Giants give definitive answer about solving biggest position holes

LAS VEGAS — A clouded haze hung over the first tentpole event of the MLB offseason, and no, it wasn’t the cigarette and cigar smoke on the casino floor of the ARIA Resort and Casino, where the league’s annual general managers meetings continued Tuesday.Nobody knows what the sport will look like come Dec.2, when the current collective bargaining agreement expires and owners are expected to lock out the players until the sides can come to an agreement on a new CBA as the league pushes for a salary cap.Including the teams’ top executives.“You can sense the uncertainty,” Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey said following his second day of meetings with players’ agents and other teams’ brass.The GM meetings rarely offer anything more than an appetizer for the rest of the winter.

But the anticipated lockout means there will be no winter meetings, the typical main course.If a new CBA hasn’t been ratified by 11:59 p.m.

ET on Dec.1, teams will be barred from making any major-league transactions or even contacting players or their representatives.In other words, the stove will hardly have time to heat up before the gas gets shut off.Posey possesses a minority ownership stake in the Giants, in addition to his title as the team’s top baseball official, but said that he would “not [be] a part of any of the bargaining.”He is more focused on turning around a team that lost 97 games last season.

In the next three weeks, he will try to add pitching, pitching and more pitching.The Giants’ 4.34 ERA as a staff ranked 23rd out of 30 teams, while their strikeout-to-walk ratio was fourth from the bottom.“Obviously the bullpen for us was a big talking point with our struggles last year,” Posey said.

“So our focus is going to be trying to improve the rotation.”With only Logan Webb, Landen Roupp and Adrian Houser in the fold, the Giants are expected to target at least one free-agent starting pitcher.And after going most of last season w...