1. Qualify Donaldson and/or re-sign him. Failing that ignore 3 and move Solarte here full time

2. Give Vladdy time at 1B when he returns. The bat is going to play everywhere let's make sure its in the lineup every day.

3. Trade Travis at the deadline.

4. Run with Tulo, Diaz, and Solarte until Bo is ready

5. Danny Jansen comes up in late July with the aim of a 50/50 split or greater in 2019.

6. Trade Pillar if you can get anything of value back.

7. Open auditions for the 3rd OF spot for the rest of the year (ideally Alford runs with it).

8. Find some arms because none of the above will matter if we can't keep the ball in the yard. Borucki looks like a good start here.

I wouldn't be surprised if Donaldson's condition is chronic and/or he may need surgery - the FO have the medical info. & if they choose not to sign/QO him, I'm ok with that.

Grichuk has been an above-average CF so far in his career, as well.

Now that his defense isn't super-elite, and his bat has settled into 80-85 range, it seems to me that his best fit is as a 4th OF.

And we have 4 younger guys in Grichuk, Teoscar, Pompey, and Alford that probably all deserve to play soon, and who can likely hit at least as well as he does....and 3 of them can play CF as well.

And he's turning 30.

I wouldn't mind trading him.

It’s probably too late to get much in return for Pillar. A year and a half ago (after the 2016 season) was probably the time to move him.

Maybe now that Seattle has moved Dee Gordon to 2B, they can use "Superman" in CF.

I love Russ but he has fallen off the cliff offensively. He still gets on base but other than that not much else. I'd push him into coaching.
At C I would like to see Maile/Jansen the rest of the way. I'm guessing Martin will be a super-sub, I'm sure at some point he will probably pitch too.

Morales/Smoak/Tellez -> 1B/DH platoon. Tellez has to come up and see if he will sink or swim.

3B- this is reserved for Vladdy jr. Solarte for now, who knows if Donaldson will even play this year. I'd bring him back for cheap to work with Vladdy.

Solarte has heart- I'd play him pretty much anywhere.

Smith Jr>>Alford>Pompey

Don't disagree on Pillar, but Alford (68 wRC+ in AA) likely won't hit as well as Pillar. Maybe in a few years or maybe not.

And Pompey is even more brittle than Tulo. The kid has 158 PA's the past 2 years combined, and 52 of those 158 were rehabbing in Dunedin.

S/B Alford 68 wRC+ in AAA

I always thought the Giants could use Pillar, as they have trotted out some awful defenders in CF the last few years and they have a big ball park to patrol. They have quite a few pitchers that are near MLB ready as well which would be a nice swap.

However until there are prospects really banging on the door, or really solid offers are made I think the team should hold onto the controllable players. I think everybody wanted Pompey or Alford to be ready to take over CF from Pillar this year, but it just hasn't worked out that way thus far.

At this point is time to try and see how Gurriel Jr looks out in CF? If the plan is to use him as a super sub it might be interesting.

Angel Perdomo had a great outing today for Dunedin, 5 scoreless with 1 walk and 10 strikeouts.

Pillar was always a weird case because it was unlikely that teams would trade top prospects for defense-only players even when he was elite defensively and cheap, and now he's at a point where he's making real money while he's older and declining in his one elite skill. In other words, I wouldn't expect much in return. I actually wouldn't mind trading him, moving Grichuk over to CF, and giving some of the other OF's on the 40-man a chance, but I always got the sense that they would move him once Alford was ready to take his spot. That's clearly not the case in 2018. On top of that, Pompey is hurt again and DSJ probably isn't good enough defensively anywhere in the outfield. They also might not view Grichuk as a CF defensively.

I mentioned this in another thread, but I think Domingo Santana fits a lot of boxes with this FO. He was recently demoted and the Brewers have a log jam of OF. He hits the ball hard, strikes out a lot, draws a decent amount of walks, has legit power, is only 25, and will either have 3 or 4 years of control left depending on service time (his demotion this year makes that a bit unclear). Maybe they could trade Pillar somewhere and then trade for Santana in a separate deal, or something along those lines, but they'd have to feel comfortable with Grichuk in CF in that scenario.

Regardless, barring any trade deadline moves next month that add 2019 pieces (which may happen), I'd say the 2019 lineup is likely:

CA Martin, 1B Smoak, 2B Travis/Gurriel, SS Tulo/Diaz, 3B Solarte, RF Grichuk, CF Pillar, LF Hernandez, DH Morales

My guess is that lineup will look drastically different by the end of the season (replace Martin with Jansen, Solarte with Vlad, Pillar with Alford, Tulo/Diaz with Bo, etc).

As I suspected, the New "Spending Big Money on RP is actually SMRT" Wave isn't working out so well: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/offseason-spending-on-relievers-isnt-working-out/

Thanks UO on the fangraphs RP atricle. Is his conclusion for a few years or just this year (half complete).

His data pertaining to this year, definitely shows that the cheap relievers have outperformed the expensive relievers. In some cases but not all. If someone can produce good and bad value based on length of contract then the FOs around the league would be able to determine more.

Lets assume that W Davis has a 5-7 year contract. To me that is a contract that the fans will start complaining about in 2-3 years unless performance improves. The cheap contracts are 2-3 years in length. Excellent trade chips if owned by a non contender.

It's more like "Spending Big Money on any pitchers" didn't work this offseason. Here's MLBTR's Top 50 FA's.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/11/2017-18-top-50-mlb-free-agents-with-predictions.html

How many starters have been worth more than Marco "Half-man Half-toast" Estrada's 1.1 bWAR?

I see 1 (ONE). It ain't Darvish or Arrieta or Lynn or Cobb. Scroll all the way down to #50 - Miles Mikolas.