Now’s the time to look toward 2018

Whipping up a big-league stew:

There’s no question that Pablo Sandoval still has his off-field batting stroke from the left side. His fielding will be spotty but not disgraceful. Maybe he fades into oblivion over the next few weeks, but what if he doesn’t?

Fast-forward to spring training, with Christian Arroyo ready to prove a few points and silence the skeptics. Could that be a third-base platoon? Interesting that Bruce Bochy let Sandoval bat righthanded in the fifth inning against the Cubs on Wednesday (he popped up), because to come all the way back, he needs to be a switch-hitter again.

Jarrett Parker looked like a bust in his early-season trial, but he has returned making solid contact— even against lefty pitchers. And, post-wall collision, he still takes fearless routes on the tough plays in left field. If he hits .270-plus with power, he can hold that job.

It’s discouraging to know that Carlos Moncrief never hit .300 over a long minor-league career (dating to 2010), but he had his best year (.287) this season at Sacramento. And he showed some power a few years back. Hey, once you’ve seen that mind-blowing arm, it’s OK to dream a little.

Barry Bonds told the AP’s Janie McCauley that he wished he’d played another year with the Giants, giving him a shot at 800 career homers. “I was told I wasn’t coming back,” he recalled. That’s right. There was no chance. Bonds’ suffocating presence had become intolerable at the end, rendering everyone else meaningless and destroying any hope of the team concept that eventually turned San Francisco into a winner.

Lots of talk about the Dodgers and other historically great teams with gaudy regularseason records. I’d take the ’89 A’s to beat all of them in a seven-game series — and, for that matter, the 1973 A’s, probably the best of that Oakland dynasty with Ken Holtzman, Vida Blue and Catfish Hunter each winning at least 20 games.