Are the Giants Worth Improving?

[rog]

There is a significant difference of opinion as to whether the Giants are good enough to be worth improving.  If they're not going to make the playoffs anyway, it doesn't really matter if they miss them by two games or by 20.

The problem the Giants face is that they need close to a 25-game improvement over last season.  That's about a 40% improvement, and that's tough to pull off.  If the Giants retool rather than rebuild, they run the risk of crippling themselves salary-wise in later years.

And if they rebuild, not only will the stands be far less full, the rebuilding might not be complete before the present core gets too old to contribute nearly as much as it had prior to last season.

Complicate that with the lack of prospects to trade and the lack of money to sign free agents that we have been discussing for a couple of months now, and the problem remains a very large one.  I do credit the Giants for creativity in their two moves thus far.  I credit them for going all out to acquire Giancarlo Stanton, although sadly the effort failed, as too often been the case in recent years.

But the most important question is, can we trust them to correctly answer the question as to whether to retool or rebuild?  We know they've chosen the retooling route, but that strategy brings with it three critical questions:

.  Can they improve enough now to make an important difference, or will they remain caught in the middle between the good teams that make the playoffs and the lousy ones who get high draft choices with which to rebuild?

.  Will they cripple their ability to improve enough in the intermediate terms (2-3 years)?

.  Will the window still be open when guys such as their top two draft choices in 2017 and however many good draft choices they can make in the 2018 draft are polished enough to trigger a big boost in the team's performance level?  Or will the core have gotten too old?


Then of course there is the question of whether they can afford to extend Madison Bumgarner's contact.  One thing we can be pretty sure of is that unless they trade him, they can't afford not to.

Crossroads meet the Giants.  Direction?

[klaiggeb]

Again, Roger, you're not looking past the obvious numbers

You see the 25 games, I SEE the down years and the injuries which made things look worse than they should have been; a TON of down performances that NO ONE could have predicted.

Consider:

OFFENSE

1-Crawford's in law died.

Terrible blow to Brandon! One from which you do NOT recover quickly, and I don't think he did.


2-Pence was hurt, and I don't think ever fully recovered from the injury in the previous season.

He was awful! So NOT like Hunter


3-Panik missed some 31 games. Started slowly and took a long, long time to recover, IMHO, from being plunked in the head the year before.


4-Belt missed 58 games due to concussions. And no he wasn't his normal, OBP self, he was whacking the ball out at a rate higher than he had before.


5-Parker-Out for forever it seemed. Who knows how well he would have done, because when he finally got back, he was hitting well. And then of course, got hurt again.


6-Austin Slater-The kid arrived with an impact... and of course, got hurt. Who knows how that could have ended up.


7-Mac-Got hurt. And he was supposed to have platooned in LF with Parker. Again, who knows what could have happened.


8-Span, like him or not, got hurt early at a time when so many players were down.


PITCHING

1-Bumgarner- Hurt and then I don't care what anyone says, he was NOT right when he came back.


2-Cueto-Wasted year due to blisters.

*****Any team losing their top two starters, and two starters THIS GOOD, and your season is over.********


3-Moore-Who in the heck saw THAT coming?
I figured he'd be a tough, above average # 3


4-Melancon-He was NEVER right. When you get a guy with his ability to close, and then basically not have him, or only half of him, for the year, and you're screwed.

5-Derek Law. NO one saw this coming. This guy was primed to be the set up guy.

6-Kontos-Very down year. All of a sudden, was barely adequate. A down year.

That's a LOT to have happen, Roger.

So you can see those 25 games, I say it would NOT have been 25 games if every had had a normal-like year, and the team had only had normal-like injuries.

[rog]

I know you were referring only to my thread in this post, Boly, but you may have forgotten that I estimated something like 75 or 78 wins for the Giants simply by having guys return to their norm. If I get a chance, I'll get into some of the details, but if we assume the Giants should have been able to win 75 to 78 games games (an 11-14 game improvement) without changing their roster, adding that 11 to 14 or so games is still a big challenge.

I've read an article that broke down the improvement by player, and I may have provided a link to it earlier. I think it may have come from the McCovey Chronicles, and I think it added up to an 18-game improvement. Might have been from Fan Graphs.

But I guess we can jump into a few players right now off the top of my head.

Brandon Belt can likely pick up a win or two by being healthy all season long. One thing we must remember though is that based on his injury history there is a good chance he plays less than a full season.

Let's guess Joe Panik will provide an extra win. Maybe two if he can get his fielding back up to what it was, which I suspect he'll do.

Brandon Crawford should be worth an extra win.

I'm including Evan Longoria here, and he should be work three or four more wins than the hole that existed at the hot corner last season.

Left field should be worth say an extra win without change. Austin Slater is iffy, but I give Jarrett Parker something of a pass for last season. His broken collarbone was serious, and I'm not sure he was fully recovered. That said, he his about as I expected over the season, and he wasn't all that hot when he was injured the second time. He was just 15 for 70 at the time. But let's go for an extra win.

The Giants should add on in center even with no change. Let's suppose with some combination of Gorkys and Steven Duggar they pick up a win or two.

Hunter Pence might be able to pick up an extra win or two by himself in right.

Madison Bumgarner should pick up another two wins. Johnny Cueto another one or two. Maybe one for Jeff Samardzija. Let's say just for the heck of it that the bullpen picks up two more wins.

That's 15 to 20 wins, which would put the Giants in the vicinity of 79 to 84 wins. If it's 84 wins, they're close, and Stanton for instance would have gotten them there. If it's 79 wins, they might be a little short even with Stanton.

If they're at 84 wins, they might have enough payroll flexibility to get there. If they're at 79 wins, probably not.

Just to throw a jab out there, how could Kontos have cost them much when you already thought he was lousy? According to Baseball-Reference, he was down 0.3 WAR from 2016 and 1.0 WAR from 2015.

Maybe the Giants should have held onto him. (I probably would have, but the Giants may have hoped to stay below the Luxury Tax without him the last two months.) George picked up as much value in 15 games with the Pirates, who are delighted to have him, as he accumulated in 50 games with the Giants. Despite missing some injury time with the Pirates, George pitched 66 innings on the season. That was more than any other Giants reliever except Cory Gearrin with 68 innings.

The bottom line is likely what you and I believe: The Giants still have a little way to a fair way to go.

[sfgdood]

I may be mistaken but isn't the front office being paid specifically to improve the team?

[rog]

Today I read something I really liked. MLB Trade Rumors described Steven Duggar as defensively gifted. Now wouldn't THAT be great! That's not what I was expecting, since Steven has played only 85 games in center -- 77 of them the past two seasons. Steven was originally a right fielder, and has played 135 games there. Eighty-three came in the past two seasons, meaning Steven has played nearly an identical number of games in right and center in 2016 and 2017.

[rog]

What ideas does anyone have for right field (or left if necessary, since Hunter Pence could remain in right field if necessary).

What if the Giants could package something of value along with Hunter and trade them for a power-hitting outfielder? They could then take the money they saved to replace the traded player. The Giants are just so thin on what they can afford to trade though. Sam Dyson is another player who could go, which would save the Giants about $4.5 million.

Aside from the core (including Cueto and Samardzija), there just aren't many places from which to cut salary.

Ideas? Of any kind? It's time for brainstorming.