San Francisco Giants: Frazier an “Outside the Box” Option at Third Base

With the San Francisco Giants looking to improve at third base, Todd Frazier is an “outside the box” option the team could pursue.

After finishing tied for the worst record in baseball, the San Francisco Giants have a lot of work to do this offseason. On a recent conference call, executive vice president Brian Sabean outlined three positions that the team will look to upgrade this offseason: center field, third base, and the bullpen.

There has been plenty of discussion here about potential center field trade options (most recently was Kevin Kiermaier), but third base presents an entirely different problem. Internally, the options for the hot corner don’t look great.

The team picked up Pablo Sandoval’s option, worth the league minimum while the Boston Red Sox continue to pay the huge contract, but he certainly hasn’t presented a good argument to be the team’s starting third baseman again. Sandoval hit just .225/.263/.275 with a 67 wRC+ after returning to the Giants, and he looks like not much more than a bench bat (and even that is an iffy proposition).

Ryder Jones looked overmatched in his first taste of big league action last year, hitting .173/.244/.273 with a 35 wRC+ while striking out 31.7 percent of the time. He’s still just 23 years old and hit .312/.396/.574 with a 148 wRC+ in Triple-A last year, so maybe down the road he can be an option. In 2018, though, not so much.

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Christian Arroyo, one of the team’s top hitting prospect, is back on the shelf after re-injuring the hand that was broken earlier this year. His season was cut short on July 1st after a hit by pitch, and he was supposed to play winter ball to make up for lost at-bats, but had another plate inserted into his hand to end that idea. He should be ready for Spring Training, but will probably need a hefty amount of at-bats in the minor leagues next season to make up for lost time.

So that means the Giants will need to look outside of the organization for their upgrade at third base. There aren’t a ton of appealing options out there, but one of the more intriguing names on the free agent market is Todd Frazier.

Frazier doesn’t fit the mold as a typical “Giants hitter”, a hitter that has somewhat minimal power but puts the ball in play and hits for a solid average. Frazier isn’t going to win any batting titles, owning a career .245 average and posting a career-low .213 in 2017. His 21.7 percent strikeout rate (both in 2017 and his career) isn’t overly high in today’s era of baseball, but it is higher than the Giants would typically pursue.

But after watching the “Giants formula” fail time and time again in 2017, maybe getting a non-prototypical hitter for the team isn’t such a bad idea. The Giants desperately need some power, particularly from the right side of the plate, and Frazier would provide them with just that. Giants’ right-handed hitters combined for only 62 home runs in 2017, 23 fewer than any other team in baseball. Only 23 of those home runs came at AT&T Park.

Nick Hundley and Hunter Pence tied for the team lead, hitting four home runs as right-handed hitters at AT&T Park in 2017, and doing so in 140 and 233 plate appearances, respectively. San Diego Padres’ slugger Wil Myers hit six home runs at AT&T Park in 2017, and did so in just 44 plate appearances.

It’s painfully obvious that the Giants need to add some thump to the lineup, despite playing in the most pitcher friendly park in baseball. They still need to have some of those “typical Giants hitters” in the lineup, and getting a lineup full of outhouse or castle hitters probably wouldn’t work at AT&T Park. Adding one in the middle of the order could work.

As a record number of home runs were hit, the Giants lagged well behind. 117 players hit 20 or more home runs, a single-season record, and none of them played for the Giants. Instead, they were lead by a player who hit 18 home runs and missed the final two months of the season because of a concussion.

Frazier certainly fits the mold of power hitter that the Giants could certainly use. He hit 27 home runs last season, and has averaged 33 per season over the last four years. The Giants haven’t had a 20-home run hitter since 2015, and haven’t had a player cross the 30-threshold since Barry Bonds hit 45 in 2004. The Giants have proven they don’t need to lead the league in home runs to be successful, but with the game changing as rapidly as it is, they need to at least close the gap.

Frazier wouldn’t be a liability on the defensive side, either. He’s been an average to above average defensive third baseman throughout his career, and is coming off his best year with the glove so far. In 133 games and over 1,100 innings at third base, Frazier was worth 10 defensive runs saved and 9.7 UZR/150, and his 5.9 SABR defensive index was second among AL third baseman.

2017 was also Frazier’s best year in terms of patience at the plate. His 83 walks, 14.4 percent walk rate, and .344 on-base percentage all set career-highs, and he swung at only 25 percent of pitches outside the strike zone, by far the lowest mark of his career.

Also in the Giants’ favor is the fact that Frazier was traded in the middle of the season. The deal sending him from the Chicago White Sox to the New York Yankees in July meant that his new team couldn’t extend him a qualifying offer this offseason. So the team that signs him wouldn’t have to forfeit their second and fifth-round draft picks, something that will likely keep the Giants away from free agents like Lorenzo Cain and Mike Moustakas.

Earlier this offseason, Frazier was projected to get a three-year, $33 million deal by MLB Trade Rumors (and to sign with the New York Mets). If that is the case, it’s not a deal that will break the bank for the Giants, and it won’t handcuff them all that much down the road. It still doesn’t create an ideal situation in the future, but it is a better, cheaper alternative than giving a five-plus year deal to a player like Cain or J.D. Martinez.

Next: Giants Predicted to Sign 2 Top-50 FAs

Frazier doesn’t fit the Giants’ mold, but maybe that’s not a bad thing. He could make a big difference in the Giants’ lineup, and they need difference-makers heading into 2018.