© Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports
While the competition between teams during Spring Training might not carry a lot of weight, the competition between players for a roster spot is what gives the preseason purpose.
It’s the excitement of not only seeing their beloved stars for the first time since last September, but also finding out which players will outdo the rest and see their names on a major league roster this season that draws fans to stadiums throughout Florida and Arizona, especially Scottsdale Stadium.
For the San Francisco Giants, the leadoff spot is right up there with the back-end of the rotation, centerfield, and the bullpen as one of the most interesting positions to keep an eye on this spring.
Having a strong leadoff man set the tone for each of their regular season games will not only give the Giants more opportunities to score, which is something they desperately needed last season after finishing second to last in the major leagues with only 639 runs, but also help the team rebound from their 98-loss disaster a year ago.
Some have become fan-favorites after several years in San Francisco and others are promising new faces on the roster, but the Giants are flush with multiple options when it comes to who will leadoff for them in 2018. Here’s a look at their leading candidates.
Andrew McCutchen
When the Giants acquired Andrew McCutchen in January, there was speculation that he’d start in centerfield and would hit leadoff next season. As it turns out, the Giants will start him in right field and it’s still to be determined where he’ll bat in the lineup, although he does have a strong case to hit leadoff.
McCutchen led off 236 games during his 10 years with the Pittsburgh Pirates and hit .277 with a .357 OBP and stole 47 bases.
With numbers like those, McCutchen should be the easy answer for the Giants, but a closer look shows that he hasn’t hit leadoff since 2011, spending most of the last six years in the No. 3 spot in the lineup.
McCutchen has also slowed down since his days as the leadoff hitter for the Pirates. When he hit leadoff in 108 games in 2009, he stole 22 bases with a career-high 88 speed rating. That rating has since dropped from 86 in 2014 to 55 last year, and so has his number of stolen bases. Over the last two seasons, McCutchen has only stolen 15 bases.
Austin Jackson
Not only did the Giants land a versatile outfielder when they signed Austin Jackson this January, but they might have found their leadoff man as well.
When Jackson first reached the major leagues, he served as the leadoff man for the Detroit Tigers, averaging 137 games atop their lineup each year from 2010-13. All told, Jackson has led off 678 games in his eight-year career, batting .275 with a .335 OBP and 85 stolen bases.
Yet, similar to McCutchen, once Jackson was traded to the Seattle Mariners in 2014 his time in the leadoff spot began to decrease. Jackson’s last leadoff plate appearance came in 2016, a season where he led the batting order in only two games.
Another deterring factor is Jackson’s fill-in role with the Giants. Preferably, the Giants would have someone they could rely on as a starting leadoff man and as a platooning outfielder, that doesn’t fit with how Jackson will contribute to the team’s success next season.
Joe Panik
When you think of Joe Panik, hitting leadoff probably isn’t the first thing you think of. But after leading off 11 games last season, he presents an interesting option for the Giants.
In those 11 games, Panik hit .295 with a .354 OBP in a year where he posted a career-high .347 OBP. While his .288 batting average last year doesn’t hurt his case, Panik’s phenomenal OBP is the cornerstone of his leadoff argument.
However, it can’t be denied that Panik lacks the sample size that McCutchen and Jackson boast. Last season gave the Giants a snapshot of what Panik is capable of in the leadoff spot, but after only 11 games, he’s yet to fully prove himself in that role.
Brandon Belt
Brandon Belt has a similar case to Panik’s with his high OBP, but also lacks leadoff experience.
Since debuting in 2011, Belt put together a .358 career OBP, along with a .268 batting average. Belt’s reputation for hitting for power, as seen as he’s averaged 18 homers each year since 2015, masks the qualities that could make him a great leadoff hitter.
Although his OBP dropped from where it was in 2016 (.394), Belt’s overall performance at the plate last season took a step back as he dealt with several concussions that held him to only 104 games and cut his season short. Amidst his ailments, Belt scrapped together a .241 batting average and .355 OBP, despite dealing with vision problems towards the end of the season.
Even if his concussions don’t continue to negatively affect his game, Belt has barely led off in his career. In fact, he’s only played two games in the leadoff spot, the most recent coming in 2013, and he’s 0-1 with a walk in two plate appearances.
Nonetheless, if Belt is able to carry his high OBP into the leadoff role, that gives the heart of the order – Buster Posey and now Andrew McCutchen and Evan Longoria – more opportunities to drive in runs. Not to mention, he’s more than capable of starting a game off with a few home runs of his own.
Hunter Pence
Although his sample size might be lacking what some of the other leadoff options possess, Hunter Pence has had the most recent success leading off.
During his first year with the Giants in 2014, Pence’s numbers weren’t off-the-charts in the leadoff spot, batting .267 with a .309 OBP. However, last season Pence led off 13 games, where he boasted a .308 batting average with a .345 OBP.
To be fair, 13 games isn’t close to a proven sample size, but when you compare Pence’s numbers in the leadoff spot to his season as a whole, he might actually be better suited atop the lineup. Pence batted .260 with a career-low .315 in 2017, but when he was batting leadoff his numbers were much better.
It’s also important to note that Pence isn’t the workhorse he was from 2013-2014 when he played 162 games in back-to-back seasons. His speed rating plummeted from an average of 74 in 2014-2016 down to 50 last year.
Pence was able to play 134 games last season, but not without dealing with back and hamstring injuries that could, now that he’s 34-years-old, continue to give him problems in 2018. His ever-rising age and gradual loss of durability might make the leadoff spot too burdensome for Pence to handle for a full season, but he should at least be given a shot to lead the lineup.
Gorkys Hernandez
Before last season, Gorkys Hernandez couldn’t have been happy with his leadoff numbers. As early as 2016, Hernandez’s OBP was .125 in eight at bats in the leadoff spot in the lineup, but he flipped the script in 2017.
In 21 starts as the leadoff man, Hernandez batted an unprecedented .278 with a .350 OBP, along with a career-high 12 stolen bases and 31 walks over the course of the 128 regular season games.
However, Hernandez’s 2017 leadoff numbers were only a small piece of his already small sample size. He’s only started in the leadoff spot in 37 games in his career and when you put all his numbers together — the good and bad — Hernandez’s batting average is .230 while his OBP is only .291.
Additionally, the Giants plan on using Hernandez as a part of their platoon in centerfield, preventing him from being their everyday leadoff man.