Last season Angel Pagan provided the most exciting play of the year for the San Francisco Giants, hitting a walk-off, inside-the-park home run to defeat the Rockies on May 25th.
If you somehow missed it, check it out - it's that good of a play.
[embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmTwgmzs5Vc[/embed]
Despite the excitement, that same play resulted in a hamstring injury that ultimately ended Pagan's season for all intents and purposes – as well as the Giants' for that matter – as they posted a 33-52 record from May 26th to August 30th (the day Pagan returned from his injury).
Despite Hunter Pence's stellar season, the loss of Pagan left the Giants with one of the weakest offensive outfields in all of baseball.
What a difference one offseason makes. With the re-signing of Pence, the addition of Michael Morse, and Pagan's return to health, the Giants' outfield looks to be one of the stronger trios in the league this time around.
Here's a look at what the 2014 season may have in store for the Giants' starting outfield:
Michael Morse plays in 130+ games while posting at least a .290 average, 20 home runs and 90 RBI:
Angel Pagan and Hunter Pence each posted outstanding seasons in their first year as Giants. If that trend continues, it will be Morse who benefits this season.
He has posted this predicted stat line once in his career, his 2011 season where he finished with a .303/31/95 line in 146 games. Health continues to be the main key for Morse, as he has appeared in more than 100 games just twice in his career.
If he stays in the lineup, the 130 games and 20 home runs should come rather easily, and he has hovered right around the .290 mark in each of his last three healthy seasons.
Reaching 90 RBI will be his biggest challenge, as he may hit 6th or 7th in the order any given night. It may take a boost up to the #3-5 spots in order for this prediction to come to fruition, but it's not out of the question.
Again, Morse's inability to stay healthy shouldn't be understated, as there's a reason the Giants were able to sign him at such a discounted rate. However, poor health seems to be the only thing that could hold Morse back from being a solid contributor, and it's something I'm predicting Morse will overcome this year.
Hunter Pence regresses to less than 20 home runs/80 RBI:
I love Pence as much as any Giants fan, but his 2013 season may prove to be the pinnacle of his career. He hit a career-high 27 home runs, his 99 RBI were second most in his seven year career, and he played in a perfect 162 games.
The good news is that those totals are only a little bit better than his career per-season averages of .285/25/94, meaning he wasn't playing way over his head last year, and they are certainly repeatable numbers.
Where I see the regression coming into play is in the fact that Pence has had some good fortune offensively in seven seasons – especially last year – and he is fighting the odds at this point, especially in terms of his power.
To date, 3.4% of his total plate appearances resulted in a home run, which has been boosted by an 11.9% home run per fly ball rate.
Both of these percentages are unsustainably high compared to the MLB averages of 2.6% and 7.6% in those respective categories, especially when he plays 81 games at AT&T Park.
If the fly balls stop turning into home runs, his line drive rate is just 16% compared to the 19% MLB average. Part of what helped him sustain the numbers he did last season was a 21% line drive rate, well above his career average.
Basically, this prediction has to do with regression to the mean. That's not to say that Pence falls flat, it simply means he ends up closer to the 20 homer/80 RBI line than the 30/100 he nearly posted in 2013.
Angel Pagan leads the Giants in doubles, triples, runs, and steals:
In 2012, Pagan led the team in triples (15), runs (95) and steals (29), so maybe this prediction isn't very bold.
If anything, it's a prediction that Pagan will not be slowed by any lingering effects from the hamstring injury that cost him a majority of last season.
When healthy, Pagan will hit atop the Giants lineup and will have the green light on the base paths, so he should easily reach 90+ runs and 25-30 steals if he's in the lineup for a full season.
In 2012 he was second only to Posey in doubles, coming up just one shy of Posey's 39. That number was mainly due to the fact that he stretched a good seven or eight of them into triples instead – obviously a good thing, but it still stands to prove that Pagan easily could have posted 45 doubles (no one is complaining though).
Before the injury last year, he was on pace to surpass his 38 doubles from 2012, so there is reason to believe he can post 40+ with his speed and number of plate appearances alone.
And with AT&T Park catering perfectly to Pagan's game, he should break 10 triples as long as he isn't hesitant to test his hamstring (something that may be more of a factor early in the season).
If injuries don't claim one of these three for an extended period of time, this has the potential to be one of the strongest outfields San Francisco has had in years – and that's saying something, since Barry Bonds was part of the last great outfield trio.
