The Kansas City Royals are your 2015 World Series Champions. It was well deserved.
The new champs gave the Giants a fight last October, but Madison Bumgarner happened. Now that this year’s World Series is officially over, the offseason is the main topic at hand.
For the Giants, it is well documented their focus will be on pitching. Whether it be Zach Grienke, David Price, Johnny Cueto or Jordan Zimmermann, the Giants will surely be pushing hard for strong pitching to pair with Madison Bumgarner at the top of the rotation.
Aside from honing in on arms, general manager Bobby Evans will need to get creative in terms of building out the remainder of the 2016 roster. The Giants are losing veterans Tim Hudson and Jeremy Affeldt to retirement, but have Affeldt’s replace in-house with rookie Josh Osich, who proved he is ready for the major leagues with a strong rookie performance.
As for Hudson, the Giants will look to add to their starting rotation by signing a top tier arm as well as a mid tier like Mike Leake. Veterans Madison Bumgarner, Matt Cain and Jake Peavy are all projected to fill out the remaining three slots.
All starting eight position players will be back with the Giants in 2016 barring an offseason trade, but Evans will need to work on building out a stronger bench. Reserve outfielder Marlon Byrd, acquired in an August trade, is a good candidate to be brought back as a reserve outfield and potent bat off the bench.
Additionally, the Giants will need to begin thinking extensions for some of their beloved homegrown star players. While Matt Duffy and Joe Panik are a few years away from arbitration, Brandon Belt and Brandon Crawford are starting to get pricey.
Both Crawford and Belt have a little over four years of service time, and are projected to earn $5.7 million and $6.2 million, respectively, in their third time through arbitration before hitting the free agent market in 2018. Crawford plays the more premier position and would be more difficult to replace, so the Giants will likely prioritize extending their slick fielding shortstop. However, Crawford is coming off a career year with the bat where he blasted 21 long balls, so the Giants front office will need to take that into consideration when discussing financials.
The Giants already have Hunter Pence and Angel Pagan under contract next year, and are said to likely pick up the option of Nori Aoki. Although doing so comes with some caution as Aoki missed majority of the final few months this season due to concussion symptoms from being hit in the head. Additionally, when healthy, Aoki didn’t perform all that well in the outfield. So one option for the Giants is to pick up Aoki’s option and potentially trade him in hopes of finding a better all around outfielder to man left field.
One option on the free agent market that the Giants should pursue is Alex Gordon, who will likely command a a five year deal in the $60-$70 million range, but he is also the best defensive left fielder in baseball and fits the mold of getting on base and keeping the line moving.
The small market Kansas City Royals have never handed out a contract over $55 million, but will likely make an exception to keep one of their faces of the franchise in Kansas. Winning the World Series will also help Kansas’ odds of retaining Gordon, unless he pulls a Pablo Sandoval..
In the end, GM Bobby Evans and his front office brass have work cutout for them in terms of constructing a competitive team for 2016 with the hopes of getting the Giants back into the playoffs.