If the San Francisco Giants were a ship instead of a baseball team, it would be safe to say they hit an iceberg long ago.
The days of making Titanic references are well past us, because with a record of 41-67, the Giants’ ship is already sunk.
With 54 games remaining in the regular season, the fifth-place Giants must now decide which passengers are worth saving, and how they want to allocate the scarce resource of playing time that, with the help of the calendar, is now slipping away.
As San Francisco returns to AT&T Park to begin an eight-game homestand on Wednesday, the Giants have reached a crossroads, and prepared a meeting to determine how exactly they want to cross those roads of August and September that stand between a failed team and a long offseason.
On Wednesday, the Giants will activate left fielder Jarrett Parker from the disabled list, and at some point, the team’s Opening Day left fielder will play in his first game since April 15, when Parker went crashing into the outfield wall at AT&T Park and broke his clavicle.
When Parker returns from an extended rehab stint at AAA Sacramento, it’s unclear as to whether he’ll re-assume his starting role. On Tuesday afternoon, Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy wouldn’t commit to playing Parker every day, and ultimately, Bochy wouldn’t commit to making finite statements about any of his other players, either.
Instead, Bochy told reporters to ask him about the team’s plans on Wednesday, after he, general manager Bobby Evans and other front office executives held a meeting to craft a plan for how the Giants will navigate the remainder of the regular season.
The type of season Parker has endured is all too similar to the one the Giants have struggled through. At the outset of Spring Training, both the club and the player had high hopes. The Giants wanted to make a deep postseason run, and Parker wanted to seize the starting job in left field. When Mac Williamson, Parker’s primary challenger, suffered a late spring injury, the job was essentially Parker’s to be had, even though he didn’t exactly blow Giants decision-makers away with his March performance.
By mid-April, Parker was headed to the disabled list with an unexpected injury that would derail his season. At that point, the Giants were off to a 5-8 start and veering off course. Eventually, the’ left field situation would bottom out, and so too would the entire team. It took until June, but San Francisco fell behind the Padres, and have holed out in last place ever since.
Now, as Parker is preparing to come up for air, the Giants are set to toss out flotation devices and see which players sink or swim. This much is clear: When 2018 arrives, Evans and Bochy will captain a new boat.
What their 2018 crew looks like will largely be determined by how the remaining days in 2017 unfold. And how the 2017 season unfolds will largely be determined by the meeting that San Francisco’s key decision-makers will hold Wednesday.
Talking points in that meeting shouldn’t start and end with a conversation about Parker, but rather focus on big picture decisions that help shape the direction San Francisco is headed.
But within the broad discussions the Giants will hold are dozens of tiny decisions the franchise will make. If San Francisco hopes to play competitive baseball next season, then its roster will have to undergo cosmetic surgery. The new shape the franchise takes on in the days, weeks and months leading up to the spring of 2018 will be fascinating, and in the short-term, that shape will begin to form in front of our eyes.
In the outfield, the Giants are tasked with finding a left fielder of the future, a center fielder with range, and deciphering how the franchise wants to make use of well-compensated veterans Hunter Pence and Denard Span. A pair of excellent clubhouse assets, both are consummate professionals who might be able to form an effective platoon, but aren’t ideally suited to play alongside one another. Span has become a defensive liability, while Pence hasn’t hit a home run at AT&T Park this season.
In the coming months, the outfield could and should feature the largest carousel of characters, as San Francisco will allow Pence, Span and Gorkys Hernandez to continue to play, while also giving Parker and prospects Ryder Jones and Chris Shaw opportunities. If Austin Slater is healthy enough to play again in September, the Giants are hopeful he’ll build upon a rookie season in which he hit .290 in his first 100 plate appearances.
Though Jones and Shaw are both still playing at AAA, when September arrives, it would be foolish for the Giants to pass up the chance to play the left-handed hitters against right-handed pitching.
Jones’ versatility should make the final days of the season more appealing to Giants fans, because he’s capable of starting in left field and at either corner infield position. While it’s hard to imagine Bochy sitting Brandon Belt with any sort of regularity, if top prospect Christian Arroyo returns from a hand injury to play third base, San Francisco could field a lineup with Arroyo at the hot corner, Jones in left, Shaw at first base and Slater in center.
