Every once in a great while, you’ll glean a little wisdom from a Marquee broadcast. Usually, they’re trying to ram so many Statcast stats down one’s gullet that you miss what’s right in front of you.
During last night’s game against the Giants, one of the guys said that Wilmer Flores was having the best offensive season among position players. With no disrespect to Flores, that might explain why the Giants are only 2 games over .500 (70-68) but still in the chase for the wild card.
The Giants are getting zero offensive production from their bigger name “stars.” Flores is batting .285 with 20 home runs and 50 RBI in 106 games. Mull that one over for a minute and consider guys on lousy teams like the White Sox-they have more dynamic players.
This isn’t to say that they haven’t gotten key contributions from minor players. Guys have gone on mini-runs, but haven’t put up spectacular numbers. I’m attaching the current stats so you can see for yourself. Yesterday’s starter, Logan Webb has been steady of not spectacular, but the offense didn’t support him yesterday.
2023 Giants Player Hitting Stat Leaders | San Francisco Giants (mlb.com)
We assume that there’s a playbook that every team has bought, but it’s obvious that teams do things differently and sometimes successfully. When Giants perennial all-star catcher, Buster Posey retired, it was assumed that Joey Bart would step in.
If you double-click on Bart, you’ll find he’s been a bust to date, yet the Giants somehow are competing this year. Incidentally, I don’t expect some offensive outburst during the current trip to Wrigley.