After losing 98 games in 2017, the San Francisco Giants need help just about everywhere.
One major area in need of reinforcements is the outfield, a group that accounted for a total of just 19 home runs last season, and includes two players that look on the other side of their prime in Hunter Pence, 34, and Denard Span, 33.
It would make sense then that the Giants would be in talks with a team like the St. Louis Cardinals, who currently have seven outfielders on their 40-man roster, and a number of young prospects that the club is looking to make room for sooner rather than later.
According to Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, that is exactly the case:
Cardinals general manager Michael Girsch said the team intends to move some outfielders this winter and has started getting a sense of the teams that have “true interest.” Girsch declined to discuss specifics. The San Francisco Giants are in need of an outfielder, and the Cardinals have had discussions with them.
The question now is who specifically are the Giants targeting? The name that comes up most frequently is Randal Grichuk, 25, who despite belting 22 home runs and posting a .758 OPS (better than any of the Giants’ starting outfielders last season) remains on the outside of St. Louis’s starting lineup. Girchuk was scouted at the trade deadline by a handful of teams according to Girsch.
The other name that has been thrown around recently is starting left fielder Tommy Pham, 29, who was arguably the best hitter on the Cardinals last season, and posted a team-best .931 OPS that was good for 12th highest in the National League. The Cardinals were apparently close to trading Pham to the Dodgers at the deadline last season, but elected to hold onto his bargain deal that would only cost them $600,000 next season.
No word yet on who the favorite of this group would be, but any one of the Cardinals’ top four outfielders would likely be better than anybody the Giants trotted out last season.
