2024 Depth Charts: Corner OF

This is where it gets fun!

Photo Credit: Richmond Flying Squirrels

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Holy cow! We have incoming! Jon Heyman has reported that the Giants have agreed to terms with Jung-Hoo Lee for a stunning $113m.

We need to remember those fatal words “pending physical,” particularly for a speed-based player coming off a major ankle injury, but this is certainly a jolt of exciting. Fortunately, I’m not looking at the CF Depth Chart today — but will be soon! And I’ll be sure to dig into a full report on Lee when I get there. The prospect rankings are definitely getting rankled with yesterday’s news! We’ll look into the Lee signing soon, after today’s post (already written and edited) goes out.

Right-handed pitching is definitely the deepest position in the organization, and left-handed pitching is probably the sexiest. But you can craft a solid argument that corner outfield is the most fun of all the depth charts — and fun in a solid variety of ways, as we’ll see below the jump!

So far in this year’s Depth Charts series, we’ve covered:

• 2b

• RHP - Starters

There were a variety of chinks in the armor that led to last season’s stunning collapse, but certainly one of the most obvious throughout the season was an outfield that was one of the worst in MLB — by fWAR, the collective 3.5 was tied (with the Nats) for 25th worst in baseball (I know “best” is the appropriate nomenclature there, but at a certain point, you pass the threshold where that word can legitimately have meaning), trailing even the Oakland A’s, who managed 3.6.

It’s no secret that fixing that outfield situation is high on the priority list of this front office. Near-term, that need is focused in the center of the diamond (and we’ll get to CF in a little while), but in the overall long-term planning, all three outfield spots need to be upgraded and stabilized. And they’ve needed it for far too long at this point. It’s well-known, of course, that the Giants have started 18 different LF over the past 19 opening days, but it’s somewhat less commented that they’ve also started 13 different RF in that time, with Hunter Pence being a Sea of Stability in another otherwise tumultuous recent history (if you go back even further, the Giants have started 17 RF and 18 LF in the last 24 years for a nearly equivalent level of uncertainty).

In 2023, we started to see the makings of a future in this area of the roster, and, though first impressions weren’t necessarily as strong as hoped, there is certainly reason to be optimistic about the corners.