SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — No right-handed hitter has ever parked a ball into McCovey Cove.
But, over the course of his three-year, $42 million deal that became official Sunday, Jorge Soler should get about 900 attempts.
“No sé,” the humungous Cuban responded, with a humble smile, when asked about his chances of becoming the first.
No translation needed. Soler is large — 6-foot-4, 235 pounds — and powerful, with 66 of his 170 career home runs traveling 420 feet or farther. But there’s a reason it’s never been done. The Bay is a long way away for anybody hitting the ball to the opposite field.
“I think most of his power is over in left,” manager Bob Melvin weighed in. “But I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
Whether or not he makes history, Soler has made a splash here in Scottsdale, arriving Friday night, undergoing his physical Saturday and finally settling into his locker — situated between Wilmer Flores and LaMonte Wade Jr. — for the first time Sunday morning.
It took almost a week for the deal to become official after the sides came to an agreement late Monday night.
Melvin credited president Farhan Zaidi for doing “a great job closing this one,” a deal that netted him a much-needed middle-of-the-order power hitter to write on the lineup card everyday. Coming off a 36-home run season and his first career All-Star selection, “the four hole looks like a pretty good spot” for the soon-to-be 32-year-old, Melvin said.
“It puts a guy in a particular spot that we can count on everyday,” Melvin said. “This is a guy we’ve been talking about for a while. A legit 30-home run guy, has had success on big stages. You look at the hard-hit metrics and it seems like he’s top-five every year. So this is a guy that gives you a real impact. As a manager, you always know where he is and when he’s coming up.”
The Giants haven’t had a player hit 30 home runs since Barry Bonds slugged 45 back in 2004, the longest ongoing drought in the majors.
In Soler, they now have somebody who accomplished exactly that in the Marlins’ spacious home stadium — rated identically to Oracle Park by Statcast’s Park Factor metric — just last season, in addition to leading the majors with 48 homers for Kansas City in 2019.
“We view him as somebody who’s in his prime,” Zaidi said, adding that the length of the deal wasn’t a sticking point in negotiations, which began to ramp up in earnest after the team traded Mitch Haniger to the Mariners, opening the possibility of adding a full-time designated hitter.
For his career, Soler is a .317/.417/.512 hitter over 12 games at the Giants’ waterfront ballpark, homering twice.
“I expect to have good numbers there,” Soler said through Spanish-language interpreter Erwin Higueros. “The park is going to dictate where the ball goes, but I’m just going to try to do the same thing that I’ve done in the past.”
For the first time since it was brought to the National League in 2022, the Giants will have a full-time designated hitter. Last year, Joc Pederson’s 72 games at DH led the team, while the year before Tommy La Stella barely needed half that many (38) to lead the team.
It comes at the cost of some roster flexibility, removing the option of getting a player off his feet but keeping his bat in the lineup. But that’s a tradeoff Zaidi said he was happy to make.
“You’re talking about a guy who’s going to play everyday and be in one of the top four spots in your lineup,” Zaidi said. “It’s kind of hard to argue that flexibility and some of these other things outweigh that. It is going to be a reality of managing things.”
If there’s a knock on Soler, it is durability. He missed two weeks last season after straining his oblique, two months in 2022 with back spasms and had his 2020 season cut short by a month with another oblique strain — both on his right side. Getting him off the turf in Miami and fully into a DH role will mitigate that, the Giants hope.
That said, don’t expect to see much of Soler in the outfield.
“We kind of want to bubble wrap him and get him to the season,” Melvin said. “There’s gonna be a lot of DHing. There could be some times that you see him in the outfield. We want to keep him healthy. I think also playing on grass benefits him, too.”
The outfield, with Michael Conforto in left, Jung Hoo Lee in center and a platoon of Mike Yastrzemski and Austin Slater in right, “pretty locked in,” Zaidi said.
“I think for our younger group of outfielders, it’s going to be probably competing for a spot or two on the bench,” Zaidi said of the group that includes Luis Matos, Wade Meckler and Heliot Ramos.
With the team set to host its first full-squad workout of the spring Monday, the clock is ticking to Opening Day and the stalemate continues between Zaidi, Scott Boras and his four top clients, third baseman Matt Chapman, outfielder Cody Bellinger and starting pitchers Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery.
“It just gets harder, not just operationally to add people. But you feel some level of commitment and obligation to the guys who are here competing for jobs,” Zaidi said. “It’s a little bit more disruptive to add at this point. Anybody who’s a free agent, we theoretically have three and a half months to get a deal. If it hasn’t happened yet, at some point organizationally you just need to turn the page and focus on the players that you have in house.”
As for Wilmer Flores, their best hitter last season? It was expected that he and Conforto would share duties at designated hitter, but Zaidi said they aren’t concerned about finding him at-bats between his ability to move play both corner infield positions and pinch hit.
Flores led the team with 22 home runs last season.
Safe to say, Soler should make the number to beat higher this year.
Whether or not he puts one in the water? Zaidi gave the most optimistic odds when he was put on the spot.
“It’s a good question. I can’t say we spent a lot of time on that specific issue. But yeah, I think he’s got a — yeah, all right, this is just totally,” he said, stammering like someone thinking about the question for the first time. “Even odds on him getting one while he’s here!”
