Bonds quickly takes Giants’ left fielder Parker under his wing
Legendary instructor pokes into streakiness of 28-year-old Giant
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Barry Bonds did not waste any time. On the second day of his stint as a Giants spring training instructor, he walked up to Jarrett Parker in an indoor cage and gave the 28-year-old the rhetorical version of an inside fastball.
“Hey, man, I hear all this talk about you,” Bonds said to Parker. “I’m here. Let’s see what’s going on.”
When you are the starting left fielder for the San Francisco Giants, expect Barry Bonds to take an interest in you.
It’s been a decade since Bonds, the greatest offensive force of nature since Babe Ruth, inhabited left field at AT&T Park. He might not live in that corner house any longer, the one with the porch swing and the poplar tree. But you slow down a bit every time you drive past it.
It is Parker’s house now, although over the past decade, the position has seen more tenant turnover than an extended-stay motel. Parker is set to become the 10th left fielder in 10 seasons to start for the Giants on opening day since the club disentangled itself from Bonds.
The list of Parker’s predecessors is an intriguing one, filled with Plan Bs and aging mercenaries. It includes the current manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers (Dave Roberts) and a career infielder who is now an MLB Network studio commentator (Mark DeRosa). It includes a trio of 2010 World Series contributors (Pat Burrell, Aubrey Huff, Andres Torres) who hung around in the sad hope of squeezing just a little more magic. Fly balls were an adventure for Michael Morse one season and Nori Aoki the next. Last year, the Giants stuck Angel Pagan in left field while riding out the end of his contract.
Parker is only the second of those 10 left fielders to matriculate through the Giants’ minor league system. He joins Fred Lewis (Or F-dot Lew, as he preferred to be called) as the only homegrown players who will start for the club there on opening day in the post Bonds era.
But don’t try asking Bonds whether Parker might be feeling more pressure just because he’ll jog out to a legend’s former spot on opening day.
“Wait a minute. No,” Bonds said, laughing. “That’s not good. I mean, let me see … there are three outfielders who played their spots pretty good. One was Bobby Bonds in right, one was Willie Mays center and the other one was Barry. So anybody who plays any outfield spot on this team, if you think that way, then you’ve got a problem. You’ve got a huge problem.”
The Giants did not spend money over the winter to lure a free agent to play left field, instead investing $62 million on closer Mark Melancon and letting Parker compete with fellow prospect Mac Williamson for a starting job. Because Parker was out of minor league options this spring, the job was his to lose. Williamson’s quadriceps strain earlier this month more or less sealed it.
Parker is capable of blistering stretches. Nobody has forgotten his three home run game at Oakland toward the end of the 2015 season. Second baseman Joe Panik was even more amazed by a series he witnessed in 2013 at Double-A Richmond. Parker went 8 for 20 with four home runs and 12 RBIs in three games against Altoona.
“It was just like Oakland,” Panik said. “He would hit missile home runs. He can change a game like that, or a series like that. With him, it’s, ‘Relax and play and let the talent show.’ ”
Since Bonds, no Giant has hit more home runs as a left fielder than Pat Burrell’s 18 in 2010. There is little doubt Parker can soar past that number, if he gets the at-bats.
The tradeoff is that when Parker gets lost at the plate, he goes totally off the grid. After a hot start this spring that included four home runs, he went 3 for 22 with 14 strikeouts in his final eight Cactus League games.
Giants manager Bruce Bochy acknowledged that those strikeout-studded spells were part of the bargain with Parker.
“I’ll tell you now, we’ll be talking about it during the season,” Bochy said. “He’ll go through his tough periods when he’s fighting it a little bit.”
Parker has his warts against lefties, too. He hit .108/.154/.216 against them last year.
But perhaps the Giants are more open-minded to seeing what a power hitter from their system can do after watching the Reds’ Adam Duvall, a player they drafted and developed before trading in 2015 for Mike Leake, make an NL All-Star team while hitting 33 home runs and driving in 107 last season.
“Parker’s power is intriguing, just like Duvall’s power,” Bochy said. “You never know how it’s going to play. With Adam, it played pretty well. Our hope is it’ll be the same with Parker, or even with a Mac Williamson.”
Even though Parker had the left field job won shortly after arriving in camp, he still had plenty more at stake this spring. He knows he is likely to be platooned, but he wants to prove he can hit lefties. So he sought out Bonds to ask for advice.
“One thing I thought was interesting was his thought process with different arm slots,” Parker said. “When it was more of an over-thetop lefty, he would be looking more to pull, but if the arm slot was lower he tried to stay toward left center. That’s been my approach as well.”
The Giants haven’t built the statue for Bonds yet, but he continues to cast a shadow over left field. As Parker tries to hold down the position, Bonds made sure the 28-year-old understood one more thing:
“As a hitter, you’re not going to get everything right now, and some people are going to put pressure on you, and that’s just the way life goes,” Bonds said. “He sat there and said to me, ‘There’s so much pressure on you here.’ And I laughed.
“I said, ‘Think of it this way, Parker: You were a talented Little Leaguer. You were one of the best in high school. Think of your college coaches yelling at you all the time. It’s because you had that talent, and they expected to see it. So you can’t take it to heart. They want you to be good. That’s it. You have this unbelievable talent. Just play your game and each year will get better.’
“Because trust me, they don’t get rid of talent.”