Well folks, we finally have in the books one of the most tumultuous summers of baseball in San Francisco Giants history, and now it's time to start righting the sinking ship. Problem is, this "ship" has a laundry list of problems that may not all be remedied before the 2018 season, meaning we could be looking at another long summer on the horizon...
Plenty of teams go through terrible seasons like the Giants just endured, but what made this one extra tough to swallow was the fact that this team had playoff aspirations coming in and still had that mystique of the three championships within that clubhouse. However, that mystique and the Giants mini dynasty they had going since 2010 has come to an end with their 98-loss season. Now instead of approaching the offseason like World Series contenders like they have the last 7 winters, the Giants will be looking at the 2017/18 offseason a little differently. I mean sure, in this day in age, a team can lose 100 games and bounce back into playoff relevancy the following year, but these Giants have a long, long ways to go and I think their main focus this offseason will be figuring out who fits into their plans in 2018 and beyond rather than pursuing that one star (Giancarlo Stanton) to come in and hope that player makes everything ok. This team needs power, they need more speed and they need better outfield defense, just to name a few. Add set-up man, another left-handed relief arm and I think they need more dynamic players throughout the lineup, including their leadoff hitter and centerfielder.
Again, we'll do more dissecting of the season coming up before free agency gets going in November and who they could possibly target, who I want them to target, who they should avoid and guys on their current roster that should and shouldn't return in '18. But strap up Giants fans Cause I'm hearing that some of the mainstays over the last 7-8 years could very well have played their last game uni. Those names are Hunter Pence, Hunter Strickland, Brandon Belt (Posey is about ready to take over first base Full-time). I think they'd love to find a taker for Denard Span and Pence and Span had a nice second half and may have caught some teams attention. It also bodes well for him that he has just next year Remaining on his deal so he's not a long term commitment and not too expensive. Pence on the other hand will be 35 for the '18 season and hasn't hAd a healthy, productive year since SF's last championship season in '14.
It's too early for me to even venture a guess as to who will be back and who on the way out, plus I still wanna do. Brief season review for the squad before we start getting into the free agent and trade targets the Giants may/should be pursuing this winter.
Also wanted to give props to all the diehards that stuck it out for the journey, it was more than frustrating at times and hopefully they reward the fans with a Stanton addition and more. Whatever they decide to do though, I expect some new key faces on the team come February for spring training.
Comment in our comment section with what you want to see Bobby Evans, Brian Sabean and Co. do to fix this thing! I'll be giving mine in an upcoming post, but next post we get into the season Review from what started the collapse and why they couldn't dig themselves out of the mess. We'll also give out team MVP, LVP (biggest letdown) and some other players that stuck out for one reason or another, so stay tuned!
Plenty of teams go through terrible seasons like the Giants just endured, but what made this one extra tough to swallow was the fact that this team had playoff aspirations coming in and still had that mystique of the three championships within that clubhouse. However, that mystique and the Giants mini dynasty they had going since 2010 has come to an end with their 98-loss season. Now instead of approaching the offseason like World Series contenders like they have the last 7 winters, the Giants will be looking at the 2017/18 offseason a little differently. I mean sure, in this day in age, a team can lose 100 games and bounce back into playoff relevancy the following year, but these Giants have a long, long ways to go and I think their main focus this offseason will be figuring out who fits into their plans in 2018 and beyond rather than pursuing that one star (Giancarlo Stanton) to come in and hope that player makes everything ok. This team needs power, they need more speed and they need better outfield defense, just to name a few. Add set-up man, another left-handed relief arm and I think they need more dynamic players throughout the lineup, including their leadoff hitter and centerfielder.
Again, we'll do more dissecting of the season coming up before free agency gets going in November and who they could possibly target, who I want them to target, who they should avoid and guys on their current roster that should and shouldn't return in '18. But strap up Giants fans Cause I'm hearing that some of the mainstays over the last 7-8 years could very well have played their last game uni. Those names are Hunter Pence, Hunter Strickland, Brandon Belt (Posey is about ready to take over first base Full-time). I think they'd love to find a taker for Denard Span and Pence and Span had a nice second half and may have caught some teams attention. It also bodes well for him that he has just next year Remaining on his deal so he's not a long term commitment and not too expensive. Pence on the other hand will be 35 for the '18 season and hasn't hAd a healthy, productive year since SF's last championship season in '14.
It's too early for me to even venture a guess as to who will be back and who on the way out, plus I still wanna do. Brief season review for the squad before we start getting into the free agent and trade targets the Giants may/should be pursuing this winter.
Also wanted to give props to all the diehards that stuck it out for the journey, it was more than frustrating at times and hopefully they reward the fans with a Stanton addition and more. Whatever they decide to do though, I expect some new key faces on the team come February for spring training.
Comment in our comment section with what you want to see Bobby Evans, Brian Sabean and Co. do to fix this thing! I'll be giving mine in an upcoming post, but next post we get into the season Review from what started the collapse and why they couldn't dig themselves out of the mess. We'll also give out team MVP, LVP (biggest letdown) and some other players that stuck out for one reason or another, so stay tuned!
Comments
Just wanna see an attempt from sabean thst they're gonna be aggressive and go hard this offseason. I don't wanna wait another 5 years to get back to the playoffs waiting for them to "rebuild".
But again, then need another big bopper and another solid all-around hitter, so they need two bats. Hopefully one to slot in at third and the other into one of the outfield spots. But my guess, and I hope to heck I'm wrong is that we're probably in for a couple of down years for the Giants. Who knows what's up with Melancon? Who knows what Pence has left, if anaything? Who knows which Samardzija will show up in '18 as well as which Matty Moore will arrive in 2018 because we've seen two drastically different versions of the former Tampa Bay all-star. Both BCraw and Belt had down years and the Giants had a black hole at third most of the year. So yeah, they have their work cut out for them. Too bad this FA class isn't earth shattering and the Giants trade resources are about as scarce as any other organizations in the league.
Stay tuned though, we'll be discuessing this very topic in our next post which should be up either Friday or Saturday.