On Monday, news broke about the San Francisco Giants that was both deeply disappointing and not particularly surprising. On Tuesday, news broke about the San Francisco Giants that was both extremely shocking and quite exciting.

Monday’s news was that the Giants are not willing to spend the requisite buckeroos to make a competitive offer for Tatsuya Imai, a pitcher seemingly designed in a lab to be perfect for the Giants, from the Tim Lincecum impression to the vocal desire to beat, not join, the Los Angeles Dodgers. Tuesday’s news is that the Giants are, uhh … interested in Kyle Schwarber? Am I reading that correctly?

Yes. Yes I am. And I’m as surprised as you are, unless you’re not very surprised, in which case … why are you not surprised?

Before we go further, we should contextualize the two reports. The Imai report came from The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly, the most trusted voice in Giants reporting, and it’s fairly strong. It uses language like “According to club sources, because of a number of financial considerations, the Giants do not anticipate making the nine-figure investment required to sign Imai — or any of the other top pitchers on the free-agent market.” The Schwarber report, on the other hand, came from MLB Network’s Jon Morosi, and features tepid language like “checked in” and “inquired.” And while Morosi is a very reputable reporter, national reporters seemingly earn a commission for linking the Giants to sluggers that they won’t actually sign.

When Jon Heyman tweets that “Style Schwarber” is signing with the Giants, then you’ll officially know they’re out. Until then, their odds of signing Schwarber are probably somewhere between “none chance” and “adjacent to none chance.”

But even seen through that pessimistic lens, it’s an intriguing report, because we now know that the Giants have at least a level of interest in Schwarber, perhaps the only free agent that no one had previously tried to link the team to. So while they’ll almost surely bow out and try to sell you on the idea of running back the Jerar Encarnación experiment, we can learn something from their inquiry and their interest in Schwarber who, if you’re in need of a refresher, hit 56 home runs this past season, was the MVP runner-up, and, if asked to play defense, can do so about as effectively as I can get to the heart of an article in a quick and concise manner.

Anyway.

It’s hard to know exactly what we can learn, but it’s one — or a few — of the following things.

They’re more comfortable handing out big contracts to hitters

We already know this one is true, we just don’t know to what extent. Shortly before Buster Posey took over, he powered his way past/over/through/around Farhan Zaidi to broker an extension with Matt Chapman. Shortly after Posey took over, he signed Willy Adames to the largest contract in franchise history. And just a few months into his first season, he swung a shocking trade to take on the well over $200 million owed to Rafael Devers.

On the pitching side, Posey has signed Justin Verlander to a modest deal, shown surprise that the Corbin Burnes’ of the world would get the contracts they would, and watched Greg Johnson publicly discuss why the team has no interest in spending nine figures on arms.

So this isn’t exactly new news, but we’re still trying to figure out just how much more comfortable Posey’s regime is with contracts for hitters. And if they’re actually interested in hitting the nine figures necessary to sign Schwarber to be a 33-year old DH on a team that already employs Devers and Bryce Eldridge, then we’ll get a pretty good answer to that.

They’re shifting the priority to hitting because of the farm

When Posey took the job, he repeatedly professed that the team would aim to win with pitching and defense. So far, though, their priority with personnel acquisitions has been very hitter-focused. We all have expected that to change this offseason — my prediction was that they’d sign two starting pitchers, three relief pitchers, and no position players — but any interest in Schwarber would suggest a willingness to go the other direction.

Perhaps this is due to the state of the farm. There are no sure things in the upper Minors for the Giants, and you could argue that there aren’t even many reasons for optimism. But there are more opportunities on the pitching side. Carson Whisenhunt, Hayden Birdsong, Carson Seymour, Blade Tidwell, Trevor McDonald, and Kai-Wei Teng are all on the 40-man roster with options remaining, and will be fighting to earn Major League roles when February rolls around. The position players who fit into that bucket are Eldridge, Drew Gilbert, Jesús Rodríguez, Grant McCray, and Tyler Fitzgerald. The Giants might feel a bit better about the former group than the latter group, even if Eldridge is the shining star of the lot.

I do think there’s a legitimate chance that the Giants feel they have the bulk of both their short and long-term pitching answers currently in-house. I think they’d be very silly to feel that way, but I think they just might feel that way.

