San Francisco Giants: The Island of Misfit Players

The San Francisco Giants have made a number of seemingly odd additions to the club this offseason, but it speaks to the confidence the team has in the “Giants Way.”

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The San Francisco Giants have made several interesting signings this offseason, including the additions of Jeff Samardzija, Johnny Cueto, and most recently, Denard Span. While to many people these may seem to be head-scratching moves, they exemplify the confidence that the team has in their philosophy and their staff.

In recent seasons, the Giants have become a proving ground of sorts for players looking to restart their careers or make a new name for themselves. Looking back to the franchise’s first World Series Championship in San Francisco, the team that won that Commissioner’s Trophy was one that in the eyes of many people had no business doing so. They were a ragtag bunch of flamboyant veterans, young rookie superstars and a pitching staff that somehow managed to bail them out game after game, and that mishmash culture has stayed constant throughout their recent run of success.

The Giants have always been confident in their identity, and it is one that fits the ballpark that they call home. They are known as a team that grinds out runs and won’t hesitate to play “small ball” to win games. Between bunts, wild pitches, passed balls, singles, and the occasional home run, they will do everything in their varied arsenal to batter their opponent into the ground.

Denard Span, the Giants’ most recent addition, has proven his ability to play this style of baseball. Across his eight-year career, Span’s batting average is .287, and in 2014 with the Washington Nationals, he hit .302 with 184 hits and and an OBP of .355. He is a much more proven, consistent leadoff hitter than Angel Pagan who has only once ended a season with a batting average over .300.

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For a team that lost the consistency of Nori Aoki and doesn’t know what they’re going to get out of Joe Panik, this consistency is of the utmost importance. As long as Span can work with Dave Groeschner and the rest of the training staff and stay healthy, he should be a serious upgrade in center field, both defensively, and offensively.

As a team, the Giants have revived more careers than can possibly be counted. Dating back to 2014, no one thought that Jake Peavy and his 1-9 record and 4.72 ERA with the Red Sox would end up being one of the contributing factors to the Giants’ success down the stretch. Peavy went on to post a 6-4 record with the Giants in 2014, with an ERA of 2.17, feeding off of the energy of the San Francisco faithful and the pressure of being in a playoff race. It turned out that all he needed was to get out of the American League and return to a League and a division that he’d spent much of his career in.

Both Samardzija and Cueto struggled mightily at times throughout last season, Samardzija posting a 4.96 ERA in 32 starts with the White Sox and Cueto posting a 4.76 ERA in 13 starts when he moved to the American League to pitch for the Kansas City Royals. However, those numbers do not tell the whole story.

Between 2011 and 2014 Cueto’s ERA was under 3.00 and he finished second in the Cy Young Award voting in 2014. When examining those two sides of Cueto’s performances, it is hard to believe that they come from the same pitcher, but with his notorious “shimmy-shake” mechanics, he has never been the most easily predicted performer.

Samardzija has always been somewhat of an anomaly in baseball — a 30-year-old pitcher who has fewer miles on his arm than most other hurlers that age. Because he didn’t commit to pitching right from the get-go, instead participating in both football and baseball, he doesn’t have quite the physical stress on his throwing arm that most other pitchers do when they get into their 30’s. He has shown remarkable durability so far in his career — pitching 214 innings last year despite having his worst season by most other statistical measurements.

Next: San Francisco Giants Made the Right Move By Signing Denard Span

With Samardzija and Cueto, the Giants are taking big risks, paying a great deal of money for pitchers who still have to prove their worth. And with Span, they risk shelling out big dollars on a frequently injured player. However, Samardzija and Cueto will both have the benefit of having Dave Righetti backing them up in bullpen sessions, and having Buster Posey behind the plate. And Span will get a new start with a new training staff.

The Giants see these players as projects — players with huge potential and mechanical flaws or physical ailments that can be dealt with in order to reach that potential. If recent history is anything to go by, all three players should be able to improve immensely with coming to a staff that knows just how to work with them.

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