Imagine if the San Francisco Giants hadn’t traded for Rafael Devers.

Kyle Tucker would have been the priority of an impatient fan base this offseason, and it would have been uncomfortable for everyone involved. He’s a tremendous player, but he’s not Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani or Vladimir Guerrero Jr., a slugger who can prop up a roster on his own. The only left-handed hitters who should get a monster contract from the Giants are players with enough exit velocity to cut through a marine layer. Devers is one of those players. Tucker is not.

Without Devers, there would have been a palpable sense of superstar anxiety hovering over the club for the sixth or seventh consecutive offseason. He’s an imperfect centerpiece in the present, and he’s an increasingly risky centerpiece in future seasons, but he’s good enough to make the Giants feel like the the lineup has an anchor.

There are still plenty of needs, of course. The Giants finished with a .500 record only through the hapless grace of the Colorado Rockies. They’ll need starting pitchers, and they’ll need to rebuild an entire bullpen. They scored plenty of runs toward the end of the season, but they can’t consider their lineup finished.

Let’s rank the needs of the 2026 Giants this offseason, from smallest to biggest need.

6. Second base

There is a wide, wide range of possibilities at second base. The Giants could go with an in-house player to fill the role, with Casey Schmitt being the most obvious option. If he can control the strike zone, even a little bit, it gives him a chance to be at least average. His defense in the majors hasn’t been as stellar as we were told to expect, but it’s fair to put a little blame on the irregular playing time and a lot of the blame on him learning a new position. He played 15 games at second in the minors, and he had two seasons with 15 starts at second in the majors before 2025, when he became the de facto starter at second. With a little more experience, he should be an above-average defender at second, if not better.

This could work out, but the real issue with handing the job to Schmitt is the opportunity cost. There are only nine lineup spots, and six of them are already filled with absolute locks for next season. If the Giants are going to improve the lineup, they’ll have three spots to play with, and second base is one of them. If the Tampa Bay Rays decide they’d rather trade Brandon Lowe than pay him, if Jorge Polanco has yet another unexpected slow market, if Gleyber Torres doesn’t get the multi-year deal he’s looking for, if … you get the idea.

Not a priority. But check the classified ads every day, just in case.

5. Backup catcher

In the best case scenario, Jesús Rodríguez comes to camp and shows off his receiving skills. The 23-year-old right-handed hitter can play first, third and the outfield, but he’s caught in more than half his games since becoming a professional. The Giants were elated to get him from the New York Yankees in the Camilo Doval trade, and they added him to the taxi squad late last season, just so he could get familiar with the coaches and his future teammates. That sounds like someone who might move fast.

But can the Giants absolutely count on that scenario coming true? They cannot. They’ll need a veteran or two in camp, and those veterans should probably be good enough to make the team, but not so good that they’ll be surprised with a Triple-A Sacramento assignment. The general rule of thumb is that if you’ve heard of them, they’re probably too expensive.

4. First base / Designated hitter

In theory, Bryce Eldridge and Rafael Devers will be the two starters at those two positions, but don’t forget that Eldridge just turned 21 and isn’t a guarantee for the Opening Day roster. Even if both of them are everyday players, it would still help to have a right-handed compliment. Call it the Wilmer Flores Commemorative Experience.

Jerar Encarnación was the obvious fit for this role last year, but his season was spoiled by injuries, and he wasn’t able to establish himself. However, when he finally got healthy toward the end of the season, he played enough outfield — and looked capable enough — to start thinking of him more as a fifth outfielder. And if the actual Wilmer Flores is leaving in free agency, they’ll need someone similar.

This player will also be insurance for Eldridge needing more time in the minors, so don’t minimize the importance. We might be talking 500 at-bats if things go even a little sideways. The perfect fit would have been the version of Pete Alonso from last offseason, when he signed a contract with an opt-out after the first season, but he’s not going to have to settle for that again.

It doesn’t have to be a right-hander, you know, especially if Encarnación is already on the bench. Dominic Smith made a lot of fans last season, both in the stands and in the organization. A reunion would make sense if the Giants aren’t sure about Eldridge as an Opening Day guarantee.

3. Outfielder

Here are the outfielders currently on the 40-man roster:

• Jung Hoo Lee
• Heliot Ramos
• Luis Matos
• Jerar Encarnación
• Drew Gilbert
• Wade Meckler
• Grant McCray
• Marco Luciano

And here are the outfielders with a guaranteed spot on the Opening Day roster:

• Jung Hoo Lee
• Heliot Ramos

The outfield is where the Giants can look for more offense. It’s certainly where they can look for more defense, with someone like Harrison Bader making a lot of sense (if he’s kept in bubble wrap during the offseason), but it’s also the easiest place to find runs. Tucker isn’t the best fit for the ballpark, as noted above, but he would still make the Giants lineup much, much better. It’s a complicated free-agent case, but don’t overlook that part. It might be the only part that matters.

