It’s reasonable to ponder whether the Giants would be going all-in with Evan Longoria, Andrew McCutchen, a team full of veterans and a virtual maxed out payroll if Bruce Bochy – and perhaps Brian Sabean as well – weren’t nearing the end of their active runs with the club.
Since it’s unlikely they’d ever tell us, we can only make an educated guess. The guess here, whether you believe it to be educated or not, is no. The Giants would be re-tooling more modestly, gearing more long-range than short. They wouldn’t have pursued Longoria or McCutchen, and we’d be looking at Christian Arroyo at third base in 2018 and cheaper, younger options in the outfield alongside Hunter Pence during his final year in San Francisco.