Which Giants are going to have incredible career years in 2021?
Based off the most reliable predictor around: Spring Training stats
I am already on record saying that I will wholeheartedly believe this year’s absurd Giants Spring Training stats. It’s not a huge leap from there to uncritically look at several Giants having excellent springs and assume they’ll be similarly great in the regular season, so I’m going to take that leap and never look back. Let’s look at who’ll be lighting things up this year!
Just to be clear, this isn’t every player who’s having a great spring. Evan Longoria, for example, is slugging 1.150 and is definitely going to have a better season than Barry Bonds ever did, but I don’t feel like focusing on him so I’m not going to.
Austin Slater
Slater’s hit two homers in the last two games, both to right field, and is rocking an OPS over 1.300 in Arizona this year. He’s hitting against both righties and lefties, and the team is taking a hard look at him in center field. He is drastically increasing his value to the team in pretty much every way.
This is the part where I would ordinarily say something like, “We’ll see how those homers to right-center field fare when he gets back to San Francisco,” but I’m not doing that this year. They’ll still be homers, I’ve decided. Maybe they’ll be longer homers. There’s no way to tell!
Logan Webb
You know about Logan Webb. Everyone has written about Logan Webb. You don’t need me to tell you about Logan Webb’s 17 strikeouts and 0 earned runs allowed in 11 innings. Let’s replace him with…
Anthony DeSclafani
DeSclafani started last night, and threw 4 innings of shutout* ball, dropping his ERA under 3 for the spring. He also struck out 8 in the game, making it as strong of a tune-up as you could hope for. Sure, he’s got one more start before the regular season begins, but for now, DeSclafani looks exactly the way the team probably hoped he would look, especially after the tough 2020 that meant the Giants could sign him on a one year deal.
Does this excellent spring mean that DeSclafani will avoid a letdown? Absolutely, yes. Will I ever spell him name correctly on the first try instead of insisting it’s “DeSclafini?” Only time will tell.
*Wil Myers hitting only one solo home run counts as shutout ball for any Giants pitcher; see rule 7.18b in the baseball rulebook
Mauricio Dubon
There are two stats that jump out on Dubon’s line. The first one is that he’s worked 10 walks in 39 plate appearances. The second is that he’s stolen 4 bases. Extrapolating those two stats out to a ~600 PA season, he’d walk 154 times and steal 61 bases. That’s a pretty damn good season!
Sure, you can’t “do” that or whatever, because pitchers will start to attack Dubon more since there’s no downside to throwing strikes to a guy with a .321 slugging percentage, but just think about how cool it would be. Pretty cool! I think Dubon should and will do that this year.
Nick Tropeano
Nick Tropeano is having a good spring, like everyone on this list. I also don’t know anything about Nick Tropeano, because the Giants signed 140 relievers this offseason, but he’s doing a nice job. Because I don’t know anything about Tropeano, I can’t think of a single reason this won’t continue through the year. So it will!
Steven Duggar
Duggar’s glove has always been a given. His bat has also always been a given, but in a bad way. He did a nice job taking walks this spring, and an excellent job hitting for power. If you combine those two skills with a perfectly acceptable .250 batting average, what you have is a solid player.
(Little bird whispers that he’s struck out in almost half of his at bats)
YOU STOP THAT, LITTLE BIRD. I’VE MADE THE BIT LAST THIS LONG AND I’M NOT ABANDONING IT NOW. LEAVE ME ALONE.
The issue for Duggar is going to be playing time. With Slater, Mike Yastrzemski, and Alex Dickerson all excellent options in the outfield, there isn’t really a place for another left-handed hitter.
(Little bird whispers that the other problem is the strikeouts and does no one else remember the strikeouts, but the bird is ignored)
So can Duggar keep it up in the majors this year, assuming he gets consistent at bats? Why not?
(I see the little bird about to give reasons why not, so I let a cat loose near it, forcing it to fly away)
If we’ve learned anything from this article, it’s that as long as we don’t acknowledge problems, they go away forever then and everything is fine.
There are others I could focus on here, of course. Longoria, as mentioned, is having a sensational spring at the plate, as is Donovan Solano. On the pitching side, Camilo Doval has been excellent, and he’s been joined in that by Jake McGee.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m all-in on every one of these guys. I both believe and know that they will all do great this year. Sure, the Giants still won’t come in first in the division, or even second, but here’s what they will do: Deliver non-stop excellent performances from professional athletes.