It wouldn’t be hyperbole to say that the 2017 San Francisco Giants season has been a disaster thus far. Through 29 games, the Giants have the third worst record in Major League Baseball (11-18) and are tied with the Oakland A’s for worst run differential (-37). Perhaps most disappointing, the two areas the Giants needed to address this offseason, left field and closer, have been two of the clubs most glaring weaknesses.
After inking a $62 million contract, Mark Melancon has already blown two of his eight save opportunities. Melancon has been one of the best closers in baseball for the last half decade, however, and it seems likely that he will show more consistency as the season goes on. The same cannot be said for left field, where the Giants haven’t been able to get consistent production from anyone they’ve thrown out there.
General manager Bobby Evans joined the Murph and Mac Show on Thursday, and was refreshingly honest when discussing the club’s struggles thus far. Specifically, Evans admitted that the organization miscalculated the left field situation this offseason, something many fans projected would be an issue.
“Yeah,” Evans said when asked by Brian Murphy if there was a miscalculation. “I mean we certainly didn’t count on (Jarrett) Parker getting hurt and his rough start wasn’t good either. At the same time I don’t think that left field is probably my biggest concern. I think that overall I want to see the veterans of our lineup producing at a level that allows left field to evolve and hopefully get a Parker back eventually. But miscalculate is probably a fair assessment. I think that I was hoping our guys would do more around left field so that even if the left fielder is a player that’s going to struggle, that we would have enough offense everywhere else to cover for it.”
Evans said the team is already actively looking to make an improvement at the position by any means possible. Evans hopes that the improved health of a number of potential in house candidates will help right the ship until they can make a trade.
“Yeah. We are actively looking to upgrade and we’ve done that in some incremental ways. Part of it is adding a (Michael) Morse who can play first base and you can put (Brandon) Belt in left. Part of it is adding (Christian) Arroyo at third base so you can put (Eduardo) Nunez in left. So you’ve got an upgrade already in that respect. We’ll continue to look at options to try to solidify this roster and again hope these guys can fight their way back to .500, and get us in a position when more trades are plentiful and we can take advantage of those.”
So the Giants will be buyers at the deadline?
“Yeah I mean no question. April’s behind us, we’ve got to focus on what’s ahead. We’ve got to get ourselves in a better position. We’ve got to fight our way to .500, that’s priority number one but you take that one game at a time. When you make adjustments to the roster, when you get guys healthy, you feel like you have a chance to improve yourself. You see the struggles, we all see the struggles, but I don’t think those struggles define us. I think we’ve got experience, we’ve got guys in our rotation, in our lineup, that give us a shot to get back to .500 and fight through it and find ways to improve up the line.”
Listen to the full interview below.