Trent Grisham has already hit a walkoff home run at Oracle Park, so he’s practically a Giants legend. Luis Robert Jr. will either be a free agent or playing on a relatively expensive one-year deal, but he would fit a lot of needs, especially if the Giants can decontaminate him and get rid of the Chicago White Sox spores, like the Milwaukee Brewers did with Andrew Vaughn.

And, of course, there are trades to consider. Byron Buxton’s contract is a relative steal, but Minnesota Twins ownership is radiating loser energy right now, so it’s worth a phone call. Bryan Reynolds is on a long-term deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates, but it’s at the annual salary of an average everyday player (five years, $75.3 million). It wouldn’t be the riskiest contract to take on, even if Reynolds’ defense and bat both took a step back in his age-30 season.

2. Bullpen

The Giants need a new bullpen.

It’s as simple as that. Ryan Walker is the only near-lock for next year’s bullpen, but he’ll also have options. If he’s just as erratic in the Cactus League as he was last season, he wouldn’t have to make the Opening Day roster. After him, there is a scrum to end all scrums. The Giants have 384 different internal options, but absolutely none of them are very exciting. We’ll pick on Carson Seymour as an example.

If a time traveler from 2026 were to tell you that Seymour is having a very nice season in relief, it would be only a mild surprise. He’s got stuff, and if he can fix the dinger dilemma, sure, I can see it. Pitchers like that ease into a high-leverage relief career all the time.

You can swap almost every pitcher on the Giants’ 40-man roster into that sentence. If (pitcher) were to have a breakout season in the bullpen, it wouldn’t be the biggest shock. However, that’s much different than predicting or assuming that enough of these pitchers will make that semi-miraculous conversion. Hope that they do, but assume none of them will.

At the same time, there’s no worse value in free agency than relievers. It would be silly for a team to spend their way into a new bullpen. They’ll have to be creative, which means making trades, snatching up the best minor-league free agents and looking under every possible rock for a 97-mph fastball and a slider. It’s like the Giants’ version of the Manhattan Project, except there’s a chance of much bigger explosions with this one.

1. Rotation

Logan Webb and Robbie Ray are givens. Landen Roupp seems like the likely choice for a spot, but he’s less of a shoo-in than Kyle Harrison was at this time last season. Either way, assume that the Giants will fill one spot internally, whether it’s Roupp or another pitcher on the 40-man roster.

That leaves two spots. Two incredibly important, can’t-miss spots. If the Giants are going to contend next season, they’ll have to nail their picks. They can’t be playing must-win games in September with their 14th and 15th-best options. The lineup eventually turned it around enough to contend in the second half, but the rotation didn’t give them a chance.

As usual, there will be all sorts of starting pitchers on the market this offseason. Young ones, old ones, tall ones, short ones, bearded ones, clean shaven ones, Hall of Famers, career minor leaguers, Japanese pitchers, Korean pitchers, American-born pitchers who had success in Korea, you get the idea. They can target veterans willing to sign for a single year, or they can target premium pitchers on nine-figure contracts. They can go right in the middle and get a couple of decent starters for decent-starter money. They can trade for a young pitcher and extend him, like the Red Sox did with Garrett Crochet.

The options are limitless. The only requirement is to not screw it up. I can talk myself into Tyler Mahle, and I might be here in a month trying to talk you into Tyler Mahle. Sounds good. But you’d better be pretty danged sure about this one. No hunches, no if/then explanations for why it might work. If you’re unsure, then spend a little more money to be sure.

The Giants can spend on all of these positions. As someone who is very comfortable spending other people’s money, I believe the Giants should spend on all of these positions. They should have a top-five payroll when they’re contending and a top-10 payroll when they’re rebuilding.

However, if the actual front office is dealing with finite budgets and self-imposed austerity, they might decide to attack one position.

Here. Here’s that position. Attack.

Framber Valdez is probably the best starter available, and he’s essentially a left-handed Logan Webb. Would you like the Giants to have left-handed Logan Webb? Sure you would. And the Giants could sell him on a catcher who knows what he’s doing and a defense that’s built with sinkerballers in mind.

There are other options, of course. But I’ll leave a link to Valdez’s Baseball-Reference page, just in case you’re not doing anything important.

It should be a straightforward offseason, with needs that range from luxury (second base) to necessity (pitching). At least the Giants already got the hard part out of the way already.