They’re shifting the priority to hitting just because

It could be that the Giants are shifting their priority to hitting just because. Posey holds his cards very close to the vest, and when he shows you one of them it’s not clear if it’s an actual card, a dummy card, or just some Oz Pearlman level mentalism. He has said the Giants intend to win with pitching, not hitting, but maybe he feels a bit differently. Or maybe he just wants to even the field … even with the Devers acquisition, and even with trading away four pitchers last year, the Giants finished 17th in the Majors in runs scored, 17th in the Majors in wRC+, 10th in the Majors in ERA, and second in the Majors in FIP. Maybe we’re overcomplicating this. Maybe the Giants just want some danged hitters.

They’re doing the prep work for if they trade Bryce Eldridge

No, no, no. Don’t run away screaming. I don’t think this will happen, but we are living in a world where it certainly could happen.

It’s starting to feel increasingly likely that the Giants will patch one of the holes in their rotation with a pitcher currently employed by another organization, which means a trade is likely coming. The Giants certainly don’t need to include Eldridge to make a splash, but … well … it’s certainly one of the easiest ways to make a splash.

The Giants are high on Eldridge, but they also don’t give the impression of an organization that is staking their future to him. Posey has stopped short of calling Eldridge untouchable on multiple occasions, diplomatically stating that the team will explore any and all ways to improve their roster. He’s openly praised Brian Sabean for trading Zack Wheeler for Carlos Beltrán, and dangling Eldridge to headline a package for Tarik Skubal would be a helluva impression of that. And while the Giants have balked at offers for Eldridge in the past — most notably for Kyle Tucker this time last year — the reporting has always made it feel like the Giants have stopped because the price isn’t right, not because of Eldridge’s inclusion.

There’s no way that the Giants are entering the offseason trying and hoping to trade Eldridge. But it certainly would not surprise me if there’s a list somewhere in Posey or Zack Minasian’s office titled Players we’d be willing to give up Bryce for, and it wouldn’t surprise me if there are a decent number of names on that list that are being dangled over the coming weeks and months.

Personally, I don’t feel great about the idea of Encarnación being the full-time DH next year, so best to have a contingency plan in place for if Eldridge finds himself on a poignant plane trip sometime later this month. Might as well check in on Pete Alonso while you’re at it.

They’re ding-dongs who don’t understand the market

The delightfulness of the term “checking in” is that it doesn’t have to mean anything. It could very well be that the conversations between Posey and the fine folks at Excel Sports Management have gone something like this:

Posey: Hey, we’re interested in Schwarber.
Agent: Okay, can you beat the Dodgers offer?
Posey: The Dodgers made an offer?
Agent: Yes.
Posey: Why?
Agent: Couldn’t tell you. Can you beat it?
Posey: What’s the offer?
Agent: Four years, $140 million.
Posey: Can you do two years, $35 million?
Agent: No.
Posey: Okay. What about Josh Sborz?

I don’t actually think the Giants are ding-dongs, of course (not in this area, at least), but last winter raised a pinkish flag at the least. We’ll never know exactly what happened with Burnes, but the reporting seemed to suggest both that the Giants had great interest in him, and that the Giants had no interest when they realized that he would command the type of contract that every person on the baseball-consuming planet knew he was going to get.

That’s probably not exactly what happened there, and it’s probably not what’s happening here. But it’s a possibility. More likely than that, though…

They’re monitoring in case his price falls

As easy as it is to poke fun at the Giants for not knowing Burnes’ price, it’s equally easy to excuse them. After all, they were less than a year removed from signing Matt Chapman and Blake Snell for less combined money than either player was projected to get on his own. It seems highly unlikely that Schwarber’s market would fall out from under him when his own team, the free-spending Philadelphia Phillies, are in the mix, but we said that last year about Pete Alonso and the New York Mets. Seeking out a one or two-year deal also doesn’t quite jive with Posey’s stated philosophies, but Schwarber — especially when you account for his age — is the type of talent that you make exceptions in the philosophy for. It would be out of character for them to sign Schwarber to the type of contract he’s expected to get, but malpractice for them to ignore him if his price drops to a certain point. Maybe that’s all the inquiry was about.