MLB SHOWDOWN 2018 SET -- San Francisco Giants

WHEW Matt's been on absolute fire lately, which means the San Francisco Giants are here for us all! The Giants limped to 73 wins (and a 70-92 Pythagorean record) in a year many were hoping the dynasty of the 2010s would recapture that "even year magic" after challenging the Cubs in the 2016 NLDS and winning the World Series in 2010, 2012, and 2014. Unfortunately, age caught up to San Fran and the lineup was extremely underwhelming. Injuries also crippled the team, with only five players making 100 starts or more (including Yankee Andrew McCutchin). However, from a Showdown perspective, there's a lot of affordable and interesting cards on this team that managers will undoubtedly be snatching up in their drafts! So without further ado, the 2018 San Francisco Giants!

Lineup:

YIKES -- not a great lineup, not at all! However, Buster Posey is going to be one of the first catchers drafted in most leagues with his solid +6 defense and well above-average OB 9 (albeit with no power) for an extremely affordable 260 points. The real bargain comes after *the All Star!!* (as Buster is affectionately nicknamed at this blog) in Brandon Belt, my #1 value pick in the entire set!! For a mere 260 points, you get an OB 8 with solid pop, good speed, and +2 fielding -- Belt is exactly the sort of mid-round glue guy a team needs to provide affordable support in all areas of the game to a 5000 point team! Plus, his picture is amazing (well done Matt!!). After the big two, Crawford is probably the only "drafting as planned" player left, but he's really only valuable for his +5 defense. Austin Slater will likely find his way onto teams as a cheap number 8 or 9 hitter, but don't seek him out as an option. I may draft Hunter Pence for his picture. If you're in a massive league that'll have to use a plethora of Control 2 and 1 pitchers, then maybe consider Pablo and Longoria. But again, this is an abysmal lineup (and the bench sucks too).

Rotation: The Giants do bring some good arms to the rotation, including a pair of Tier 3 starters and the solid, no doubles Mad Bum. A lot of these guys will get drafted, although Dereck will sadly get undervalued and (likely) discarded due to fears about the low control. Meanwhile Suarez brings a dependable, solid Tier 4 card that'll probably end up as someone's #4 starter. Stratton won't get picked unless someone's budget went awry, but at least his black jersey pops great on the orange background that Matt absolutely nailed! Overall a decent rotation!

Bullpen: The strength of the team, which is becoming a surprising theme with the NL's bottom dwelling teams... perhaps the hype about bullpen strength is a little overblown? The two top guys will definitely be drafted here, including current trade deadline talking point Will Smith. Smith's got the elite Tier 2 card that people LOVE in drafts. He's followed up by Tony Watson, who's still a Tier 2 but will drop in the draft due to the Control 3. Meanwhile Sam Dyson is a solid Tier 3, Control 3 pitcher who'll be a last three rounds draft pick in most 10 team leagues. Ty Blanch is terrible but actually may get drafted simply for being (a) a Control 2 who doesn't give up HR for (b) under 50 points while (c) getting a 2 IP. That's a valuable 5th or 6th bullpen arm to give you innings during blowout games!

Major thanks to Matt (@mlbshowdowncup on Twitter) for doing 90% of the work on these bad boys! Matt's also got the Phillies done, so I'm just going to clean them up and get them posted sometime in the next week -- then it'll just be the Reds and the Mariners to go! Thanks for your patience as always and (believe it or not), we're 90% of the way done and have ALMOST produced the promised 2018 Showdown Set (approximately 600 Showdown cards FOR FREE)! Everyone here hopes that you've been enjoying them and getting to play with them! As always, stay tuned for more 2018 teams and other exciting content (especially once this dang set has been finalized)!