The San Francisco Giants ushered in a new era at Bob Melvin’s press conference back in October, but it was chairman Greg Johnson who ended up making headlines. Johnson said that the Giants’ aim was to “somewhat break even,” which didn’t sit well with some fans and media.
Johnson clarified his comments and discussed what he’s learned from that while appearing on the Audacy Sports Podcast “The TK Show” this week.
“I’ll say it was a naive statement by a control person that learned a lesson not to use that word ever again and I won’t use that word ever again,” Johnson said (17:30 in player above). “I was just making a point, again, that we represent a group of investors and we’d rather not lose money every year but I think what we’ve shown is that this group’s mission is to win championships and we will lose money to do that.
“I made a comment, yeah we’d like to break even, I said that’s pretty hard to do – Ooh, I said the word again; that was terrible… But you’ll never hear that out of me again and I think we backed that up.”
Johnson and the rest of the Giants’ ownership group showed their willingness to spend money this offseason by going over the luxury tax to sign free agents Matt Chapman and Blake Snell.
“I think the point I made is in the right situation is we’ll go over the luxury tax and we did that this year,” he said, “because we thought it was the appropriate thing to do to build a competitive team this year and we’re going to continue to do that.”
The chairman acknowledged that spending money is important, but it’s more about getting the right mix of players and management in the organization.
“I think it’s a combination of a strong farm system and then filling the gaps. And there’s going to be years where you can go down in payroll and have a better team out there,” Johnson continued. “it’s unique to baseball where you have younger players that you control for a period, and if they’re playing well you can lower that payroll and still have a better team.”
The Giants' $202 million payroll is the 10th-highest in the league this year.
“If spending was the simple answer – to be the highest-spending team – those teams would be winning every year, and that’s not the case in basebal,” Johnson said. “I think there’s times when we have to spend a lot and time’s when you might have the benefit of younger players filling those positions, and I think it’s a balance of the two.”
San Francisco is certainly seeing that mix now as injuries have forced some younger players into bigger roles. The Giants are back over .500 and right in the mix of the NL Wild Card race after taking two of three games against the MLB-best Phillies.