IN years past, at about this time, we've gathered here in this virtual space to kick off the final month of the season, assess the Giants' chances of reaching the postseason, and begin a day-by-day countdown to destiny or some such. Well, not this time.
Though the 2018 Giants have shown more than the requisite amount of heart, or pluck, or intestinal fortitude, or whatever it is that enables a team to overcome obstacles and make a pennant run, those wonderful "intangibles" aren't going to make up for the simple and unavoidable lack of capability relative to the situation. After last night's loss to Arizona, the Giants are seven games behind the division-leading Diamondbacks, six and a half games behind second-place Colorado, and six behind the LA Dodgers. It's crowded at the top, all right, but there simply isn't room for one more, not with 27 games to play. Sure, one team might collapse, but three won't. And the wild-card picture is even more bleak. The Giants are seventh, seven and a half games behind the current qualifiers. It ain't gonna happen.
This conclusion has been percolatin' around the old cranium for some time now, thanks mainly to an ongoing slew of injuries that would overwhelm a MASH unit. The latest-- rookie Steven Duggar's torn left labrum, which will sideline one of the league's brighter young players for the duration, feels like the last straw, the final nail. Duggar was coming off back-to-back star turns against those Diamondbacks, playing great center field, tearing up the basepaths, and driving in and/or scoring the winning run in each of the last two games. This, plus a streak of six straight quality starts by the Giants' rotation, allowed hope to surface as the team walked off in celebration Tuesday night. Then came the news that Duggar was out, and Dereck Rodriguez proved he was only human by allowing three runs in five innings, and the Giants' offense reverted to its all-too-frequent punchless form, and that was that. Seven back, turn off the lights, strike the tent.
Buster Posey, the heart and soul of the franchise, is finished for the year, having had hip surgery three days ago. Johnny Cueto just had Tommy John surgery and won't be seen again until 2020. Jeff Samardzija may be done, as in forever. The entire infield has been on the DL at one time or another. The Giants will be starting career backup players at catcher and in the outfield the rest of the way.
So what has this team accomplished and where does this team stand?
First, the Giants have unquestionably bounced back from last year's disaster. This team does not resemble that one. The bullpen is much stronger-- this is definitely the most noticeable upgrade. The starting pitching is younger and better and has more depth on the back end, though injuries have limited what could have been a significant step forward. The outfield is improved, especially as Duggar and Austin Slater have gotten more playing time later in the season. The infield, though, has not improved, and at catcher Posey, while still as good as any in the league, took a step down, for him, even before the surgery. Still, overall this team has shown it can, at times, play with anybody, and there hasn't once been the sense of utter futility that accompanied 2017's 98 losses.
A year ago the Giants, disastrously, stood pat with the 2016 team, adding only Mark Melancon to the mix. They assumed Angel Pagan would come around and take a pay cut to return, and did not at all prepare for the possibility he might not. They assumed Hunter Pence and Denard Span were immune to the aging process. They supplemented the lineup with a motley collection of has-beens and never-wases. And they paid dearly for that inaction.
This year, the Giants added veterans Andrew McCutchen, Evan Longoria, and Tony Watson, and promoted rookies Reyes Moronta, Andrew Suarez, Dereck Rodriguez, and Alen Hanson. How have those moves paid off?
McCutchen gave the Giants stability as a reliable starting outfielder, past his prime but still a fine ballplayer. And moving him to the leadoff spot was Bruce Bochy's best move of the year. Adding Watson, with Will Smith returning to health and form, along with the emergence of Moronta, turned the Giants' bullpen from one of the league's worst to one of the best. No one expected young Rodriguez to suddenly discover the form that has made him the best rookie starting pitcher in the league, and while Suarez has had his ups and downs, the Giants have stuck with him as befits a 25-year-old lefthander who has "the stuff." Hanson, surely the most experienced 25-year-old in the game, helped transform a pathetic bench into a solid one, and filled in capably at four positions when injuries struck. And one holdover, last year's designated whipping boy Gorkys Hernandez, gave the Giants a great three-month start to the season at two outfield positions, and at a time when no one else in the outfield was hitting.
