3 forgotten Silver Slugger winners in SF Giants history

The Silver Slugger finalists are set to be announced soon and FanSided has teamed up with Louisville Slugger to exclusively announce the finalists and winners. In anticipation of this, let's take a look at some surprising former SF Giants who took home a Silver Slugger.

The Silver Slugger Award was created in 1980 as a way to try to reward the "best" hitter at each position on the field, and we recently took a look at every single Giants player who took home the award since its inception.

Now, let's take a look at three forgotten winners of the award. It is no surprise that the likes of Will Clark, Barry Bonds, and Buster Posey all won the award multiple times, but let's focus on three guys whose names are a bit of a surprise on the list.

3 forgotten Silver Slugger winners in SF Giants history

Joe Morgan 2B - 1982

Joe Morgan is a Hall of Fame second baseman and two-time MVP, but the fact that he won a Silver Slugger with the Giants at the age of 38 as his career was on the decline is a bit of a surprise. Morgan only spent two seasons of his illustrious career in San Francisco so sometimes it is even east to forget he was a Giant.

But he had a great year in 1982, slashing .289/.400/.438 with 14 home runs and 61 RBI. Those are impressive numbers that late in a player's career, so he definitely deserved the Silver Slugger for his efforts that season.

Mark Portugal P - 1994

Pitcher Mark Portugal only spent a season and a half with the Giants, and really it was not much more than one season when you consider 1994 was a strike-shortened season and he got traded in the middle of the 1995 season.

However, in that strike-shortened year he took home a Silver Slugger by slashing .354/.360/.500 in 48 at-bats. Not many Giants fans will remember the name Mark Portugal and even fewer will remember that he won any sort of award for his time with the team, but that is why he is on this list.

Donovan Solano 2B - 2020

Like Portugal, this Silver Slugger was won under strange circumstances as it was during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. But Donovan Solano still had a great year, slashing .326/.365/.463 with three homers and 29 runs batted in.

The fact that he continued to be a solid hitter in the years after 2020 proves that it was not just a fluke and he had a nice little surprise award win in what was a solid Giants tenure.

Tomorrow, we will take a look at one Giants player whose dominance of the Silver Slugger Award will come as a shock to absolutely no one.