What’s that? Do you want me to discuss my fantasy baseball team, then? If you insist, it’s okay.
When it’s my turn to draft, I have lots of ideas. These are great ideas. With my 16th-round selection, I could choose a starting pitcher. I have 10 options with excellent peripherals and upward trajectories. Or I could go with a hitter with high exit velocities and low BABIP, hoping that he’s just been unlucky. I could choose to go with a prospect that has a pathway to the majors. A prospect with a very high ceiling, but no major-league record. These are just a few of the many great ideas.
But I can only pick one player. Then, I curse that player for six months and apologize to him for my curse.
The reason I’m bringing this up is because it’s a great way to explain opportunity cost. I can rule any fantasy league if you allow me to make eight picks per round. If you allow the GiantsThey will be able to field an 80-man roster and a 50-man active team roster. This will help them win the NL West. They are so creative. So do I. We’re smart like that.
My fantasy draft does not give me eight picks. Giants don’t have a 50-man roster. These great ideas have their limits. You have to make a choice, and you will ultimately have to deal with the finite mess of your own making. It’s one thing to look at a player and say, “Yeah, that might work.” It’s another to do the same thing, but say, “Yeah, that Will work.”
This brings us to LaMonte Wade Jr.This will be the Giants’ biggest problem this offseason. He is a player that was recently celebrated with a bobblehead giveaway. This highlights his popularity as well as his contributions to the 2021 season. He might not be on the 2023 roster for any reason, even though it would have been difficult to believe a few months ago.
First, go over the things that Wade does well if he’s right. He’s a great hitter. He puts in a lot of effort. He’s not a superlative corner outfielder, but he’s more than playable out there. He’s an imperfect first baseman, but he’s more than playable there, too. His Below-average speed isn’t so below average that it should affect a roster decision. He’ll be 29 on New Year’s Day, so he’s in his prime. He’d fit on many rosters in 2023.
The question, though, isn’t if he would fit You can find more information at roster. It’s if he will fit the 2023 Giants’ roster. And it’s at this point that we stop looking at what he does right, and start looking at the complications. His OPS against left-handed pitchers in his career is.328. a little bit higher than Tim Lincecum’s career OPS. He’s played 14 innings in center field in his Giants career, but that was mostly in an emergency capacity. He’s limited to an outfield corner, for the most part, with a little first-base moonlighting mixed in. He’s out of minor-league options.
Wade is a platoon bat left-handed and is restricted to a corner spot. There’s no escaping it. He has one of the majors’ coolest nicknames, and he’s done awesome things like Hit a homerun over his mom. But he’s a left-handed platoon bat who is limited defensively, and there are only so many of those that a team can put on any active roster.
One of these can be added to a team’s 26-man roster.
Five starters. Eight relievers. Two catchers. A center fielder. The three infield positions that a corner outfielder can’t fake. A backup shortstop. That’s 20 of the 26 spots already spoken for on any roster. Wilmer Flores is a good fit for the GiantsHe takes his place, however. Austin SlaterAnd Mike YastrzemskiBoth complement each other and are worthy of being 2/5ths or more of an outfield rotation. Spots are limited quickly, especially when there is no bench player.
Get Deeper
Wilmer Flores makes sense even if the Giants don’t want to reunite the 2022 roster.
It’s not impossible for a team to carry two left-handed platoon players who are limited defensively. Wade and the Giants are already doing it. Joc Pederson. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, though. And if there’s something the Giants desperately need to fix this offseason, it’s their outfield defense. To do that, it’s easiest to NotThere are two left-handed bats that can be limited defensively on the one roster.
This website has two articles that have recently been published about left-handed batters who are limited defensively. Recently, Andrew Baggarly wrote a piece aboutHow good! Brandon Belt’s knees are feeling, and then We talked about how if Belt were a TwinsGiants may be interested in a player who goes by a different name.
There’s also the idea that Joc Pederson might come back. It sounds ludicrous to bring another player from this year’s failed team back, but he really has had a nice season. The offensive environment was exemplary with a slash of.266/.346/.516. It hasn’t been the straightest line to those numbers, but his OPS is over 1.000 since he returned from the IL in early August.
It’s hard to imagine a roster with either one of those players and Wade at the same time. It’s not impossible, but it’s hard. And if you’re not enamored of either one of those options — sound off in the comments section, we love the feedback — put your preferred free agent left-handed outfield replacement for Pederson on the roster. Maybe it’s Andrew Benintendi, maybe it’s Brandon Nimmo, maybe it’s a trade. That’s one more spot gone.
In this scenario, there’s still a path for Wade to make a 26-man roster. It’s an uncomplicated path, and it goes something like this: If the Giants think he’s the best option available, they’ll bring him back. It’s simple when you dumb it down like that.
It’s simple, but it’s a surprisingly high bar to clear. The Giants can’t worry about age or arbitration status, can’t worry about bobbleheads or memories. They’ll have to evaluate Wade against every other attainable player in baseball. Wade is a better choice than the plus-center fielder with a chance of being a league-average batter? Is he more valuable than the switch-hitting, center-hitting outfielder that can do a better job and play well against lefties? Is he more than the utility infielder, who can play a strong outfield? Wade wouldn’t just have to compete against Mike Yastrzemski and Luis González; he’d compete with literally every available player on the open market. And if the Giants make Wade a part of their 2023 plans, it’s because they’re really sure about him. You’re really, really certain.
Really, It is really, really sure.
They could have underlying metrics to make them so certain. His hard-hit percentageThe average hitter is not better than him. They can be convinced that his current .189/.286/.367 line isn’t indicative of the kind of hitter he can be, and I would be inclined to agree. He’s a better hitter than this.
But there’s no way to be convinced that he’s a secretly competent hitter against left-handers, and that all he needs are more at-bats against them. There’s no way to think he’ll improve enough defensively to play a lot of center field. Those are roles that other players will need to fill. With every accommodation like this, the roster options shrink.
If the Giants had a 50-man roster, heck yes, they’d be thrilled to have Wade back, no question. With the hope that he can shake off any issues this season, he might be in the top-half of that roster.
If the Giants want to improve their team, they have to be able to fill the remaining spots. Slapping Aaron JudgeOder Trea Turner onto this roster isn’t going to make them win 20 more games. Even if Giants are able to acquire such players, they need to build a foundation.
Wade can theoretically be part of this foundation. It would require the Giants to be completely confident about that. They would need to be able to overlook his struggles in 2022, and to ignore concerns about his performance against same side pitching. They wouldn’t be worried about his defensive limitations because the offensive upside would be so obvious.
It’s possible that all of this is true. The calculations that get there haven’t been shared with me, though, so it’s all a guessing game from here. All I know is that it’s going to be a much trickier decision than we could have imagined before the season started. Wade was a fantastic story for the Giants last year, and he’s still talented enough to be a fantastic story for someone again. It’s still a big question if that someone is the Giants.
(File photo by Wade: Dustin Bradford/Getty Images)
