3 former SF Giants players we'll be glad are gone, and 2 we'll wish stayed

Former SF Giants player we're glad is gone: Evan Longoria

It's hard to fault the Giants' front office for trying on this one. At the time of the huge trade that sent Evan Longoria to the Giants, he had been coming off of a highly successful 10-year run in Tampa Bay with the Rays. Him and his massive contract were going to the Bay Area and would remain on the Giants payroll for better or for worse.

By the time he had joined the Giants, he was already a three-time All-Star, former Rookie of the Year, 2009 Silver Slugger and three-time Gold Glove Award winner. He had established himself as one of the top talents at third base in the entire league.

Then he was traded to the Giants and, of course, the rails fell off. For one of the first times in his career, health became a yearly issue for Longoria on the team, and he didn't perform well when he was available. This is never a good combination, and ultimately led to him being demoted to part-time player.

Longo's best full season with the Giants came back in 2019 when he hit 20 home runs and drove in 69 in 129 games. His OPS+ of 101 suggests that he was a mere 1 percent above league-average with the bat, a far cry from where he was in his Rays days.

That 2019 season was the final one that saw a player who at one time seemed like a future Hall of Famer make it into 100 or more games. In each year after that, he didn't even top 89 appearances. His bat was still okay and his defense was beginning to decline, but by the time his contract expired, he was a shell of the player he once was.