San Francisco Giants 2017 Season Review: Management

There is only one reason why Bobby Evans escapes a failing grade here, and that’s because the trade for Sam Dyson took incredible MOCSE to make. Considering the context of the Giants place in the standings, and how awful Sam Dyson had been in a Rangers uniform to that point, what the Giants ended up getting from Dyson pretty much saves Evans from an F.

You know what? Throw in Nick Hundley. That’s the best thing he was able to do for 2017. When you put it all into perspective of the team goals, expecations, the results, and how two role players were the best thing he did in all of 2017, that D- is exactly right. But what else was so bad?

The Bobby Evans’ apologists would scream at you that nobody could see this coming, and that he didn’t play a role in what took place on the field. That’s semi-valid. Truly nobody saw this coming form the Giants. Winning records from 2014-2016, with a world series trophy and a hard fought playoff series against the eventual champs had everybody blinded to the fact that this was one of the oldest rosters and was significantly on the decline.

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But the big issue there is that Bobby Evans didn’t see it coming. It’s his job to see that decline coming, and prepare for it. The Giants in 2016 were a closer away from winning another World Series. That much is true.

But plenty of people at the beginning of last offseason saw there were some other pressing needs. People saw that Denard Span was not going to cut in center-field for much longer, and that overall, the outfield defense was on a sharp decline. People saw that this lineup was significantly aging and powerless. People saw that the bullpen was very right-handed heavy and worse in quality. But no. Nothing. Nothing to fix what truly turned out to be significant, pressing issues.

The Giants spent a bajillion dollars on a closer and just trusted that everything else would continue to be as it had been for the 7 years prior. That works when the pieces you’re relying on are currently 25-28. But the San Francisco Giants’ average age was 29.6. That’s the oldest they’ve been since 2010, and even then they underwent a complete and total overhaul of their position players. Why? They recognized what happens when you rely on aging rosters.

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If they had tried to cover up one or two more of their big issues last offseason, then maybe we’d be talking about a playoff run right now. We’d be praising Bobby Evans for his creativity on reconstructing an aging roster and keeping them a prime contender. But everybody in the front office, including Evans settled.

Frankly, Bobby Evans deserves to be fired. The Giants are now an incredibly expensive, injury prone, and aging roster. Sounds a lot like the Giant teams of old! Hopefully they don’t head down that path again, but Bobby Evans isn’t really doing much to convince us that they aren’t.