How do the Giants replace Pablo Sandoval? They can’t, but it’s also hard to quantify what they’re actually losing

The Giants will never have another player like Pablo Sandoval–nobody as interesting, nobody as confounding, nobody as dietarily challenged, nobody as unpredictable, nobody as versatile, nobody as loud, and almost certainly nobody as great at the plate in the largest moments.

There is nobody like the Kung Fu Panda, which is why it’s so hard to properly quantify what the Giants are really losing–and how their fans should react–now that he’s all but gone to the Red Sox, reportedly agreeing to a five-year free agent deal very similar to the Giants’ last offer.

Actually, it’s easier to define the void he leaves by discussing the things that we know Sandoval was not during his starry six-season Giants career.

Has Sandoval ever really been a great player? No, not for a full season.

At 28, is he an ascending player? No, every statistical measure says he’s the definition of a descending player.

Can the Giants adequately replace him? No, it seems like they cannot, not at third base, not in the clubhouse and assuredly not from either side of the plate, batting against the best pitchers in October.

There is nobody like Pablo Sandoval, that’s to his credit–who can do what he does? Who else hits the pitches he can hit?

Who can knock Justin Verlander out of a World Series game almost single-handedly? Who can field his position with that kind of agility weighing that much?

There is nobody like him, which, again, almost certainly contributed to his view of the Giants (maybe he expected more from them during this entire year of negotiations) and the Giants view of him (there were reasons they were a bit circumspect in these negotiations).

Is Sandoval worth the $18M-$20M a year he got over five years from Boston? Yes, because he earned the right to hit free agency and once you do that, you are worth whatever you can get on the open market.

Was he worth that to the Giants? Yes, because from all reports they offered something very similar to five years, $95M.

So, if the money is similar, why is he leaving the franchise within which he has won three titles–including catching the final out of Game 7 less than a month ago–for  Boston?

I don’t think it’s a reach to say that the whole Sandoval Debate–from 2011 on–about his weight, about his attitude, about his injuries, about his longevity and about everything probably affected both sides here.

The Giants had to be dragged into the $18M range, and they worried all year about giving him any kind of long-term deal because who knew what would happen to Sandoval’s dedication and body if he got $90M or more.

And Sandoval had to wait and watch through the 2014 season, realizing that the Giants were not convinced about him–and then he turned in a very, very solid fielding season and a mediocre hitting season… then he exploded in the postseason, as he always does.

Sandoval was perfect for the Giants, slotting right between Buster Posey and Hunter Pence in the lineup and fielding those one-hoppers at third for a franchise that is built to win championships; and they were perfect for Sandoval, a player built to star in League Championship and World Series.

Maybe they were too perfect for each other for this to last forever–Sandoval had too much pride and bargaining power and the Giants had too much recent success for either to grovel before each other.


Will the Giants miss Sandoval? Absolutely, especially when you start to scan who’s available to play third base and what their left-handed-hitting group looks like without Sandoval.  That’s why I thought the Giants would figure out a way to make this happen… but that presumption was based on the idea that Sandoval, in the end, would want to return.

Which turned out not to be the case.

Will Sandoval miss the Giants? Surely, at some point, Sandoval will miss the Giants cocoon of high-volume marketing, good chemistry, and October opportunities.

This was just a unique situation and I don’t know how either side duplicates it–I don’t think Sandoval will be as good for Boston as he was for the Giants and we all pretty much know the Giants won’t get a third baseman as good as Sandoval for the next several years.

But one major point: Sandoval has not been a very strong hitter the last few years and it seems odd to think that Boston is aiming for Sandoval to be the heir apparent for David Ortiz, since Sandoval is in his prime now and he’s a worse hitter than Big Papi is now, way past his prime.

Some stats using the OPS+ formula, which removes ballpark affects and standardizes the on-base plus slugging percentage stat, where an OPS+ of 100 is a major-league average:

-Ortiz’s OPS+ the last three seasons (at age 36, 37 and 38–he turned 39 last week): 173, 159, 143.

-Sandoval’s OPS+ the last three seasons (at age 25, 26 and 27–he turned 28 in August): 123, 116, 111.

Yes, though he’s more than a decade younger, Sandoval’s offensive performance is dwindling faster than Ortiz’s.

The basics: Sandoval’s batting average, on-base average and slugging percentage have all gone down each season from 2012 to 2014, starting from a high slash line of .315/.357/.552 in 2011.

Also, if, as Giants assistant GM Bobby Evans relates it, part of the pull to Boston is that Sandoval would like to be a designated hitter as this deal gets into its later stages, that just seems strange.

Because Sandoval’s value is as a third baseman who has played brilliantly in the postseason. It’s not as a regular-season DH, now or into the future.

By the way, here are Sandoval’s postseason stats:

-His OPS in 10 postseason series: .935.

-His OPS in 15 NLCS games: .941.

-His OPS in 12 World Series games: 1.162.

There is no guarantee that Sandoval will keep hitting at that clip every postseason, but I have no doubt that the Giants will badly miss everything about Sandoval when and if they get back to October baseball in the near future.

What do they do to replace him?

I thought as recently as a few months ago that it was worth considering moving Buster Posey to third base, at least part-time, but this year’s postseason reconfirmed his value handling this pitching staff and Bruce Bochy isn’t going to start messing with that now.

Posey wants to catch, the pitchers win titles when he catches every game in October, and it’s not worth going back and forth with him in those positions, at least not now.

I don’t think Adam Duvall is a realistic option for a full-time job. I guess Marco Scutaro could play some third base if he’s healthy–as he did when Sandoval was hurt in 2012, when Scutaro was first acquired–but how can anybody possibly count on Scutaro being healthy in 2015?

Of course, if the Giants were ready to spend $18M a year on Sandoval, that means they’ll have some available cash now that he’s headed elsewhere, and maybe free-agent Chase Headley, a switch-hitter, fits there.

Or maybe the Giants look at pitching (Jon Lester?) or to the outfield (Cuban Yasmany Tomas?) or trade into somebody else’s larger contract. I’m sure the Giants will look into everything and will have high motivation to try everything to move on from Sandoval.

Whatever they do, they’ll never fully replace him, because there’s nobody like Pablo Sandoval, which makes it that much harder and, in some ways, explains why this whole process turned out so confusing.

Tim Kawakami