The elephant in the room, the guy many fans on the Giants message board have taken to calling "E-5," is Longoria, who surely must be wondering what strange world he's stumbled into. A year-in, year-out solid performer in Tampa, beloved by the fans, veteran of three postseasons, "Longo" has endured a season-from-hell in San Francisco. Always a power-walks-defense guy in the basic mold of Mike Schmidt, Longoria has managed occasional power (.422) but has killed himself with 17-- yes, that's seventeen-- walks in 379 at-bats for an incredibly execrable OBP of .280. As a career .268 hitter, Longoria needs the walks to remain a credible offensive player. Through 2013, the Rays' last postseason appearance, he routinely walked about 10-12% of the time, with OBPs above .350. But his walk numbers have been in decline since 2014, and it's a pity the Giants FO didn't spot this. It's an unusual and unsettling path-- veterans usually walk more as they age-- and it's without a doubt the root of his struggles. We would not discount the possibility that his problems at the plate have affected his defense, which in no way has resembled the Gold Glove level of his past.
The good news is that this type of flaw is correctable, and so we're not ready to proclaim that Longoria, 33 in six weeks, is in irreversible decline. But we can't be sure he isn't, either, and he's being paid a whole lot of money through 2022.
These new guys were added to a "core" of successful players that have been together since at least 2014, and in most cases longer. Along with Posey, that means Brandon Belt, Joe Panik, Brandon Crawford, Madison Bumgarner, and Hunter Strickland, as well as Hunter Pence, who is in what figures to be his last year. All of these, save Pence, were expected to lead this team every day on the field, with the assistance of Cueto and Samardzija, and together with the newcomers bring the Giants back to respectability. And, though it hasn't followed that script, the Giants have regained that respectable form. They're a .500 team now, and that is unlikely to change over the final month. They won't win, but they aren't embarrassing themselves either.
It's been our contention since the year began that the Giants are looking to 2019 or, more realistically, 2020, as their last best chance to grab the brass ring one more time with this core of players. They doggedly remained under the salary cap this year, passing up the chance, perhaps, to pick up a few more wins by spending money, in order to reset to zero the luxury-tax penalty under which they've labored. Thus we expect a major move in the free-agent market this coming offseason. The farm system has been thin of late, and former Giant David Bell was just put in charge of rebuilding that minor-league program this year, so the trade route is unlikely for the Giants, at least in terms of picking up one or two "impact" players. We're talking big names here. The ultra-talented young slugger Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals has been prominently mentioned, but we expect the biggest fish to be a front-line starting pitcher-- with a power bat, as usual, a secondary concern.
In any case, this team is preparing to make a big move or a series of big moves, turn loose some serious cash, and go all in for the next two seasons. Given that, who on the current roster stays, and who goes, and who might get a chance?
The Untouchables are Buster Posey, Andrew Suarez, Dereck Rodriguez, and, probably, Madison Bumgarner. The Brandons, Belt and Crawford, are almost sure to stay, as will Johnny Cueto, though they'll have to wait a full year for him, and Longoria, and Mark Melancon. The younger players who emerged this year-- Moronta, Slater, Duggar, and Hanson-- are the type of player a veteran team needs to refresh its aging roster. Nick Hundley is going to go through some rough times over the next five weeks starting every day, but he's a fine backup catcher and, apparently, immensely popular in the clubhouse. Will Smith remains the best acquisition the Giants have made since the 2014 championship.
That's thirteen players, half a team. Posey is expected to be ready for opening day 2019, and he's signed through 2022. Longoria, as we noted earlier, is also signed through 2022. Crawford, Belt, and Cueto are signed through 2021, Melancon through 2020. These contracts will weigh heavily against any idea that involves trading any of these people this year and possibly next. And both Suarez and Rodriguez are still rookies. They aren't going anywhere. Slater, Moronta, and Duggar are also rookies, years away from free agency. It's not inconceivable one or more might be packaged in a trade, though.
