Giants longtime ex-shortstop blames team president for recent break-up

"So I went with a team that gave me a major-league contract. The Cardinals have a long history and tradition. I’ve admired and respected the way the Cardinals have played throughout my career and the way the organization has been run," Crawford said, per Baggarly's report. "But the bottom line is I wanted to come back to the Giants. That was obviously the ideal situation for me."

The 37-year-old was selected by San Francisco in the fourth round of the 2008 MLB June Amateur Draft and made his big-league debut in May 2011.

Crawford was the Giants Opening Day shortstop for 12 straight years. Crawford was part of a core that included former MVP catcher Buster Posey and All-Star starting pitcher Madison Bumgarner, who helped the team win World Series titles in 2012 and 2014.

The University of California product earned his first All-Star and Gold Glove honors and won his only Silver Slugger award in 2015. Crawford won three more Gold Gloves in 2016, 2017 and 2021 and was an All-Star again in 2018 and 2021.

After a down 2019 campaign and the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, he had a resurgent 2021 and put up arguably his best offensive numbers. Crawford finished fourth in the NL MVP voting after posting career highs in home runs (24), RBI (90), runs scored (79), OPS (.895) and with his .298/.373/.522 slash line.

He's had a rough last two seasons though, producing slash lines of .231/.308/.344 and .194/.273/.314.

Crawford left the Bay Area as the franchise's all-time leader in games played at shortstop (1,617).

According to Baggarly's report, Crawford and Zaidi met in November and the former Golden Bear told the president that he was not "seeking to reclaim his role as the everyday shortstop."

"He expressed a willingness to play multiple positions while mentoring Giants rookie shortstop Marco Luciano and other young infielders. He said he would be happy in a support role while spending another season making baseball memories for his four oldest children, ages 5 to 11, all of whom had cajoled him into postponing retirement," the report said.

However, the meeting didn't go as planned.

"I had no playing time expectations,” Crawford said, per the report. “Just help out and be a veteran mentor type for Luciano, Casey Schmitt, (Tyler) Fitzgerald, continue being that guy for Thairo (Estrada), whoever else I could help out in that capacity. That’s what I came to him with."

Baggarly wrote that the infielder described Zaidi's reception as "tepid to the point that he wondered whether it was personal."

When St. Louis made their contract offer, Crawford's agent reportedly reached out to Zaidi one final time, but the veteran was told he could "earn the last spot on the roster like anyone else could as a non-roster invite" and that was the "'That was the nail in the coffin.'"

Zaidi told Baggarly that he disagreed with parts of Crawford's comments.

"He’s been one of our most popular and important players and we negotiated a two-year extension with him (after his banner 2021 season) which everyone was really happy with,” Zaidi said. “So any notion there was a concern about coexistence just doesn’t match the reality that we’ve both been here for the last five seasons and we’ve had some really great moments. He’s been an important member of this team and a real leader in the clubhouse as well.”