Roster gets better with age, team leaders say
Bochy and Sabean are excited about the older players added to lineup
When the Giants reversed their fortunes in 1986 behind a group of vibrant youngsters such as Will Clark and Robby Thompson, the team launched a clever marketing slogan: “You Gotta Like These Kids!”
Now, as the Giants put the final touches on their don’t-trust-anyoneunder-30 lineup, there’s an easy update for 2018: “You Gotta Like These Coots!” Having already landed Andrew McCutchen, 31, and Evan Longoria, 32, the Giants signed backup outfielder Austin Jackson to a two-year, $6 million contract. Jackson doesn’t turn 31 until Feb. 1, so he can provide some youthful energy off the bench.
The Giants pledged to get younger and more athletic this season. Instead, they look older and more arthritic.
Oh, and they’re also infinitely better.
“I talked to Buster Posey today. He’s pumped,” manager Bruce Bochy said on a conference call with reporters Tuesday. “He’s excited, as he should be. Sure, it’s a club that needed some help — and we certainly got it.
“If you’d have told me after the season that we would have gotten this much done and added these types of players, I couldn’t have been happier. I really like where we’re at.”
The Giants remain in pursuit of an everyday center fielder, almost certainly a low-cost option who can play reliable defense. As executive vice president Brian Sabean explained on the call, Jackson fits in more as a super backup who can fill in at
all three outfield spots.
Asked about the starting center field outlook, Sabean said: “We don’t know what’s going to transpire between now and spring training, or how (Steven) Duggar may or may not rear his head.
“(Jackson) is certainly a viable option. Did we get him to be our everyday center fielder? Probably not. I don’t know in his recent history if he’s been able to go out there in that fashion.”
Duggar, 24, a hardcharging prospect and blossoming defensive player, has an increased chance to make the team out of spring training. Or the Giants can get creative by finding someone with the sliver of space they have remaining under the $197 million competitive balance tax threshold.
But as the roster comes together, it’s clear that neither Sabean nor general manager Bobby Evans are sweating the fine print on birth certificates.
“I don’t know that the industry or us as an organization has a handle on how you define age, individually or collectively,’’ Sabean said. “I don’t know if age is relative to a number as far as how someone is able to perform.”
Or, as C. Montgomery Burns once put it: “It’s not important how old you are on parchment, it’s how old you feel in the humours.”
As it stands, the Giants’ only regular position player under 30 will
be second baseman Joe Panik, at 27. (That is, after Brandon Belt’s milestone birthday on April 20.) Their team photo could be labeled “Fifty Shades of Gray.”
But Sabean noted that 30 doesn’t mean what it used to. Modern players enjoy the benefits of more scheduled days off and more luxurious travel. Moreover, breakthroughs in sports science have allowed players to be smarter about diet, sleep, training and recovery.
“You have so many factors to help a player through his career,” Sabean said. “I think that what we’ve been able to do is add experience within the facelift.”
Jackson’s role remains to be determined because his defensive metrics suggest that having him patrol AT&T Park on an everyday basis would be unwise. Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic pointed out that Jackson ranked 60th among 72 center fielders last season in defensive runs above average (minimum 100 innings). In terms of season-adjusted ultimate zone rating, Jackson ranked 67th.
But the right-handed hitter also mashed lefthanders last year, batting .352 with a 1.013 OPS. And Jackson embraces his versatility, making 38 starts in center field last season, 29 in left and 12 in right.
Whatever his role, Jackson represents another significant upgrade for an offense that needed punch. McCutchen (.486 slugging percentage last year), Longoria (.424) and Jackson (.482, in 280 atbats) ride in as the cavalry for a team that finished last in almost every power category last season.
Evans managed to get them all by staying patiently aggressive in an otherwise slow Hot Stove League.
“I think to Bobby’s credit, what we’ve been able to accomplish is to adjust this roster and give it a facelift and still stay under the threshold to this point,” Sabean said.
Bochy took it a step further by sizing up the National League West.
“It’s a very tough division,” he said. “But with what’s happened with us, we feel like we can play with anybody.”
Old is the new black.