The holiday season is upon us and it’s time to stock up on warm-and-fuzzies while the supply is still high. What better way to do that than by reflecting on one of the Giants’ all-time greats? Grab your Snuggie and your eggnog and settle in for a cozy look at a Giants legend.

Recently, a photograph of a decidedly fit Tim Lincecum circled the Internet along with rumors that the two-time Cy Young winner plans to make a comeback. Like any warm-blooded Giants fan, Big Time Timmy Jim gets my blood pumping. Tim Lincecum–along with Matt Cain–played the role of the vanguard. Timmy led the Giants from the post-Bondspocalypse to the World Champion Giants we have come accustomed to all too quickly. With all this talk of Tim Lincecum in the air, I thought it appropriate to write a tribute to a special member of the Giants.

That player, of course, is Gorkys Hernandez.

While Timmy embodies the transition from middling to championship-caliber Giants, Gorkys embodies something else entirely. What that is, remains to be seen. For the entirety of this prolonged playoff run, the Giants have had one kind of centerfielder. In 2010, a career journeyman by the name of Andres Torres manned the spacious centerfield territory of AT&T park. Torres, who posted 5.3 of his career 7.7 rWAR in that year, stole some bases, played decent defense, and hit the ball fairly well. Inexplicably, the Mets agreed to swap Torres after a down 2011 year for Angel Pagan. Pagan played in a similar mold to Torres–whom the Mets released and the Giants later reacquired in a forgettable 2013 campaign–stealing bases, playing some decent defense, and hitting the ball with some consistency. In between Angel Pagan’s regular disabled list vacations, Gregor Blanco manned centerfield. Blanco–and I’m sure this shocks you–stole some bases, played some decent defense, and hit the ball a tad. Which leaves us primed for 2017–Gorkys Hernandez. Gorkys stole 12 bases, his defense had its moments, and he started to figure out the whole hitting thing.

Gorkys, Gorkys, Gorkys. What a character. The Giants opened the 2017 season with the formidable outfield styling of Jarrett Parker, Hunter Pence, Denard Span, and some dude named Gorkys. Ah, to revel in those days of yore when Gorkys was but a warm body on the bench. But alas, this is a Gorkys tribute.

Gorkys was supposed to be a defense-first bench player in the same vein as perennial 100-game starter Gregor Blanco. Like Blanco, however, The Gork ended up starting for a majority of the season. Whereas Gregor Blanco consistently surprised with his spark and above-average play on some championship-caliber teams, Gorkys surprised by being almost not bad on a team that was, well, bad. After a comical start to the season, The Gorkenning finished the season hitting .255/.327/.326. Now, let’s not fool ourselves, those numbers are bad. But this is Gorkys Hernandez we’re talking about. Did anybody expect the Gork to hit nearly .260 this year? No? Legend.

For the sake of some purely unbiased analytical comparison, here is Mike Trout in 2011:

.220/.281/.390

Compared to Gorkys in 2017:

.255/.326/.327

Am I embarrassed that I have Gorkys Hernandez’ 2017 triple slash line memorized? Maybe a little. Does that change the fact that the Artist Formerly Known as Gorkys nearly hit better than Mike Trout did in 2011? No.

Now, while this does not necessarily mean that Gorkys will hit better than Mike Trout in 2018, we can safely assume he will. After all, Mike Trout is named after a fish whereas Gorkperion is a Greek God.

Let’s not forget 2017, however. Much as the Giants scuffled, Gorkys did not. This tells us something about the 2017 Giants. A player who nearly scraped replacement level stood out in the outfield. According to Baseball Reference, the Giants would have won two more games had they had a replacement-level outfield. That’s bad. Two more games maketh not a winning season, but adding two wins via replacement-level players doth make a losing season.

Maybe Gorkys won’t make the impact that Tim Lincecum made in San Francisco, but in 2017, Gorkys was a Giants legend.