San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
GIANTS’ MISSING PIECES?
A number of departed players are off to strong starts in their new uniforms
Sean Manaea was dominant in his initial two starts with the Mets. Joey Bart homered in his first at-bat with the Pirates. And Joc Pederson is crushing right-handed pitchers again in Arizona.
The former San Francisco Giants are digging their new environments while their old team has struggled out of the gate. The Giants did not start the season as anticipated and found themselves in an early hole thanks to getting swept by the Dodgers and losing two of three to the Nationals.
Too many players got off to rough starts, and thank goodness for Jordan Hicks and the fact the Giants won all three of his starts. They hope to evolve into the team they expected to be and contend for the playoffs, but the early going has not been particularly pretty.
With several 2023 Giants finding homes elsewhere, we at Small Sample Size Theatre wonder whether any of them would have made the Giants better by sticking around. Let’s go down the list.
Bart: It’s the smallest of small sample sizes, but this is the chance the second overall pick in the 2018 draft has been waiting for. No longer feeling the pressure in the organization that Buster built, Bart joined a team that got off to a hot start and began his Pirates career 3-for-8 with four RBIs in his first two games. The homer was his first since Sept. 10, 2022. Not only is he thrilled for a big-league opportunity, he has a lot of family in Western Pennsylvania to provide support. His dad, Tommy, grew up nearby and was drafted by the Pirates in 1979 but did not sign. Pederson: The Giants got a tremendous first half of the 2022 season out of Pederson, who made the All-Star team, but he never returned to that level and was shown the door to free agency after last season. He signed for $9.5 million with the reigning National League champion Diamondbacks and is wisely used only as a designated hitter predominately against right-handed pitchers
and was hitting .368 through the first two weeks with a .520 on-base percentage and zero strikeouts in 26 plate appearances. On a very athletic team, Pederson is hanging in there. Manaea: The left-hander opted out of his Giants contract, which had one year and $12.5 million remaining, and signed a two-year, $28 million deal with the Mets — of course, agent Scott Boras included another opt-out. After cutting his hair and all the flowing locks that ran well below his shoulders, looking more like he did in his early A’s days, Manaea thrived in his first two starts as a Met, yielding one run in 11 innings while striking out 14 and walking four. The lefty signed with the Giants to be a starter, but he spent more time in the bullpen (27 appearances) than rotation (10 starts including his final four appearances), so it was an easy call to bolt to a team that trusts him to start. Here’s a telling stat: Over his past six starts entering the weekend, including the four in September, he had a 1.80 ERA. Mitch Haniger: He’s more
comfortable playing for his original team, the Mariners, after a career-worst season with the Giants when he appeared in just 61 games and hit .209 with a .631 OPS and six homers. In his first 12 games in Seattle, the right fielder hit .262 with an .807 OPS and two homers. The Giants traded Haniger and pitcher Anthony DeSclafani for pitcher Robbie Ray, who continues to recover from Tommy John surgery, and also shipped $6 million to Seattle to even out the finances of the deal. How the trade fares for the Giants will be based on how well Ray pitches in the second half and whether he opts out after the season.
J.D. Davis: He’s handling his transition to Oakland the best he can after his rotten experience with the Giants, who lost to the third baseman in arbitration and then released him before the season, which deprived him of the salary that he had earned, forcing him to take a pay cut with the A’s. Through two weeks, Davis’ offensive numbers were better than successor Matt Chapman’s. It’ll be
intriguing through the summer to continue monitoring the third basemen by the bay.
Brandon Crawford: The fourtime Gold Glover and two-time World Series champion has had little playing time with the Cardinals, going 1-for-8 with four strikeouts in three games as 22-year-old shortstop Masyn Winn’s backup. Crawford will be back in the Bay Area with the Cardinals playing a threegame series at the Coliseum starting Monday night.
Alex Wood: The lefty was chosen to start the A’s opener after signing for $8.5 million to wear the green and gold, but the results weren’t good in his first three starts, as the 8.03 ERA attests.
Ross Stripling: Following Wood in the A’s rotation after the Giants dealt the right-hander to Oakland in February for minor-league outfielder Jonah Cox, Stripling has a 5.50 ERA in three starts but threw one gem, giving up one run in seven innings in a 1-0 loss to Boston. Cox opened the season at Low-A San Jose.
Jakob Junis: Junis made one start for Milwaukee, giving up one run in four innings in the Brewers’ home opener, then was placed on the injured list with a shoulder impingement. DeSclafani: We won’t see the pitcher again until 2025. Three weeks after the Giants traded DeSclafani to Seattle, he was shipped to Minnesota, but he developed more forearm soreness in spring training and underwent season-ending surgery two weeks ago.
Would any of the former Giants have made a difference if they had remained? Manaea would, for starters. The Giants’ rotation entered the weekend 20th in ERA and would have ranked 28th excluding Hicks’ mastery. But Manaea left on his own via his opt-out, wanting to go somewhere where he knew he’d remain in the rotation. On the other hand, neither Wood nor Stripling has pitched well enough to be missed.
Pederson? Entering the weekend, he certainly had out-hit Jorge Soler, who faces both lefties and righties as the Giants’ DH, but things could change in a hurry. Bart could revitalize his career in Pittsburgh, but there was no hint he would do that in San Francisco. The Giants might miss Haniger, who could put up a big year if healthy.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if Davis has a better offensive year than Chapman, but Chapman’s defense and leadership are difference-makers. Crawford wasn’t trending in the right direction as a Giant and was replaced by Nick Ahmed, who has been steady on defense and stunningly OK on offense.
The bottom-line answer is that the Giants could have used Manaea’s arm and Pederson’s bat, at least one-tenth into the long season. Check back in a month or three for updates. Meantime, could someone explain why Brandon Belt (Giants class of 2022) mysteriously remains unsigned?