The San Francisco Left-Field Question, or Something
The Giants aren’t a bad team. They just made the playoffs, and they signed a closer in Mark Melancon who (hopefully) won’t make the citizens of San Francisco tear their hair out. Hunter Pence should be healthy! That makes things fun. Fun baseball is good baseball, and the Giants are locked in to a pretty fun team at this point. Every position is accounted for, for the most part. Only left field offers a little room for finding something to write about pondering, so let’s ponder, shall we?
Currently, it looks like the Giants are going to deploy a platoon of Jarrett Parker and Mac Williamson there. Surprisingly enough, no, Parker and Williamson are not tertiary characters from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but actual baseball players. They’ve both seen some playing time since 2015 in fits and starts as depth players.
The Parker/Williamson combo package could, in theory, be fine. The Giants likely aren’t expecting more than league-average production here, after all, and they don’t necessarily need more than that. Parker also has some serious pop in his bat, and frankly, there’s always room for some highlight-reel bombs.
That’ll do! That kind of power works in San Francisco, and if he can meet his ZiPS WAR projection of 1.4 as the big side of the platoon, maybe they don’t need to go get Saunders after all. Parker is also out of options, and may have a hard time making it through waivers to Triple-A.
Even if Parker and Williams aren’t particularly inspiring, the Giants are also going to be running out a lineup that includes Pence, Brandon Belt, Buster Posey, and Brandon Crawford. They’ll live. Theoretically, Bobby Evans and Brian Sabean know what they’re doing.
Theoretically, there’s also room for improvement, because we here at FanGraphs have to write something during these doldrums, right? The content machine always hungers. It’s relentless.
So who’s available?
Michael Saunders is probably the best remaining left fielder on the free-agent market. He was an All-Star for the first time in 2016, and had a gangbusters first half before falling off the table and posting a not-so-nice 69 wRC+ following the break. Saunders isn’t the top-flight offensive force he was in the first half, but given his prior lack of a full healthy season, he may have a 2.5-win season kicking around in him. ZiPS pegs him for 1.7 wins next year, while Steamer only sees 0.8 wins. It should also be noted that Saunders would be moving from tiny Rogers Centre to the billion-acre AT&T Park. So, who knows? We’re just spitballing right now.
The Giants could also, theoretically, get involved with the Mets on Jay Bruce. One would have to imagine that they’d want New York to eat up some of the $13 million that Bruce is owed, though, and it’s anyone’s guess as to how much the Mets are in the business of eating money right now (or ever). The other interesting left fielder on the market is… Brandon Moss? Colby Rasmus? Yikes.
The point of all of this is that, given the number of options available, the Giants can pick their poison here. Saunders might be able to squeeze out a two-year deal, but he’ll likely come cheap. If the Giants decide that they like him better than the Parker-Williamson duo, they should have the financial flexibility to get it done. If not, then the platoon probably won’t be the end of the world.
Maybe they’ll get Bruce or Moss. Or Desmond Jennings. Or a decided on big happy reunion with Angel Pagan. Left field hasn’t been overwhelmingly exciting for the Giants since the Melky Cabrera incident, so why change now? It’s tradition at this point.
The Giants don’t need to go nuts at this position. Saunders would be, at best, one of those incremental upgrades that we all know and love. It’s hard to see him being more than a one- or two-win bump at best, barring a total cratering from both Parker and Williamson. This would be more about solidification and gaining just that much more of an edge on the growing threat in Colorado.
However, it would require something to actually happen this offseason, which seems like a cruel joke at this point. Theoretically, baseball will return at some point, and we can stop bothering ourselves with what the Giants may or may not do to address a left-field problem that, really, may not be a problem at all.
This has been a dry period for hot stove fun. We’ve gone what feels like eons without anything to chew over. But the light at the end of the tunnel is starting to reveal itself. These sluggers can’t stay unsigned forever, can they? Maybe this Yovani Gallardo–Seth Smith trade that just went down will be the spark that lights whatever kindling is left here in the dead of winter. Also, of course, we’ll have more for you on that move in just a bit.
Please do more, baseball people. We’re dying out here.
Nick is a columnist at FanGraphs, and has written previously for Baseball Prospectus and Beyond the Box Score. Yes, he hates your favorite team, just like Joe Buck. You can follow him on Twitter at @StelliniTweets, and can contact him at stellinin1 at gmail.
Williamson has a big reverse split, albeit SSS, 99wRC+ vs. RHP, 79wRC+ vs. LHP. A slight one in AAA in 2016, and a big one in AAA in 2015. May not be all that meaningful, but something to consider. I think Williamson should be the everyday player since he’s also the superior defender and I like his bat too. Parker has a lot of power, but he strikes out too much, and his outfield defense is mediocre.
