It doesn’t seem like the Giants are a good offensive team, does it? I mean, they’re not terrible, but there have been too many games where they just spend nine innings looking hapless, right? Just recently, there was the first game against the Mets and the first couple games against the Reds. Not great! Not great games, and with all the Donovans Walton and Kevins Padlo and Stuarts Fairchild and whatnot, what else would you expect?
The Giants are fifth in the majors in runs scored. In May, even with their myriad injuries, they’re seventh. The offense is good. It is a significantly above average offense, actually, as tough as that can be to believe at times.
It’s the defense that’s been godawful.
According to Fangraphs’s Offense and Defense rankings, the 2022 Giants have had the 4th best offense in the majors, and the worst defense. The worst, bar none. They can find hitters just fine, but when it comes to hitters who can also play the field, that’s been harder for them.
Darin Ruf’s defensive limitations aren’t a secret, and neither are Wilmer Flores’s or Joc Pederson’s. But Luis Gonzalez has been awful in the field, and so have Tommy La Stella, Heliot Ramos, LaMonte Wade Jr, and Kevin Padlo, all in very small sample sizes. Brandon Belt doesn’t grade out well either, but that’s at least typical for him — the first base positional adjustment has always hit him hard. Even Thairo Estrada, solid as he’s been by the eye test, is a bit of a net negative defensively, per the numbers.
Here’s the list of players who Fangraphs thinks have made positive defensive contributions: the three catchers, Brandon Crawford (naturally), Luke Williams (bye!), Mauricio Dubon (bye!), Austin Slater, Jason Vosler, Stuart Fairchild, maybe Steven Duggar (he’s listed at 0.0, but he’s above all the pitchers whose defensive values are 0, so I’m assuming), and Evan Longoria.
It took me 181 words to get to the subject of the piece? What is this, every podcast????
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Evan Longoria is the best defensive third baseman on the 40-man roster, and it’s not particularly close. As much as some people (hi Bryan!) like to point out that the Giants are 13-2 when Wilmer Flores starts at third base, well, the team needs a strong defender there. The team needs strong defenders in as many places as possible, and with Crawford and Longoria on the left side of the infield, there would at least be one place on the field where a pitcher could expect an out.
But for the first few weeks of Longoria’s season, his offense was a problem. Longoria was injured during this year’s abbreviated Spring Training, and so he didn’t get a lot of playing time before joining the major league roster. He had just 18 plate appearances in AAA, where he hit .278/.278/.278, along with whatever the Giants scrounged up for him at the team complex in Arizona.
That’s not a lot.
Over his first 32 major league plate appearances, he hit like it was not a lot.
From May 11, Longoria’s first game in the majors, through May 22, he hit.156/.156/.188, striking out a third of the time and looking like someone who had no idea what baseball was. In that time, he had one extra-base hit and zero walks; in the 10 games in which he appeared, the team went 4-6, and in the ones he started, they went just 2-5. He was still his old self defensively, but he just couldn’t contribute on the offensive side, and the Giants, already reeling from injuries, desperately needed someone who could contribute on both sides of the ball.
And hey, what do you know, that’s started to look an awful lot like Evan Longoria.
Longoria’s played five games over the last week, and, with yesterday’s 9th inning dinger that gave the Giants a brief lead, he’s hit five homers in those five games. It’s safe to say that his Spring Training is finally over, a little later than the Giants and their fans would have probably preferred, but that’s no one’s fault but Longoria’s for having a 36-year-old body (As someone who also has a 36-year-old body, I assure you, it’s terrible).
This is what the Giants need. They need someone besides Brandon Crawford and Curt Casali who contributes on both sides of the ball. They need the pre-collision version of Longoria from last year, who hit .280/.376/.516 over the first couple months of the year, powering the team to that great start. They need the rock solid defender at third base, allowing Gabe Kapler to do more mixing and matching with Wilmer Flores, Tommy La Stella, and Thairo Estrada.
Is this all a bit premature? I mean, maybe. Longoria is on a hot streak, but that can turn into a cold streak at the drop of a hat. Then instead of “Evan Longoria is back!” the consensus will be “Evan Longoria is cooked!” Then after his next hot streak, it will once again be “Evan Longoria has rediscovered his form!” which will be followed by “Now it’s the form of someone who’s terrible!” This will go on until the end of his career because it’s how baseball works.
So what should the Giants do? Well, first off, don’t drop any hats. You can’t be too careful. Second, they should continue with their regimen of playing favorable matchups and giving their veterans lots of rest. But it looks like it’s perfectly reasonable for Evan Longoria to be Option A against both lefties and righties right now. They need his bat. They need his glove. They need the whole package if they’re going to have a better month in June than they have in May.