DETROIT — Just like during their championship years, the San Francisco Giants will have a homegrown ace at the top of their rotation for years to come.
Logan Webb signed a five-year extension that will pay him $90 million and ensures his future with the Giants through 2028, the club announced Friday morning. The contract, which kicks in next year, buys out both of Webb’s two remaining arbitration years as well as his first three years of free agency, and guarantees the 26-year-old right-hander will be in a Giants uniform at least through his age-31 season.
A Northern California native who was drafted and developed by the Giants, Webb said Friday afternoon that he “couldn’t picture being anywhere else.”
“It was just important for me to be able to say I can wear a Giants uniform for a long time,” Webb said, adding that he took inspiration from other homegrown players, such as Brandon Crawford and Buster Posey, who went on spend their entire careers in San Francisco. “It’s important not just for myself but my family. … Seeing kids from my area wearing my jersey, that’s pretty awesome. It’s special to me. I was one of those kids growing up in the area. For me to be able to stay close to home and be from here and have my family at every home start, friends at every home start, rarely do people get to do that. It’s very close to my heart. I really love that i’m able to do this everyday and play close to home.”
Webb will make $8 million in 2024 and $12 million in 2025 before the contract escalates to pay him $23 million in 2026 and 2027 and $24 million in 2028. The $90 million extension is the richest contract awarded by the Giants to a homegrown player since Buster Posey ($159 million, 8 years) and Matt Cain ($127.5 million, 6 years) in 2013, and the most money guaranteed to any player since Farhan Zaidi took over as president of baseball operations in 2018.
Zaidi said that Webb was “really the embodiment of the kind of player we want to build around.”
“Considering the performance, the competitiveness, his ties to the Bay Area, how much the organization means to him as a homegrown player, it’s really the perfect fit,” Zaidi said. “We’re just delighted to be making this announcement and look forward to having Logan in a Giants uniform for a very long time.”
Selected by the Giants in the fourth round of the 2014 MLB draft out of Rocklin High, just outside Sacramento, Webb made his major league debut as a 22-year-old in 2019 but ascended to top-of-the-rotation starter during the second half of 2021, when he went 10-0 with a 2.40 ERA over his final 20 starts as the Giants won 107 games and held off the Dodgers for the National League West.
Webb was named the Giants’ opening day starter in 2022, becoming the Giants’ first homegrown product to lead their rotation since Madison Bumgarner and the youngest to do it since Tim Lincecum in 2009. He set career bests by going 15-9 with a 2.90 ERA in 32 starts, which were rewarded with the first Cy Young votes of his career.
The ultimate reward — financial security — came Friday, something that seemed long in the making. Although Webb was raised to root for the Oakland A’s, he expressed a desire on multiple occasions to remain in San Francisco long-term. Zaidi confirmed talks were under way in spring training. They weren’t able to put a bow on it before the end of camp, but two weeks into the regular season — in time for his fourth start, scheduled to come Sunday — the Giants locked up their ace for the next five years.
“It’s definitely a weight off the shoulder a little bit,” Webb said. “It was a big sigh of relief for all of us involved. I know how excited my family is, how excited my wife is. Just to be able to say we can get over that part and now really go attack what we want to do and what we want to accomplish here in San Francisco, I think it was important on all sides.”