Aside from Andrew McCutchen, who could be traded tonight but will likely go elsewhere as a free agent this winter, the most tradeable commodities are Joe Panik and Hunter Strickland, with Tony Watson as a dark-horse possibility. Panik remains under club control for two more years and is arbitration-eligible this offseason-- considering the disappointing season he had, we can see quite a few clubs gambling he'll benefit from a change of scene. Strickland is in the same position contract-wise as Panik. For all his tempestuous ways, he still brings it at 99, and recent history is replete with inconsistent relievers who magically "found it" for a year or three at mid-career; again, often after a new start somewhere else. Watson, 34 next May, is signed through 2020 (though our friends at baseball-reference have it as 2019; it isn't) and in our view it would be a mistake to let him go unless the return is outlandish-- an All-Star outfielder, perhaps. If such were ever available, it's likely Watson would have been traded for him a month ago. We expect he'll stay.
Will Smith is still only 29 and he'll be a free agent after this year. Signing him should be a top priority and he will command more, a lot more, than the two million five he made this year. Hundley makes the same money, is also an impending free agent, and will be 35 next week. He'll likely be a cheaper-to-keep-her decision.
That leaves Bumgarner, the big enchilada. He is in the final year of a seven-year contract he signed in 2012, at the tender age of 22, which has paid him $46 million. He's likely to command twice that amount of money for half that length of time-- with his pedigree, teams will line up to offer $100 million for four years, and some crazy fool may double both ends of that. You never know, though this past offseason saw a big slump in the free-agent market. But a good many observers believe that was simply a holding action in anticipation of the spending spree that awaits this winter. If the Giants don't lock up "Bum" before Thanksgiving, he'll be as hot a commodity as there is on the market. He just turned 29, and while he's won a total of 9 games in 33 starts over the past two years while battling freak injuries, no one in the game is fooled by those numbers.
The Giants may decide to sit down with Bumgarner and lay out their strategy for the next two years. Adding a top-level free-agent pitcher-- Patrick Corbin? Dallas Keuchel? Charlie Morton? The mind reels-- to go along with "Bum" and Suarez and D-Rod and, eventually, Cueto, would make the Giants instant contenders, even favorites. Would he go along with a short-term deal, say two years and $35 million, with the chance to bail and take a bigger payday when the rebuild inevitably begins in, say, 2021?
Among the remaining holdovers, Hunter Pence will leave the Giants after seven mostly-memorable years. Gorkys Hernandez' contract is also up and he may have value as a backup if the team gets significantly younger in the outfield, as it should, but how much value is the question. Chase d'Arnaud, 32 in January, is also arbitration-eligible. The Giants may, and ought to be, wary of going to arbitration with players over 30 coming off a good year. Pablo Sandoval, who resurrected a nearly-destroyed career admirably this year before going on the DL, is a free agent. Boston is still paying him a handsome salary so maybe he'll return on the cheap again. Among the pitchers with no contract leverage, expect Ty Blach to be back, while Chris Stratton's chances may depend on how he does the next five weeks. Derek Holland, 32, who's done everything asked of him and more, was a bargain at $1.75 million. It's likely the Giants will try to re-sign him-- if the price is right. Sam Dyson, 30, is arbitration-eligible after making $4 million this year.
Which brings us to the Albatross, Jeff Samardzija, who after a hard-working and somewhat effective 2017 seemed to lose everything-- arm, velocity, control, and confidence-- this year. The latest message from the medical team is that his troublesome elbow needs more rest, not more treatment. It's hard to know what to make of that, but it's beginning to look as though the Giants, with the emergence of Rodriguez and Suarez, and the contributions of Holland and Stratton, may have already moved on. If "Shark" were declared ready today, whom would he replace in the rotation? Now that the other monstrous contract, Melancon's, has begun to show signs of a return on investment, would the Giants consider simply releasing Samardzija and paying the forty million dollars remaining over the final two years of his contract?
Most likely Samardzija gets one more chance next spring, especially with Cueto out until 2020. Perhaps he ends up in the bullpen, an ornate doorstop. And needless to say, the Giants must learn from this experience and not give a player that kind of money based on the hope that he'll fulfill untapped potential. It's not that that potential isn't, or wasn't there; it 's more like that tap was simply never found.
That's all until October and the inevitable post-season wrapup.
