A year ago, the regular season came to an end and the Giants were focused on the postseason and meeting the New York Mets in the Wild Card game. Now, the regular season wraps up on Sunday and the Giants can only look toward their offseason plans to reinstate their title as a contending team in 2018.
“It’s behind us after today,” Ron Wotus told Marty Lurie on Sunday morning. “I think everybody is ready to try to start to fix the issues that we have an improve it. That’s the great thing about Spring Training, we’ll get a fresh start and things can go different, even wit the same guys, things can go different.”
Hopefully, that “fresh start” includes an addition of power in the lineup. Before Sunday, the Giants hit 127 home runs, which ranks last in the Major Leagues. They are closest to the Pittsburgh Pirates, who hit 151 in the same span of time.
Individually, the Giants only have six players on their roster with double-digit home runs this season. Brandon Belt leads the team with 18 homers, despite being sidelined since August 4 after being hit by a pitch on the helmet.
Although Buster Posey leads the Giants in nearly every other offensive category, his 12 homers this season are considered low in terms of his career. Aside from 2009, the only other time Posey hit fewer home runs came in 2011 when he hit four before a collision at home plate ended his season after only 45 games.
Brandon Crawford (14), Hunter Pence (13), Denard Span (12), Joe Panik (10) are the other Giants with 10-or-more home runs.
Yet, their lack of power is not the only problem on the Giants roster. Along with an additional bat in the lineup, the Giants are in search of a player that will improve the other facets of the game that brought them incredible success during their championship seasons.
“So, you look at the club, ‘how are we going to rebuild this thing?’ The guys we have with power, the Williamsons and the Parkers, the guys we have, the Buster Poseys, for some reason it wasn’t quite there. Belt was out most of the year,” Wotus said. “So we obviously want to add power, we’d love to be able to do that in offense, but you also need to improve defense, speed, maybe steal more bases and cover the outfield.”
Although he is not known for his power, Wotus mentioned Billy Hamilton as a player whose style of play could benefit the Giants in multiple ways. His speed in the outfield and defensive prowess is renowned throughout the major leagues could drastically improve the Giants’ 2018 outlook, especially given the size of AT&T Park.
“You get a Billy Hamilton type of guy; your pitching improves tremendously right there. He’s saved more runs than he’s driving in,” Wotus said. “You can look at this year saying we let in too many runs. So that’s an easy way to help your pitching. Now, Billy Hamilton is already signed with a club, but if you can get speed and some other things, you can manage that type of player to help you win ballgames.”
To listen to the full interview check out the podcast below, and skip to 7:45 for Wotus on the offseason.
