Former San Francisco Giants captain Brandon Belt does not understand why he has failed to attract any real interest in free agency.
In an appearance on “The JD Bunkis Podcast,” Belt said he was “baffled” by the lack of calls he has received. The veteran free agent said he was a backup plan for a number of teams, but those teams generally landed their preferred players instead.
“It’s kind of baffled me a little bit,” Belt said, via Sportsnet. “I honestly haven’t had hardly any calls at all that have gone past the point of teams saying, ‘Hey, we’re interested,’ that they were just checking in. We haven’t even gotten down to talking about money with anybody or anything like that. I wish I had an answer for you. I just don’t.”
Belt was a free agent last year as well, but said he had a much easier time finding a landing spot, even though he was coming off an injury at that point.
“It’s been kind of confusing because last year I was coming off a season where I was injured the entire season and it was pretty easy to sign last year,” Belt said. “I had quite a few teams calling, quite a few teams wanted me to come play for them, and this year it’s just been basically zero. I don’t know how to explain it. There just hasn’t been a team that’s wanted me. I guess that’s just part of baseball sometimes.”
Belt did not do a lot wrong last year for the Blue Jays, as he hit .254 with 19 home runs. However, there are plenty of first base/DH types out there, which likely helped to depress Belt’s market. Some players even more accomplished than Belt had to wait until spring training to find a job, after all.
