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Good morning, McCoven!
Today is the day that we find out what the future holds for Joe Panik. Panik has been the Giants’ starting second baseman since his rookie season in 2014, where he came in sixth in the Rookie of the Year voting and helped the team win their third World Series in the San Francisco era. He was an All Star the following season, where he put up the best numbers of his career thus far.
Unfortunately, he had a spinal fracture that season that wasn’t supposed to affect him once it healed. However, he’s been declining fairly steadily every season since and is currently one of the worst hitters in the game. He’s been getting out-hit by Donovan Solano and has already lost some starts because of it.
With the acquisitions of Scooter Gennett and Mauricio Dubon, the writing seems to be on the wall that Panik’s time as the starting second baseman may be coming to an end. Whether he chooses to allow the team to option him back to Sacramento (I believe he has to approve it, but I could be mistaken) or is DFA’d directly is yet to be seen. But we should know soon.