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Giants must hit, but new pitching coach Curt Young has most difficult challenge on team’s staff

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To whom much is given, much is expected, and that’s especially true in the sport of baseball.

The Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Washington Nationals all finished with at least 91 wins this season, and all three teams fired their managers. The Chicago Cubs won the World Series last year and played their way into the NLCS this season, and still, Joe Maddon’s coaching staff has already received a face lift.

All four franchises could have counted the 2017 season as a success, but in some form or another, all four elected to shake up their leadership pyramids in an effort to better position their teams moving forward. That’s why it should come as no surprise that after finishing with a 64-98 record, the San Francisco Giants decided to pursue an overhaul of their coaching staff that claimed the likes of pitching coach Dave Righetti, bullpen coach Mark Gardner and third base coach Phil Nevin and forced reassignments of bench coach Ron Wotus and hitting coach Hensley Meulens.

Entering 2017, the Giants believed their roster had enough pieces to contend in the National League West, and at the very least, compete for a playoff spot. General manager Bobby Evans committed more than $172 million to San Francisco’s Opening Day roster, and because much was given, much was expected.

Simply put, the Giants were a complete and total failure.

San Francisco’s most glaring weakness, of course, was its inability to hit. The Giants failed to hit for power and they failed to hit for average. The club couldn’t hit aces, but it couldn’t hit journeymen starters and relievers, either. The team finished with 128 home runs, by far the worst mark in the league, and scored just 639 runs, fewer than every other franchise than the San Diego Padres.

Next week, the Giants will reportedly announce that they’ve hired Houston Astros’ assistant hitting coach Alonzo Powell to replace Meulens, who has shifted from his role as hitting coach to replace Wotus as the club’s bench coach.

Powell enters an unenviable situation. It’s his first full-time job as a hitting coach, and he’s expected to resurrect a lineup that, at least on paper, doesn’t yet have the power threats to compete with 29 other teams. Powell is expected to bring an analytical approach to his job, and he’ll sit on the same staff with Meulens, a well-liked figure among the team’s veterans whose old coaching points will be challenged, and in many cases, changed altogether.

Yet still, Powell isn’t stepping into the most challenging role on the Giants’ coaching staff. That job belongs to Curt Young.

When the Giants officially announce Powell’s hiring, they’re also expected to name Young the team’s pitching coach. While Powell will move from Houston to take over for Meulens, Young likely won’t move residences, as he was fired from his post as the Oakland A’s pitching coach in June.

Why is Young’s role more difficult to succeed in than Powell’s? Young is replacing a legend, and the Giants’ pitching staff could easily begin regressing. Powell is replacing Meulens, who surely couldn’t continue in his role after the Giants’ struggles, and inherits a lineup that has nowhere to go but up.

When Spring Training begins in 2018, Dave Righetti will not be in uniform. After 18 seasons as the Giants’ pitching coach, Righetti will move upstairs to a new role as a special assistant to Evans in the team’s front office. To date, Righetti’s reassignment is the biggest bombshell of the Giants’ offseason, and may only be surpassed if San Francisco acquires Giancarlo Stanton or signs J.D. Martinez.

Righetti raised the likes of Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum and Madison Bumgarner. He oversaw one of the most successful bullpen quartets, one featuring Javier Lopez, Jeremy Affeldt, Sergio Romo and Santiago Casilla, in franchise history. He was the pitching coach when the Giants won three World Series titles, but he was also the coach who was in the dugout when San Francisco opened AT&T Park in 2000.

Meulens was the team’s hitting coach when the Giants won their three rings, but San Francisco held parades because of pitching and defense, not because of the team’s ability to light up the scoreboard.

Righetti is a franchise icon, and despite the Giants’ fifth-place finish in the National League West this season, fans harbor a sense of resentment that Righetti was not allowed to continue in his current role. In the eyes of many fans, Young must be demonstrably better than Righetti early in his tenure, and if he’s not, Righetti’s reassignment will become even more difficult to justify.

Consider this, too. Powell will coach a lineup that will almost assuredly add reinforcements this offseason, and even if it doesn’t, the Giants can’t possibly be worse at the plate next season. Young will inherit a pitching staff that returns many of the same faces, including a number of veterans who have likely already peaked.

Is Madison Bumgarner capable of performing as an ace again over the course of a full season after recovering from his first significant injury? Will blister issues continue to plague Johnny Cueto, who is on the wrong side of 30 and experienced a decline in performance before injuries claimed six weeks from his season? Is Jeff Samardzija a true No. 3 in an era when hitters are pumping balls over the fences at a record rate?

Can the Giants’ bullpen find an effective form with two key late-inning forces, Mark Melancon and Will Smith, recovering from surgery and two other set-up men, Hunter Strickland and Sam Dyson, prone to a blowup here or there?

Young has 14 seasons of Major League experience as a pitching coach, and is well-regarded in many circles for making the most of his talent in Oakland, and for incorporating an analytical approach to his philosophy. Unlike Powell, who is new to the spotlight, there’s little doubt that Young can succeed in his role with the Giants, because he’s a proven commodity in the capacity he’ll serve in.

Young and Powell aren’t the only two coaches who face uphill battles, though. Meulens will serve as a bench coach for the first time in his career, while Wotus, after 19 seasons in the dugout, will move onto the diamond and coach third base. Matt Herges, a former Giants’ reliever, will serve as a rookie bullpen coach. Yet still, unless Wotus is miserable at the art of sending runners (which is highly unlikely), Young and Powell are the coaches whose performances will be judged most critically. And because Young is taking over for one of the franchise’s most beloved figures, management and fans alike will be paying close attention to his pitchers’ every move.

After a 64-98 season, every member of the Giants’ franchise is under the microscope. By most accounts, Young has all the tools to succeed in his job, and he certainly has a stable of pitchers who have been successful in one way or another at the Major League level. But ultimately, much of that doesn’t matter. When you replace a beloved figure, meeting expectations isn’t always good enough.

We’ll soon find out how Young fares, but as the Giants overhaul their staff, no one has a more difficult challenge ahead than the team’s new pitching coach.