After losing 98 games and finishing dead last in the majors in team .OPS, the San Francisco Giants can ill afford to go through another offseason where they fail to add a top tier everyday player to their lineup. General manager Bobby Evans said during the club’s end of season press conference on Tuesday that the Giants are more likely to look to make acquisitions via trade rather than through free agency, making the Miami Marlins, who are soon to go through another offseason fire sale, a potential trade partner.
The Marlins have a number of talented young outfielders, a area where the Giants are extermely weak. While Giancarlo Stanton has reportedly been on the Giants’ radar for some time, Larry Krueger believes that Marlins center fielder Christian Yelich should be the team’s number one priority this offseason.
“What is the number one offseason target? I’ll throw it out there,” Krueger said on Tuesday. “In my mind, the number one offseason target ought to be that Marlins center fielder (Christian) Yelich. They need a center fielder badly. They need more power badly, and Yelich is in his prime, and it sounds like Derek Jeter is getting ready to backup the truck and move some of these guys.”
Yelich, 25, is coming off a nice season where he hit .282/.369/.439, with 18 home runs and 81 RBIs. Yelich is a career .290 hitter in five seasons with Miami.
Krueger also touched on the situation with Jarrett Parker and Mac Williamson, who will likely have more success in another ballpark a la Adam Duvall, but may not be a great fit for the Giants long term.
“The Giants got burned by the fact that they moved (Adam) Duvall to Cincy and then watched him hit 30 bombs in that super tiny ballpark, despite the fact that he hit .230,” Krueger said. “From afar it’s like ‘aw, man. We can’t let that happen again, he hit 30 bombs. Aw man, it’d be great to see those 30 bombs at AT&T. You gotta remember if you took him out of Great American Ballpark, put him at AT&T, his .233 would’ve been .228, his 30 bombs would’ve been 20 bombs and he wouldn’t be the answer.
“So I don’t know what the answer is with (Jarrett) Parker and (Mac) Williamson, because they are powerful and if you give them 400 at-bats on a second division team, you’re going to have the same problem, they’re going to hit .230 or .220 with 30 home runs, and all of these Giants fans are going to go ‘hey, Williamson’s hitting 30, Parker is hitting 30,’ but if you keep those guys they’re low average automatic outs that are gonna hit .225, and you can’t have a .225 hitting corner outfielder. They are in a real dilemma here and I don’t think they can lean on either of those guys.”