined for a league average .259/.311/.414 slash between 2021-22. He’s an excellent defender in center field and went 20-23 on stolen base attempts in 98 contests this year. Bader is an asset against left-handed pitching, carrying a .262/.330/.494 slash in his career. His .236/.304/.364 mark versus righty arms is far less imposing, but Bader’s speed and glove can keep him in the lineup in unfavorable platoon situations.
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