San Francisco Giants 2019 Spring Training Preview: Corner Infielders

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The San Francisco Giants are toeing a line that might not really exist this offseason. They’re trying to be competitive while accruing assets for the future without subtracting from their older and expensive core.

As such, the San Francisco Giants haven’t shelled out their usual multiple long deals to entice veterans to join the team and continue to make a push for 2019, but they also haven’t traded away their various players that still have surplus value.

Perhaps new shot caller Farhan Zaidi is simply waiting out some of the contracts doled out by his predecessor, or maybe he actually thinks the team can compete with more depth and a better farm.

My guess is he’ll pick and choose his battles based on individual fits and trade offers where he can get the most value. He didn’t see any deals worth taking so far and is happy to be patient and take a wait and see approach until the trade deadline.

Corner infield should not be a weakness going into 2019. The Giants have clear-cut starters at both first and third base, and are returning a few bench options as well.

That’s not to say there won’t be any competition, it’s just the available bench spots will ideally only get 10-20% of the at bats at the corner. For this reason, Zaidi has emphasized positional flexibility in most of his new recruits.

This way, even if the starters stay healthy, there should be some at bats in the outfield that are available for the bench.

Let’s kick off our corner infielder preview with the two starters and a certain hefty backup.

Brandon Belt

Brandon Belt will go into the 2019 season as the starting first baseman, and he honestly has to answer some questions during it. He’s going into his age-31 season with two more after left on his contract for $17.2MM each.

He was extremely useful and seemed like the key cog in the lineup at times before the All Star break, and even placed second to Jesus Aguilar in the All Star Game’s Final Vote.

Then, as the story with Belt has sadly seemed to go, he got injured.

Just before the All Star Break, Belt hyperextended his knee sliding into second base at Safeco Field. He was out for about three weeks, then was shutdown in September after playing just 31 games in the second half of the season. He is expected to be recovered and ready to play in Spring Training games.

To add another later of misfortune to the situation, he missed two weeks in June when he had to have an appendectomy. If you haven’t seen his splits yet, let me do you a favor:

Pre-All Star Break: 81 G, 296 AB, .287/.383/.480, 13 HR, 42 RBI)

Post-All Star Break: 31 G, 103 AB, 155/.216/.223, 1 HR, 4 RBI)

You see it, I see it, Belt sees it. In the first half of the season he was just about as good as Matt Chapman in terms of OPS. Meanwhile in the second half of the season he barely hit better than Madison Bumgarner.

That level of inconsistency is unacceptable from your starting first baseman, but Belt was likely playing hurt during that ugly stretch after he initially injured his knee. Hopefully, a healthy Belt can get back to those numbers from before, because if the Giants have any hope of being competitive, they will certainly need his bat to provide some thump.

Evan Longoria

Evan Longoria’s debut season in a Giants uniform did not go as planned. He posted career-low numbers basically across the board over 125 games last year.

While his depleting power (16 HR, .169 ISO) isn’t ideal, it’s still roughly average for the league and stillarguably the best on the Giants. This coincides with his move to AT&T Park as well, although The Trop isn’t much of a hitter’s haven anyways.

He’s also posted similar ISO’s with 20-22 homers in 2014, 2015, and 2017. So while the power numbers are down when compared to his career, he’s largely been consistent recently.

What’s more concerning to me is his cratering ability to get on base. While never necessarily elite at drawing walks, his BB% plummeted to just 4.3%, again the worst of his career.

While I can’t wholly attribute the decline in on-base skills to this, he has been pitched around more often than he was with the Rays. At the same time, he is continuing his recent trend of swinging much more than he did earlier in his career yet is still making contact at a decent clip on pitches, even when they’re outside the zone.

Defensively, he’s also trended down in recent years, which can be alarming when you remember the Giants won’t have any place to move him to with Belt and Buster Posey around for the next few years as current and future options at first base. Oh well, that will be more of a problem for the 2021 Giants.

If he can walk just a little more in 2019, I believe he’ll have a bit of a bounceback season in 2019 at the plate. Thought it might just be a dead cat bounce at this point.

Pablo Sandoval

While it might be jumping the gun to list Sandoval with Belt and Longoria, consider this: he’s playing for league minimum, he played all over the diamond last year (including an inning at pitcher!), and he finally turned in his first positive season in terms of WAR since he first left the Giants in 2014.

Yes, he was still worth just 0.1 WAR over 92 games, but perhaps the returns are finally coming after a year and a half on the San Francisco bench.

Indeed, while his defense is officially below average, Sandoval’s bat has shown some value. Last year he hit .248/.310/.417, and the Giants certainly desire that level of power off the bench.

He’s still basically unusable against lefties, but can then spell Longoria at times against righties. At minimum, he’ll at least be insurance in the event that either of the starters’ injury problems return, and every time he hits a bomb we can thank the Red Sox for paying his salary.

Yangervis Solarte

Solarte was a late bloomer, breaking in with the Yankees in 2014 at the age of 26. Now 31, Solarte has filled a nice role in recent years as a player who receives regular at bats but can play all over the diamond.

He’s coming off a poor 2018, which is how the Giants managed to scoop him up on a minor league contract. Last year, he hit just 226/.277/.378 over 122 games for the Toronto Blue Jays.

He still hit for decent power with 17 HR and a .152 ISO, but played fairly poor defense and couldn’t reach base at a helpful clip.

However, for his career, Solarte has posted a line of .259/.317/.410, which would be extremely useful for the team to have on their bench. Indeed with lefty hitters starting at short, first, and second base, having a quality righty bench complement will aid the team when it takes on tough lefties.

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Additionally, much of Solarte’s career has been spent in the vast dimensions of Petco Park, so he’s prepared for what an environment like Oracle Park feels like to hit in.

Ryder Jones

Jones has had a lackluster major league career so far. After appearing for 53 dreadful games in 2017, in which he totaled a -1.3 WAR, he got just 8 at bats last season.

He came up for just one game in July, when Belt was on paternal leave, and promptly smacked a home run off Edwin Jackson of the Oakland Athletics. Nonetheless, he was sent down after the game when Belt returned.

The next time we saw him was September, when he was one of the call ups. He didn’t start any of the four game he played in, but did hit another homer as a pinch hitter.

He then hurt his knee in the very next game (his second start of the season), and just like that his season was over.

Entering his age-25 season, Jones still has time to show that he belongs. The Giants may want to see him produce in AAA again after the injury.

At this point, he’s played 180 games and had over 750 at bats there, so he’ll be itching to make the jump to the big leagues.

Abiatal Avelino

One of two players acquired from the New York Yankees in exchange for Andrew McCutchen, Avelino got his first, albeit short look at the big leagues in September. He currently slates in as the No. 17 prospect in the Giants system,

Defensively, he’s capable of playing all over the infield and can play it well. He has a strong arm that can play at either shortstop or third base, and he’s likely to end up as a utility man in the majors.

I don’t think he will break camp with the big league team because he’s mustered just a .629 OPS over 97 games in AAA between Scranton and Sacramento. He can start this season there and hope to get off to a hot start with regular at bats to possibly get the Giants to call him up mid-season.

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As it stands, the Giants have improved overall infield depth, while Avelino has options left and a bat that can still develop more with more playing time.

I believe Belt, Longoria, Sandoval, and Solarte will make the Opening Day roster, with Jones and Avelino serving as minor league depth in the meantime. They both could still use some extra playing time, whereas Sandoval and Solarte can use their positional flexibility and experience to impact the majors.

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