SAN FRANCISCO — Giants officials have a lot of issues to deal with before pitchers and catchers report, but at the very least, they’ll start their offseason with the knowledge that they no longer have to worry about a phrase that made them cringe for the past 12 months: “Competitive balance tax.”
While team president and CEO Larry Baer often said there was no mandate to dip below $197 million and reset the organization’s tax penalties, there was a strong, strong, strong preference to do so, and it colored every move the Giants made last offseason and a big one they made in July. With little breathing room, the Giants managed to sneak third baseman Evan Longoria and outfielder Andrew McCutchen onto their payroll last offseason, but they couldn’t splurge on big-name free agents like outfielder Lorenzo Cain, one of the heroes of Tuesday’s NL Central championship game. In July, a prospect was attached to outfielder Austin Jackson and reliever Cory Gearrin because the Giants were trending to be over the tax line and needed to dump two contracts.
This time around, the Giants are in the clear.
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They finished comfortably under the tax line, resetting their penalties, which may not even be an issue given where next year’s line is. The threshold moves to $206 million, and the Giants have some money coming off the books. They traded McCutchen in August but he was a free agent regardless, and outfielder Hunter Pence’s $18 million salary is gone. Jackson would have been owed $3 million next year.
It’s hard to know exactly where the team stands right now in terms of spending, because the Giants will have to make decisions on arbitration-eligible players like second baseman Joe Panik, and relievers Sam Dyson and Hunter Strickland, but at the very least, there’s some financial freedom. The Giants can go over the CBT line and pay just a 20 percent tax on every additional dollar, instead of the 50 percent tax they were looking at a year ago. If they want to take a step back and rebuild a bit, they will still have plenty of money available to add selectively to next year’s roster without again becoming a tax team. Between the Pence slot, the McCutchen slot, and the year-over-year CBT increase, the Giants have a nearly $40 million head start on where they were a year ago at this time.