San Francisco Giants 2017 Player Review: Outfielders

As the disappointing 2017 season comes to a close, it’s time to review the individual seasons of the San Francisco Giants.

2017 was not pretty for the San Francisco Giants. Neither will our grades of their 2017 season be either. It’s time to go back and review the individual seasons of each group. We’ll be publishing these in as timely of a manner as possible, and preferably every single day starting with today’s

We’ll be taking a look at each player. For this position grouping they have to have played at least 50% of their innings in the outfield, as well as compiled at least 50 plate appearances.

Their grade will be based on whether or not they had a good year based on expectations individually, both at the plate and in the field. Factors such as injury or learning a new position will be taken into account as well. So without much more to say, let’s get started.

Yeah, so Orlando Calixte was not good, as was most of the outfield. But in his 55 plate appearances his slashline of .143/.185/.163/.348 was the absolute worst line of anyone who qualified to be in this review. Honestly, someone with such shockingly terrible stats is actually a surprise to me that he even had enough plate appearances to even qualify for this. Granted, his expectations weren’t really that high.

Calixte was an infielder converted to an outfielder because Bobby Evans thought he could create some sort of outfield depth by moving players out of their positions. Maybe with an athlete that has already proved themselves at the highest level in the bigs, but not Orlando Calixte. You likely aren’t going to create an outfield stud out of a minor league free agent infielder, but for some reason they tried. It didn’t work, obviously.

The Giants likely had no intention of Ruggiano seeing this much time, and it became clear after a while that he wasn’t the long term solution. While they ditched him for the likes of Austin Slater, he wasn’t Calixte level awful when he was here. Ruggiano was always a homer or bust guy, and later in his career he’s been more on the “bust” end. He had 17k’s in 63 Plate appearances, which seems par for the course with him. Two homers for Ruggiano and too many “busts” were just the end of the line. He ended up with no errors in right field, and was able to get one assist. The fact he didn’t exactly screw it up in right, probably helps him earn that C- grade, in what really could’ve been closer to a D. Ruggiano wasn’t great, but nobody expected him to be either.

Mac Williamson was thrown into a pretty unfair situation this year. When it looked like he would actually run into the left field spot in spring training, he got hurt. Then when he was doing well in the minors he got called up, only to be given intermittent at bats and a bunch of pinch hit appearances. It was clear last year that he needed consistent time to perform, and the Giants just sat on him. Eventually they sent him back down and didn’t recall him until the end of the season, where he got significant time and was good.

During his only extended run of AB’s this year, Williamson hit .306 with two homers and two doubles. That’s pretty good, and he did the exact same thing with his extended time in 2016. For some reason the Giants are going to learn that is what he needs, and when he gets it, he’ll perform. But they likely won’t, and they’ll let him go elsewhere. Then he’ll be like Adam Duvall, and then they’ll lement their mistakes, then do it all over again.

Williamson needs to get an extended look at some time in 2018, or the Giants need to trade him, because a lot of hitting talent in him is getting wasted with pinch-hits.

Gorkys Hernandez gets the second best grade of any outfielder, and for good reason. After a dismal start to the year, he boosted his average up to .252 at the end of the season. Gorkys was literally the bane of every Giants fans’ existence after the month of April. But in the second half of the season (since 7/10), Gorkys posted a .281/.343/.366/.709 slashline. Not exactly terrible. I’m assuming his real numbers are likely to be closer to that .252 average, probably around .265. Still not bad at all.

Defensively? Well, Gorkys was no Gregor Blanco, but he was relatively ok. Very low on errors, yes. But literally no assists, so his dRS doesn’t look great. Not so good arm strength, but solid defense in terms of range. He’s probably a better fit as a corner outfielder, but in a pinch he can be a serviceable outfielder.

Offensively, if you take him and compare what he did after he bottomed out, he was about at the level of Gregor Blanco. He’s going to be a serviceable fourth or fifth outfielder. That’s fine. Should he have been the guy to be taking on consistent innings in the outfield? No. But he sure as heck can be our fifth outfielder in 2017.

Denard Span wasn’t great on the field. But, he did hit double digit homers, and had an above average wRC+. Hard to be mad at his offensive contributions. He improved offensively after last season wasn’t very inspiring from him.

Span held a .272/.332/.401 average this year, and gave some good pop with 12 homers 31 doubles and five triples. Not bad for an aging leadoff hitter. It would’ve been nice to see him more active in the baserunning game, but being 12/19 on stolen base attempts doesn’t exactly scream “let him loose on the bases.”

While Span’s bat might be worth keeping around for a little longer, that outfield defense definitely isn’t. Span played mainly center-field for most of the year, and wasn’t exactly great. Actually he was awful. His arm is no better than a wet spaghetti noodle, and on top of that, his speed has declined significantly, making him the complete opposite of what they need in center field. He was worth -72 DRS (defensive runs saved) according to fangraphs. That’s horrid.

Span was one of the better guys at the plate this season, which could’ve earned him a much higher grade if he wasn’t one of the worst center fielders in baseball.

Hunter Pence has declined, significantly, and it’s time to accept that. Pence had never had a wRC+ under 100 over his entire career, and in 2017 he landed with a miserable 87. For those who don’t understand how to measure the stat, it means he performed 13% under league average in terms of offense. That’s awful.

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What probably hurt the Giants the most was his significant drop off in power. Pence had less than a .400 slugging percentage for the first time in his career. He had 13 homers, 13 doubles, and five triples. Miserable. With Pence being a guy the Giants were relying on to get the “big hits,” it was clear in June they just weren’t going to come from him. He got things on track at the end of the year. But that still can’t undo the months of putrid plate appearances.

The thing with him defensively, is his decline already happened, people just didn’t really notice it. He actually had the same DRS and UZR numbers when it came to advanced stats, as he did in 2017! Where we lost him though was in the fielding chances considered “even” (40-60% chance to catch) by inside edge. Pence over his career has hit anywhere between 40-60% on those. But in 2017, he only caught 20% of those chances while having the most of those chances since his rookie year.

Five assists and one error doesn’t scream “Awful” in outfield defense, but some of the balls he used to catch, aren’t getting caught anymore, which does hurt the defense quite a bit.

Next: Giants offseason preview: Otani

That will do it for the outfielder’s grades portion of our series. Here is the publish dates of the rest of these player grades. While this one was a little late going out, the rest will be on schedule.

• Outfielders: Oct. 7th
• Infielders: Oct. 7th
• Starters: Oct. 8th
• Bullpen: Oct. 9th
• Catchers: Oct. 10th
• Management: Oct. 11th