Buried in a comment of mine on Zo's June 9th post about MadBum was this little tidbit:
Giants get another OF, another lefty (Alex Dickerson)in a trade with SD. The Pads get All-Name Team All-Star RHP Franklin Van Gurp.At the time it was just another roster-churning Zaidian move, part of the endless search for some outfield help. The list of those guys is getting pretty long and I didn't give it more thought than the time it took to write the sentence.
I suppose we'll have to take another look. The 29-year old from Poway has played 108 games in the big leagues, all with the Padres. In his debut with the Giants he had three hits and six runs batted in with the big blow a grand slam home run in the 3rd inning. Bobby Bonds (in 1968) and Brandon Crawford (in 2011) each hit a big salami in their Giants debuts. Those were also their major league debuts, so it is a little different with this one but still pretty damn cool.
So, congratulations to Alex Dickerson and "welcome aboard." The Giants won the game, too, and played like some other team rather than the one we saw in LA, which is good. Kevin Pillar, batting in front of the FNG, had a big night as well. Dickerson also had a triple, and all his RBIs came with two outs. Good stuff!
All I'm hoping for from this roster-shuffling is competent major league play for extended periods. We seem to be getting some of that from Mike Yastrzemski (.772 OPS). Can we get a couple of fellows in the outfield to finish out the season with at least an average shot at getting a big hit every few days? I don't expect superstars, just players who aren't black holes with the bat and can catch the ball when it comes their way. In the pool of so-called "replacement players" there ought to be some who can pull that off, don't you think?
Anyway, the boys play another tonight in Arizona, 7:05 Pacific, and Tyler Beede gets the start. Go Giants!
--M.C.
1 comment:
Dickerson had a good half-season as a Padres rookie in 2016 (.257/.333/.455, 112 OPS+, 28 XBH) He played 84 games as a left fielder (285 PA). BR called it 1.2 WAR and FanGraphs 0.7 WAR. A 1-WAR player in half a season suggests a 2-WAR player over a full season which is about an average ML-regular. A "replacement player" would, theoretically, be 0-WAR.
Dickerson missed 2017 and 2018 due to a back injury as well as Tommy John surgery.
DrB Giants fan, on his blog 'When the Giants Come to Town' says:
I've loved his bat since he mashed for 3 years in college at Indiana.
So I checked on him and indeed he "mashed" for the Hoosiers to the tune of over 1.000 OPS in his Frosh-Soph-Jr seasons from 2009-2011 (167 games). Let's hope he can do that with the Giants!
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