OAKLAND — With the Giants now claiming the worst record in baseball, many thought that Bobby Evans and the front office would sell off some players at the trade deadline. No such moves were made outside of trading Eduardo Nuñez to the Boston Red Sox, with many potential trade chips staying in San Francisco.
Ahead of the Giants’ clash with the Bay Area rival Oakland A’s, manager Bruce Bochy said he wasn’t surprised that the team stood pat at the trade deadline.
“You know, you’ve just got to keep pushing and plugging along and not think about these things,” Bochy said. “Because you don’t know if anything’s going to happen, and now nothing’s happened. This is the team that I said I’ve got to focus on and this is the team that we’re moving forward with. So, am I surprised? No. I didn’t ever hear of something being close, and I felt all along that this would be the club. I knew there sure was a lot of rumors about Nunez, and sure enough that happened, but as far as the rest of the guys, I didn’t know of anything that was close.”
In terms of how San Francisco can improve its team for the future, Bochy said that the Giants have talked about the need of adding some more power to aid in their retooling effort.
“Power has been a big part of the game and it’s really dominating the game now especially for teams that are winning,” Bochy said. “There’s so many bullpens out there and a lot of great arms and I think that’s why teams have gone toward this power because it’s easier to score runs than getting three or four hits. Home runs do damage, doubles and triples too. I don’t think we’re up to par with what I thought we would be with that. I’m not talking about 30-home run guys but having four four or five guys with closer to 20 home runs and a lot more extra base hits. We have shown a lack of power and I think it has hurt us.”
To support Bochy’s point, three of the top five teams in home runs in the league are currently first in their respective divisions (Astros, Nationals and Yankees). On the other side of the spectrum, the Giants have hit the fewest home runs in the league with just 82, which is 20 less than the next lowest team total. Bochy acknowledged that fact and said the small-ball style of the World Series-winning teams may not work in the league as things currently stand.
“We’ve lost a lot of games because of home runs, we’ve been out-homered,” Bochy said. “That’s a fact, and we’ve given up some late home runs that have beat us and we don’t quite have those [power] threats. It’s hard to say to your players, ‘Hey, we need you to hit more home runs.’ Because it’s not that easy if they’re not that type of hitter. It’s nice to have two or three guys in there who are power threats. So that’s something we have talked about, do we need to tweak this offense a little bit?”