If the Giants’ Wednesday morning trade for Evan Longoria says one thing about the franchise, it’s that San Francisco truly believes it can compete for a playoff spot next season.
Even after posting a 64-98 record last season and finishing a distant fifth in the National League West, general manager Bobby Evans and vice president of baseball operations Brian Sabean have not hidden their desire to address the Giants’ most pressing issues and shape the club into a contender next season.
The Giants’ primary goal this offseason is to best position the club for 2018, even though many franchises in San Francisco’s situation would have sold off their best pieces and overhauled a farm system that’s in dire need of more depth. Instead, the Giants proved they’re willing to move in the other direction, trading the team’s top prospect, Christian Arroyo, for a 32-year-old third baseman who’s owed more than $70 million over the next five years, all so the franchise has a better shot at winning now.
On Wednesday afternoon, Evans joined Tolbert & Lund on KNBR and explained why the Giants believe they have an opportunity, and an obligation, to compete for a playoff spot next season, and broke down the team’s current situation.
“If there was no wildcard, but there’s two wildcards,” Evans said. “If it required 95 wins to get a wildcard, you might have a different perspective. But sometimes 87, 88 wins can get you a wildcard. So from our standpoint, as long as we have a Crawford and a Posey and a Bumgarner and a Belt and Panik, a closer that can help us finish games and a bridge to get to him, why not give everything you’ve got to put yourselves in a position to get that wildcard or maybe win a division.”
While San Francisco might not be ready to end the Los Angeles’ Dodgers reign atop the National League West, the division did produce both Wildcard teams last season as the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies made it to the playoffs. The Rockies made the playoffs by winning just 87 games, and the Giants’ front office clearly believes San Francisco can reach, or at least push very close to that number next year.
Evans said the franchise isn’t in denial about the state of affairs after last season, but rather optimistic that several significant changes can spark a significant turnaround.
“We don’t look at it as tweaks and we don’t look at it strictly in the terminology of aberration,” Evans said. “We look at 98 losses as 98 losses. You can’t be in denial that that creates a very huge hill to climb going into next year. We do look at players who struggled, we do look at players who got hurt. We do look at how the game has changed and the home run ball has impacted not only us but the game as a whole and we really try to take all of those things into account and put ourselves in a position to compete and get ourselves back in the hunt.”
When the Giants were at their peak earlier this decade, the franchise boasted teams that featured a mix of players acquired through free agency and trades as well as several key homegrown talents, like Madison Bumgarner and Buster Posey. Last week, the Giants announced a variety of changes to their Minor League system that will impact the organization’s developmental process at different levels, and Evans said it’s a way to help the franchise continue to facilitate the progress of the prospects the team will rely on in the future.
“Whenever you’re drafting higher, your development looks a lot stronger,” Evans said. “When you’re drafting lower after winning in ’10, ’12 and ’14, you’re drafting lower so your development looks a little softer, a little weaker and when you lose a first round pick because you signed a free agent, that happens a couple of times and suddenly you don’t have that No. 1 pick which is really the game-changer in the organization right away if you’re drafting well.”
Now that the Giants have added Longoria, San Francisco is also looking to bring a defensive-minded center fielder and a power hitting corner outfielder into the mix for next season. To do so, the Giants might be forced to give up more prospects, but the changes the organization made to the Minor League system are geared to help the franchise bring the next generation of prospects along so that when the team’s current window closes, San Francisco will be prepared.
“So I think for us, with our changes in development, it’s not really about looking back on development, it’s really about trying to look ahead, look forward to what these players expect when they come into an organization now coming out of these college programs and even those coming out of high school,” Evans said.
To listen to Evans’ full interview on Tolbert & Lund, click the podcast link below. To hear Evans’ comments on why the Giants believe they can contend, skip ahead to the 18:07 mark.