Trying to find their true center
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Baseball clubhouses can make for strange bedfellows. The other day, Pablo Sandoval and Austin Jackson were yukking it up before practice.
Those three home runs that the Panda hit in Game 1 of the 2012 World Series against Jackson’s Detroit Tigers, two off Justin Verlander, just might have come up.
“Oh yeah,” Jackson said. “I was telling him he took the wind right out of us, hitting those two home runs. He really sank us a little bit, and it was tough to recover from.”
The bedfellow situation in center field will be even stranger during the Cactus League, which begins Friday when the Giants host the Brewers at Scottsdale Stadium.
Everybody who mans the position — Jackson, Gregor Blanco, Gorkys Hernandez, Austin Slater and even prospect Steven Duggar — understands that he has a chance to win a spot on the 25-man roster while also knowing the front office is still searching for an everyday center fielder and leadoff hitter.
For all the talk that the Red Sox might trade Jackie Bradley Jr. following their signing of J.D. Martinez, the Rays might jettison Kevin Kiermeier as part of their fire sale, or the Reds will lower the ask on Billy Hamilton, general manager Bobby Evans said this week that he had “no momentum” toward such a deal.
Moreover, the Giants are brushing against the $197 million luxury-tax payroll threshold they hope to stay under going into the season.
But as Evans says, all it takes is the right phone call.
Any trade would have to be revenue-neutral, which is tough because the Matt Moore and Denard Span deals left the Giants few, if any, realistic options to move salary.
The Giants could move Joe Panik and his $3.45 million in a deal for a center fielder if they can identify another starting second baseman. Dealing an experienced starter seems far less likely because they would be left with just two.
For now, the center-field candidates need to trot to their positions with their eyes trained on the baseball, not the frontoffice suite above the bleachers. That will be Duggar in Friday’s opener against the Brewers.
Manager Bruce Bochy and the staff are eager to give Duggar an extended look. At 24, he is their best high-level outfield prospect. He can fly on the bases and is big-league ready in the outfield. The club is just unsure of his bat coming off an injurymarred 2017 season, which cost the lefty hitter valuable Triple-A at-bats.
The club wants to ensure Duggar is ready. The last Giants prospect with no big-league time to win a starting job out of spring training was Brandon Belt in 2011. Three weeks later, the first baseman was back in Triple-A.
Manager Bruce Bochy sat down Duggar early in camp to guide him.
“I don’t want him to put too much pressure on himself,” Bochy said. “We just want him to be who he is out there. We don’t know what’s going to happen. He did miss a lot of time last year, but no minds are made up.”
If Duggar does start in Triple-A, as the front office hopes, and the Giants cannot consummate a trade, Jackson could land in a center-field platoon with Blanco, should the latter make the team. Blanco will play some center Friday as well.
At 31, Jackson has not been an everyday player since 2015 with the Mariners and Cubs and has started only 66 games in center over the past two years. The Giants would prefer to use Jackson for depth at all three outfield positions.
If he hits like he did in 2017 with Cleveland — .318 batting average, .387 on-base percentage in 318 plate appearances — he should get plenty of starts.
“I think that’s kind of to be determined,” Jackson said. “There are a lot of things that happen throughout a season that can be changed, injuries, just a lot of things you can’t control.”
Like coming close enough to feel the gold on a championship ring without a chance to land one.
The Giants swept the 2012 Tigers in the World Series. (“They were the better team,” Jackson said). He played for the Cubs the year before they won the title and was with Cleveland last year when the Yankees KO’d his team in a Division Series.
Jackson admitted he did not have many big-league offers before the signed a two-year, $6 million deal with the Giants, but said he still was drawn to the team that clobbered his Tigers in 2012.
Jackson was the man who fielded Marco Scutaro’s 10thinning RBI single in Game 4 that clinched it. When Sergio Romo struck out the side in the bottom half, Jackson was his first victim.
“When you look around at this team and the core,” he said, “with a lot of guys I played against in the World Series, and you know the tradition and winning history of this team, ultimately, I wanted to be a part of that. “