Giants front office likely to get shuffled this offseason - MLB

Bobby Evans is the general manager of the San Francisco Giants, but it does not sound like he will be for much longer. After a couple of stories in the past week or two — one from Bob Nightengale of USA Today — Buster Olney of ESPN reported yesterday that “the Giants have also quietly asked around about adding a high-profile baseball operations executive to their front office.”

Brian Sabean is above Evans, and has returned to take a more active role in running the team this past year, but that is not expected to continue. Which strongly suggests that the high-profile executive would be a new GM to replace Evans.

The Giants are ending the season poorly and, for the second season in a row, will have lost more than they have won. The team has a lot of money on the books pegged to old or injured players and their future Hall of Fame manager, Bruce Bochy, will be in the final year of his contract next year and it’s unclear if he wants to continue beyond then. All of that suggests a rebuild is in the offing, and it’s not often that caretaker GMs like Evans has been are asked to mount a rebuild. Normally a transition occurs. It’s especially likely to occur in San Francisco which has not embarked on a rebuild in over a decade.

It’ll be an interesting offseason for Giants fans, I presume.

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CINCINNATI — The Los Angeles Dodgers placed pitcher Noah Syndergaard on the 15-day injured list Thursday with a blister on the index finger of his right throwing hand.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said the timetable for Syndergaard’s return is unknown despite the 15-day designation.

“The physical, the mental, the emotional part, as he’s talked about, has taken a toll on him,” Roberts said. “So, the ability to get him away from this. He left today to go back to Los Angeles to kind of get back to normalcy.”

Syndergaard allowed six runs and seven hits in three innings against the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night, raising his ERA to 7.16.

Syndergaard (1-4) has surrendered at least five runs in three straight starts.

Syndergaard has been trying to return to the player he was before Tommy John surgery sidelined him for the better part of the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

Roberts said Syndergaard will need at least “a few weeks” to both heal and get away from baseball and “reset.”

“I think searching and not being comfortable with where he was at in the moment is certainly evident in performance,” Roberts said. “So hopefully this time away will provide more clarity on who he is right now as a pitcher.

“Trying to perform when you’re searching at this level is extremely difficult. I applaud him from not running from it, but it’s still very difficult. Hopefully it can be a tale of two stories, two halves when he does come back.”