The San Francisco Giants Need to Join the Power Surge

The San Francisco Giants won three World Series titles with pitching, defense and timely hitting, but the times are changing in Major League Baseball.

Whether something has been done with the baseballs or not, it’s obvious there is a power surge in baseball. And the San Francisco Giants are well behind the curve.

When it comes down to it, I still think the key to winning a championship is pitching and defense. But it’s nice if you have a couple of guys in your lineup that can hit 30-plus home runs a year.

Right now the San Francisco Giants don’t have one guy in their lineup capable of doing that.

The Giants finished dead last in baseball this year with just 128 home runs. Next closest to them was the Pittsburgh Pirates with 151 — that’s flat out terrible.

In 2010 the Giants hit 162 home runs, in 2012 they finished last with just 103 home runs, and in 2014 they hit 132.

So while they’ve gotten the job done in the past without a great home run hitter, the times have changed.

Forty-one players hit 30 or more home runs this year. The Giants were one of six teams to not have a player hit 30 or more home runs this year. The only one of those teams who made the playoffs was the Boston Red Sox.

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Brandon Belt led the Giants this year with 18 home runs, so we didn’t even have a guy reach the 20 mark this year.

I’m not saying I want to see a bunch of all-or-nothing bats in the Giants lineup, but we definitely need some power added.

The front office made that pretty clear by grabbing a couple of potential power bats early in this year’s draft. However, those kids were coming out of high school and are years away from the big leagues.

If management still thinks this team can compete in 2018, then they need to find some home runs somewhere this offseason.

Next: San Francisco Giants 2017 Player Review: The Catchers

Whether you like the home run trend or not, you can either get on board or get left behind. We’ll see which direction the front office chooses to go with their acquisitions this winter.