The San Francisco Giants have needed a left fielder since the day Barry Bonds retired (stopped getting contracts), and after a 64-98 season, their GM is saying that there will be an emphasis on defense this winter.
In his “Inside Baseball NL Notes” piece, Jon Heyman had some brief words with San Francisco Giants GM Bobby Evans.
"“They want to re-emphasize defense after a rough year. Most of the misplays seemed to be in the outfield,” Heyman writes."
The piece goes on to say that center fielder Denard Span has volunteered to move over to left, which is most likely where we’ll see him because his trade value is so low. He’s set to make $11 million in 2018 and compiled a -1.1 bWAR in 129 games this past season.
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With Span moving to left, that could lead to more opportunities for Gorkys Hernandez, Jarrett Parker and Austin Slater as players on the 40-man roster that have experience playing center, though Parker has yet to play there in the big leagues and Slater has tallied all of 3 1/3 innings at the position in limited service time. Number seven prospect Steven Duggar could be another option to consider, but he has played all of 13 games at Triple-A, and has spent the majority of his time in the minors playing right field.
Any Giants fan can tell you that a season spent watching Hernandez in center is not a season that sounds like a winning proposition, but he is currently their best option it seems.
With that being the case, it sounds as though the trade route will be the way to go for the Giants if they hope to make an improvement great enough to put them in the hunt for October next season.
One team that could be a great match for them is the Milwaukee Brewers, who have a bounty of outfielders that could become trade targets. The Giants are also looking for someone that can provide a little more pop in their lineup.
For both of those holes, the Brewers have two options. The first is Domingo Santana, who was Milwaukee’s right fielder this past season, and the other is Keon Broxton, who spent his time in center. Both have big-league experience and either would have led San Francisco in home runs this past season.
While the Giants don’t have a ton of high-level prospects to choose from, they do likely have enough to make a deal for either of these players. They have plenty of high-velocity reliever types that should be available, and even someone like left-hander Andrew Suarez could be moved if the deal was right.
Between the two outfielders, Santana would be the more costly, being that he hit 30 homers, accumulated a 3.0 bWAR and won’t hit free agency until 2021 after just one full season in the bigs. Broxton has one more year of control, but he’s already 27 years old (two more than Santana) and isn’t the all-around hitter that Santana is.
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Of course, there will be other options for the San Francisco Giants to consider this offseason, but Giancarlo Stanton doesn’t fill the void that they have and Mike Trout isn’t going anywhere. The Giants will be looking to add someone that won’t lump on too much payroll, if any, and that won’t cost them a haul of prospects–which they already don’t really have.
Instead, they’ll be looking to a team like the Brewers, or even to the Brewers themselves, to make a deal to benefit both clubs in both the short and long term.