San Francisco Giants: The End of the Kelby Tomlinson Era

According to Kerry Crowley of The Mercury News reported, four players on the San Francisco Giants, including Kelby Tomlinson, were “outrighted” to Triple-A, which essentially means that they’re free agents now.

This means that the San Francisco Giants have reached the end of the Kelby Tomlinson era.

At least that’s how things look. Tomlinson could resign with the team, but with Alen Hanson and Abiatal Avelino on the squad, that looks unlikely.

The other players outrighted were Miguel Gomez, Chase d’Arnaud, and Casey Kelly.

I think I speak for a number of Giants fans when I say that I liked Kelby Tomlinson. He was fun to watch and he wore glasses — and was fast. Plus, he did pretty well filling in for an injured Joe Panik when he was first called up in 2015.

I remember thinking about how lucky the Giants were that they had so much depth that supposedly wasn’t there at the time. Many projections ranked the Giants very low in terms of prospects.

But to my eyes, Matt Duffy was raking, and Kelby Tomlinson was doing a good job filling in. What was there not to like?

Little did I know that from 2016 onwards the Giants’ lack of depth and intriguing young talent, save Dereck Rodriguez and Steven Duggar, would make itself evident.

In a way, I think this is a good thing that Kelby will be gone. It’s kind of like how when you were young and the death of a beloved pet prepared you emotionally for the death of a grandparent.

In this analogy, Kelby is that dog you had for a couple years and the grandparent maybe someone like Brandon Belt or Madison Bumgarner.

With a new general manager coming in soon, it’s not going to get any easier in terms of saying bye to well-liked players.

But Kelby’s departure at least gets our toes wet so that we’re somewhat ready when/if we get thrown into the deep end.