Looking in the minors, Giants have Austin Slater, who is coming off a great 2016 season. They might also give top prospect Arroyo a look at 3B and move Nunez to LF. And there is also Steven Duggar, who profiles better as a CF.
Lots of options and none of the FA or trade candidates enthuse me all that much, so stick to in-house for now.
–@giantsprospects
I agree with your take on Williamson/Parker, but as I’m sure you know, nothing about AAA play in the Giants system predicts what happens when a guy moves up to MLB. That seems overly true with the Giants. A while ago, Giants hitters moving from AAA had an almost 60 point discount in their hitting on the ML club. I’ve never seen a club where the minor league play in AAA seemed so completely dissociated from ML performance after promotion.
“It should also be noted that Saunders would be moving from tiny Rogers Centre to the billion-acre AT&T Park.”
It also should be noted you would be putting a below average(-11 DRS) defensive outfielder next to another below average defender in Center Field with Denard Span. Bad idea.
I’d like to see them forego external options, and go with the straight platoon to start the season. Parker’s numbers vs. righties are excellent thus far in 150 big league PAs. He hasn’t hit lefties at all though. (160 wRC+ vs righties, 80 vs lefties). If Williamson can hit lefties decently with good defense, it could end up being a solid platoon.
We just need a larger sample size of data to truly know if the platoon will work out or not. We aren’t going to get that if they make an incremental trade.
The problem is that Williamson has a career average of .198 against lefties.
McCutchen?
They are supposedly at $200M (https://twitter.com/AlexPavlovic/status/806203211409395712) so they aren’t gonna go much higher.
“Please do more, baseball people. We’re dying out here”
lol no shit, this article reminded me of writing essays during tests in high school when I didn’t even crack the book. How vague can I be, while still getting a bunch of words on this paper with nothing to say, so I can actually get some kind of grade or paycheck this week?
I’d much rather see Williamson/Parker get a legitimate shot. Giants are typically bad at giving new players a punishment-free shot unless they hit right away, which just leads to those players pressing and desperate to hit right away, which leads to bad plate approach. It’s a bad cycle. But I think either Parker or Williamson could easily put up 1.5-2.5 WAR value if either were just handed the job instead of being jettisoned to the bench the first time the put up 3 Ks in a game. I think Williamson is the more balanced hitter, and before he kind of awkwardly rolled over his wrist making a diving play I thought he looked really good in RF. Move Pence to left and slot Mac in RF, give Span weekly rest in favor of Gorkys, and I’m happy.
I would not agree with that statement about the Giants and new players. The Giants gave plenty of chances to Niekro, Schierholtz, Ishikawa, and others. And people forget, they let Duffy start even though he wasn’t hitting for much early on. And traded Molina to start Posey even though Posey wasn’t hitting that well when the trade was made.
Look especially at Schierholtz usage. They would put him in there, even after one of his many DL’s, start him, and they would only give up and bench him after a month of freezing cold.
And Freddie Lewis was allowed to continue to start and play for two months after his hot start, before the Giants let him go.
And if you look over the recent history, the Giants would keep one starting position relatively open for a young prospect to win the spot, bringing in only a grizzled cheap vet to provide some base value that the prospect needed to beat. They have done that with one position each season, in order to give young prospects a chance to win the spot.
At some point, the hitter has to hit and earn his starting spot. But as any fan saw, especially with Belt, strikeout was not what benched him, it was because he wasn’t following the instruction that the Giants had been giving him on how to improve as a hitter. They had been getting on him to try a new thing with his wrist, but he wouldn’t try it out until the batting coach talked an opposing player to show Belt how it worked and how he was able to hit for more power (it was Domonic Brown of the Phillies) by changing.
I enjoyed the article, but there was one major hole in the discussion: the Giants are already over the penalty threshold and adding any player will incur a 50% tax on his salary. So adding “only” $6.67M to the team would effectively raise the cost for the player to $10.0M. And the Giants historically do not go over the tax threshold that much, so, at best, the Giants will be signing a cheap sign in Jan/Feb, for $3M, like they did with Huff in 2010.
In addition, I hate the focus on essentially the last starting position on the team because I see Giants fans do this all the time, complaining bitterly when the team don’t do anything about the position. What they forget is that the Giants lineup is basically set, and that the LF would be the #7 hitter on the team. So I see talks of breaking the bank (and/or the farm system) to get players like McCutchen, when a platoon of Williamson/Parker should be good enough to be average (and maybe better) for #7 hitters in the NL.
End of baseball season for…
2010: Cody Ross
2012: Gregor Blanco
2014: Juan Perez
Not exactly murderer’s row. But things got done.
Not even a mention of Ryan Braun?