Duggar, Yaz, Doval and more will have to step up
By Mark Kreidler Special to The Examiner Wait: Is it really going to come down to Steven Duggar? You know what? It just might. Duggar is not the name you’re thinking of. I understand. You’re thinking of other Giants as the people who might be making the difference between a playoff-contending team and a thanks-for-stopping-by collection of pretty well-liked grinders. We all reach for the familiar names: Crawford, Belt, Longoria. And it is certainly true that the old guard came up huge last season. The Brandons both had something very close to career years, respectively, and the now-departed Buster Posey had easily the finest season of the last several — one of his best all-around campaigns in total, influenced heavily by the Giants’ limiting him to 113 regular-season games. But you go a little farther inside that 107-win monster of a success, and you see where the difference was made. It wasn’t just veterans putting up exaggerated versions of the solid seasons normally expected of them. The success was very much in the margins. Darin Ruf? Incredibly important piece, and a breakout winner. Tyler Rogers and Jake McGee broke out as bullpen arms. Donovan Solano was really important and mostly really good. Wilmer Flores was needed way more than the Giants had planned, and he held the fort, appearing in 122 games at either third base, short or second. It was like that. And now, with Posey gone and Solano gone and rotation leader Kevin Gausman gone (we didn’t mention Gausman; had the best season of his life at age 30), it’s going to come down to the margins once again. We’re not talking about 107 wins — we’ve already discussed that. But to be a contender in an expanded playoff format? That effort will be built on the Giants’ continued ability to help players find the best versions of their professional selves.
