SAN FRANCISCO — If you were asked to give a positive sales pitch to an incoming general manager, how would you describe the 2018 Giants?
They certainly are not a team that hits for power, but they also are not a team that keeps the line moving, or makes productive outs, or even gets a bunt down at an above-average clip. Maybe you would point to the rotation, and it is a promising group, but is it one you would bet the house on in a postseason series? Not after the way the Giants pitched in the three Dodgers games they hyped up. The bullpen was improved this season, but it is still not the lockdown group you will see from contenders. The defense has a few elite pieces, but generally comes in about league-average overall.
So who are these San Francisco Giants? And how do you fix them? The first step should be picking a direction, once and for all.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
The Giants may be on the verge of doing so, and the choice they make when filling the front office vacancy will tell us quite a bit about their future plans. Their past mantra has always been to rebuild while competing, but that hasn’t worked, and it led to the firing of general manager Bobby Evans, with more changes coming when a new boss is in place.
Brian Sabean remains, and on Sunday he admitted that his group did not do enough to put this team back in a place where injuries wouldn’t derail a season.
“The roster wasn’t strong enough,” Sabean said. “That lays on the baseball operation department, including myself. We didn’t have enough depth.”
They knew they wouldn’t be able to build it if they kept going the same way, too. The Giants have not been terribly burned by dealing for veterans to try to keep their run going, but they have stripped away some prospect depth and lost cost-controlled young players, most notably Matt Duffy. The resulting roster is old, one of the most expensive in the game, and still full of holes. Simply adding to this group won’t work.
San Francisco Giants
Find the latest San Francisco Giants news, highlights, analysis and more with NBC Sports Bay Area and California.
How do we know? Because the Giants added Andrew McCutchen and Evan Longoria to a 98-loss team, got rookie surprises like Dereck Rodriguez, Andrew Suarez, Reyes Moronta and Alen Hanson — and still lost 89 games. Injuries demolished them, but injuries are also a part of the game, and you need to have the 40-man depth to withstand them. Across the bridge, the A’s did. Down south, the Dodgers had more than enough.
The alternative to adding is to commit to a serious rebuild. This is where it gets tricky, and emotional. Tricky, because there aren’t that many movable pieces, and the owners, to their credit, want a quality product on the field. The split-squad lineup the Giants sent out in September resembled a rebuild lineup. It wasn’t fun to watch, it led to just five wins, and it left the park half-empty most nights.
It was a month that left the Giants knowing emotional decisions might have to be made. Madison Bumgarner is the legend around these parts, but he’s also by far the best trade chip, and the easiest way to accelerate a rebuild and bring in young players who could provide excitement even if the team loses at first. Brandon Belt might be the lineup’s best hitter when healthy, and there’s no easy way to replace his production on both sides, but the Giants will need to examine his market, too. Joe Panik is one of several familiar names up for arbitration, and he’s coming off a disappointing year and could be in limbo. As good as Rodriguez and Suarez were, one way to get an impact bat would be to trade a young arm.
These are not easy decisions, but they’re the type you must seriously address when you’re 137-187 the past two years. It’s time for a new direction, one that doesn't straddle a line. Adding veterans while trying to stay under the cap was a disaster, so if the Giants are going to continue spending in free agency, they need to go way past their comfort zone. What they probably should do is take a step back and rebuild for a year, and if that’s the decision, then no tradable player — regardless of how popular he is — should be safe.