Belt, shortstop Brandon Crawford, second baseman Joe Panik and catcher Buster Posey will all continue to play often, because the Giants aren’t going to take their four core homegrown talents off the field, even as the team stumbles in the standings. Furthermore, if San Francisco is seriously committed to shaking up its roster this winter, Belt and Panik may be involved in trade discussions this offseason, and potential trade partners need to see both players on the field on a consistent basis.
The performance of San Francisco’s lineup, and the high volume of players who will appear in it over the next two months, will help dictate how the franchise prioritizes its pending shakeup. If Shaw, Jones or Slater look like an answer in left field, perhaps the Giants focus on finding a speedy leadoff candidate to man center. If all of San Francisco’s options still look raw, the Giants may be forced to dedicate considerable funds to a right-handed power-hitter capable of playing left field.
The decisions the Giants make Wednesday will also focus heavily on the team’s rotation and bullpen, which have both faced immense struggles over the course of the year.
San Francisco remains hopeful that Madison Bumgarner and Johnny Cueto will form a potent one-two punch at the top of its rotation for years to come, but after a mild flexor strain forced Cueto to end his July 31 rehab start prematurely, it’s unclear whether he’ll be healthy enough to live up to the expectations that the remaining four years and $84 million on his contract carry. Though Cueto can still technically opt out of his contract to pursue a new deal this offseason, his latest injury and his season-long battle with blisters make opting out more unlikely from a financial standpoint.
While the Giants would love to gain clarity on Cueto’s durability moving forward, it’s unlikely they’ll know much more until next spring. As a result, the Giants may begin auditioning arms in their starting rotation in the near future, and could use Matt Cain’s upcoming starts as tryout opportunities for other pitchers. A 13-year veteran who has already been demoted to the bullpen once this season, Cain is one of the most well respected and productive pitchers in franchise history, but he’s no longer a part of San Francisco’s future.
If top pitching prospect Tyler Beede returns from a groin strain in September, he could seize a few late-season starts and gain momentum heading into 2018. Another prospect, lefty Andrew Suarez, began the season at AA Richmond, but due to a dearth of arms in the Giants’ system, may factor into the team’s plans when rosters expand from 25 to 40 players on September 1.
And while some of his starts have been difficult to stomach for the Giants, don’t expect Matt Moore to leave the rotation anytime soon. His team-friendly contract is a boon for San Francisco, and because he’s pitched better of late, the club is hopeful he can make strides and lock down the fourth or fifth spot in the rotation next season.
This brings us, of course, to a Giants bullpen that’s carried the predictability of the San Andreas Fault of late.
Multiple DL stints for Mark Melancon have hurt the team’s vision of a quiet ninth inning, and though Sam Dyson has converted six of seven saves in Melancon’s place, the Giants know they need a healthy closer to compete in the National League West. Still, Dyson’s addition could help San Francisco solve the problem of the eighth inning in 2018, which is when left-hander Will Smith should return from Tommy John surgery.
In the meantime, there’s no excuse for San Francisco to keep rookie Kyle Crick out of high-leverage situations, as he should be gaining valuable experience for 2018.
Many of the team’s other relievers — Josh Osich, George Kontos, Hunter Strickland and Cory Gearrin — have flashed inconsistencies recently, and allowed far too many inherited runners to score. Major League bullpens are hard to construct, but moving forward, the Giants know they need a seventh-inning arm, another lefty capable of pitching in the eighth or ninth inning when called upon, and a durable long man. Maybe Gearrin or Albert Suarez can be that long man, but that’s a question that won’t be answered immediately.
Even though San Francisco has a roster full of adequate pieces, the Giants are stuck at the bottom of a division they expect to contend in annually. It’s a season in which the whole is worse than, not greater than, the sum of its parts, and it’s a season that has opened eyes about how rapidly a team can decline.
On Wednesday, the Giants return home for eight games, but more importantly, to hold a meeting that will shape the franchise’s immediate future, and ultimately dictate many long-term plans. Though the ship sank long ago, the Giants need the lifeboat they’re preparing to inflate to get them back to shore, where they figure better days must await.