Giants: Three free-agent infielders to avoid this offseason

Gordon Beckham

If Gordon Beckham rings a bell for San Francisco Giants fans, it’s because he was briefly a member of the team.

Beckham had a three-game stint with the Giants in 2016 in which he went 0-for-5. That sample size is far too small, so we have to see more data before he can be dismissed.

On paper, he fits the Farhan Zaidi’s utility player mold, having played multiple games across all infield positions with the Detroit Tigers last year.

In his first five seasons in the majors, Beckham hit .249 while averaging 11 home runs and five steals each year. He was even fifth in the voting for AL Rookie of the Year in 2009.

But since then, his slash line over the last six seasons has been an abysmal .216/.275/.341. He has not hit more than nine home runs in a season during that span, and that was in 2014 when he had 483 plate appearances to do so.

Though he once showed he could post some stats similar to those of Brandon Crawford early in his career, Beckham is little more than organizational depth at this point in his career.

It’s hard to predict exactly what the San Francisco Giants infield will look like next season.

Will the front office stick with who they have and find backups, or will they find a Mark Melancon-type move to unloaded one of the high-priced, underperforming veterans.

Versatile players like Beckham and Sogard or a once-dynamic hitter like Dozier may look like potential targets at surface level. However, those three players do not offer the consistency nor the production the San Francisco Giants will need going forward and should be avoided.