San Francisco Giants Center Field Trade Options: Billy Hamilton

The San Francisco Giants need to improve their on-field product, and have indicated that center field is a priority. Billy Hamilton can help there.

Changes have already started for the San Francisco Giants, with the coaching staff getting a big facelift late in October. They still need to work on fixing the roster, but can’t do much until the World Series ends and the offseason officially starts. Center field has been pinpointed as a major area of concern, specifically on the defensive side, and the Giants have options on the trade market to help.

One of the more popular names on the trade front already is Cincinnati Reds’ center fielder Billy Hamilton. The Giants have already been named as a good potential landing spot for Hamilton, and if the rebuilding Reds do see it fit to trade Hamilton, it probably wouldn’t take a huge package deal to pull him away from the team.

There are some ways that Hamilton fits in with the Giants perfectly. They need a better defender in center field, and they need some speed on the basepaths. Hamilton fits both those bills.

Defensively, there aren’t many guys who can cover more ground than Hamilton. He uses his blazing speed to eat up large chunks of ground, and saved nine defensive runs in 2017. Since entering the league, he’s been worth 47 defensive runs saved. Statistically, his 10 UZR/150 mark in 2017 was the worst of his career, but still better than plenty of other defenders. In the three previous seasons, Hamilton averaged 19.2 UZR/150.

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He also has one of the better center field arms in the major leagues. He recorded 13 assists in 2017, the most among center fielders, and has 40 in the last four seasons. Giants’ outfielders combined for 20 assists last year. Considering that incumbent center fielder Denard Span was worth -27 DRS, -8.7 UZR/150, and threw out only one runner in 2017, Giants’ pitchers should be salivating at the thought of having a center fielder like Hamilton playing behind them.

On the basepaths, Hamilton uses that speed to steal his way into scoring position. With the second-fastest sprint speed in baseball (30.1 feet per second, second only to Byron Buxton), Hamilton has averaged 58 stolen bases per season over the last four years, finishing second in the National League each year. His 230 steals since 2014 started are 18 more than second place in baseball (Dee Gordon) and 74 more than third (Jose Altuve).

But of course, Hamilton’s deficiencies have always come at the plate. He embodies the old baseball adage “you can’t steal first base”. In his career, he owns a .248/.298/.334 slash-line and a 71 wRC+ over four-plus seasons. His best season came in 2016 when he hit .260/.321/.343 with a 7.8 percent walk rate, but his 79 wRC+ was still 21 percent worse than an average hitter.

Hamilton came up with this problem, and it has followed him the entire way. The Giants also need to improve their offense, but Hamilton won’t offer much to help that cause. It’s not inconceivable to think he would benefit from playing in a larger park where he can take advantage of the bigger gaps and use his wheels (he has hit .313/.353/.396 in 12 games at AT&T Park, so that’s something). But, it won’t be so much of an improvement that Hamilton is suddenly a “good hitter”. If anything, Hamilton will just be “not as terrible”.

Hamilton won’t magically make the Giants’ offense leagues better. They aren’t suddenly going to start hitting home runs at a respectable clip because Hamilton is at the top of the lineup. But he will help in two key areas that the Giants have not been good in for a long time. The Giants have finished in the top-five in the National League in stolen bases since 2012, and they haven’t had a statistically positive defensive center fielder since Andres Torres in 2011.

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He would make the team better on the basepaths, and he would make the team better defensively, therefore helping the pitching staff. For the price that he will likely garner, the Giants might not get a better player on the trade market.