San Francisco Giants sign Melvin Upton Jr.

The San Francisco Giants have signed veteran Melvin Upton Jr. to a minor league contract.

The San Francisco Giants announced today that they have signed Melvin Upton Jr. to a minor league deal. There had been rumors surrounding this news for a while, but the deal had yet to be officially completed. Upton will likely spend a majority of his time with the Giants Triple-A affiliate, the Sacramento River Cats.

This move by the Giants may come as a surprise to some, but in reality it was practically forced by the Giants left fielders.

Upton is currently in Arizona going through extended spring training in order to get himself ready for his Triple-A assignment. Don’t expect Upton to stay with Triple-A Sacramento for long as the starting left-fielders have been atrocious for the Giants.

Jarrett Parker has one hit in 14 at-bats resulting in a .071 batting average. Chris Marrero has one hit in 17 at-bats for a slightly worse .059 average. Luckily, they have one left fielder with more than one hit, Gorkys Hernandez. He has two, yes two hits, through 25 at-bats for a batting average of .080. That’s some amazing production from the three starters the Giants have had in left-field.

Maybe the idea behind signing Upton Jr. was to bring in someone who could spark a fire under these guys and create competition. Or maybe he is intended to beat them all out for the starting position.

For some reason I don’t see that happening as last year Upton’s numbers were nothing to be excited about. He batted a meager .238 but did have a little bit of pop as he homered 20 times. However, Upton Jr. found a way to strike out 155 times in only 149 games.

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Melvin Upton Jr. is a low risk signing for the San Francisco Giants but could prove to be a smart one if Upton can correct his woes at the plate.