Hot Stove Update: Giants Re-Sign Gordon Beckham

Hey team!  I'm back from my journey.

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The Giants have signed infielder Gordon Beckham to a minor league contract with a provision that he will be paid $1.5 M for the season if he makes the 25 man roster out of spring training.  As I am sure all of you know, Beckham was once considered an elite draft prospect.  In fact, prior to the 2008 draft, some analysts were speculating that the Giants might like Beckham better than Buster Posey.  Happily in the end, the Giants took Buster at #5 overall and Beckham went to the White Sox at #8.  Buster went on to win a MVP and 3 Rings while Beckham's career sputtered and ultimately never took off.  He was released last year by the Atlanta Braves and signed by the Giants who had run out of infield options.  Beckham went 0 for 5 with the Giants but was credited with bringing some life to a very stale atmosphere in the clubhouse.  In particular, it was reported that Beckham was able to bring Buster Posey out of his shell and loosen him up a bit.  Alex Pavlovic of CSNBA also reports that at least one player took the trouble of contacting Giants management in the offseason to point out the contribution Beckham made to the clubhouse is such a short period of time.

Someone asked Keith Law in his last Klawchat why he thought Beckham's career never took off.  Law's reply was interesting.  He said that when he scouted Beckham as a sophomore in college, he noted a significant hitch in his swing that slowed his bat's path the the ball.  His junior season was so great, though, that Law decided that he must have enough fast-twitch natural ability that the hitch did not matter and went ahead and raised his ranking to match the consensus.  Law went on to say that Beckham was never able to remove the hitch from his swing and it slowed his bat down enough that he was never able to consistently handle MLB pitching.  Just for the record, here is Gordon Beckham's stat line from last season for the Braves and Giants(again, only 5 of the PA's were with the Giants):

.212/.294/.347, 16 SB, 3B, 5 HR, 9.3 BB%, 18.6 K%, 279 PA.

The BB and K percents are excellent and there is a bit of pop there.

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Beckham's signing adds to an already enormous logjam of competitors for a relatively small number of roster spots in 2017.  Just for review, there are 25 Active Roster spots.  8 Starting Postion Players, 5 SP's, 6-8 bullpen slots and 4-6 reserve position players.  The most common distribution is 7 relief pitchers and 5 positional reserves.  In the past 2 seasons, the Giants have often rostered 8 relief pitchers and just 4 positional reserves.  One positional reserve slot has to be a backup catcher, who usually does not play any other position leaving just 3-4 non-catcher slots available.  With that in mind, let's take a look at will be competing for those precious roster spots.

Barring injury, it appears the Giants have 7 of 8 starting position spots in place:

C  Posey, 1B, Belt, 2B Panik, 3B Nunez, SS Crawford, CF Denard Span, RF Hunter Pence.

Left Field is open with Mac Williamson and Jarrett Parker identified by Giants management as the frontrunners, but you have to believe the job is open for other to challenge.  Nick Hundley is the backup catcher so you can add that to the "taken" list.  The bench has to include someone who can play CF and someone else who can play SS, unless one person is capable of playing both, an unusual circumstance.

In summary, the Giants appear to have 4 open non-pitching roster spots:  LF and 4 bench players split between IF and OF, unless they carry 8 relief pitchers and it's just 3 positional bench players.

Now, let's finally take a look at who all will be competing for these 4-5 roster spots and what positions they are capable of playing:

Players on the 40 Man Roster:

Mac Williamson- RF, LF.
Jarrett Parker- RF, LF, CF?
Gorkys Hernandez- CF, LF, RF?
Conor Gillaspie- 3B, 1B, 2B?
Kelby Tomlinson- 2B, SS, 3B?, OF?
Orlando Calixte- SS, OF, 2B, 3B?

Minor League Contracts with Spring Training Invitations:

Jimmy Rollins- SS, 2B?, 3B?
Jae-Gyun Hwang- 3B, 1B?, LF?, SS?
Kyle Blanks- 1B.
Wynton Bernard- CF, RF, LF.
Michael Morse- 1B, LF?
Justin Ruggiano- RF, LF, CF?
Gordon Beckham- 2B, 3B, 1B, SS?

I did not include prospects who will almost certainly end up in the minor leagues, at at least to start the season including Christian Arroyo and Austin Slater.  That leaves 13 players vying for 4-5 positional roster spots, and the Hot Stove has not been extinguished yet.  How do you see it shaking out?