The Giants know they can't have another season like they did in 2017. Changes to the roster are coming, but in what fashion is the biggest question.

While certain players like Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner will not even be brought up, are there any other players safe from trades?

"There's going to be some painful decisions," Executive Vice President Brian Sabean said Friday on the "TK Show. "I guess the best way to say it is we've come to the realization, to do what we need to do, to be competitive to start the year and hopefully have to also roll into making some moves at the deadline, is that we're going to have to make some tough choices and may have to move some payroll, which means moving some people who perhaps we wouldn't under a normal circumstance."

Sabean has listed the team's three positions of need as center field, third base and creating a shut-down bullpen. In doing so, Sabean hopes to roll out a younger, more athletic roster in 2018.

"We do need upgrades in certain and key positions. High on the wish list is to get younger, more athletic and play better defense overall," Sabean said.

If you think going younger means there will a rebuild in San Francisco, think again. Sabean refuses to use that word and sees this offseason as an opportunity to create a playoff team like the Giants have done in the past.

"I think we're prepared to do as much as we have to without gutting the team or without having to peel it all the way back from a payroll sense. It's best use a phrase perhaps like 'reset.' It's not going to be a rebuild. We don't have the time or the patience to go through something like that, so the charge is going to be much like years ago -- '96 going into '97, 2010, '11 going into '12, '13 going into '14 etc."

The Giants went from worst to first in 1997 and went on to win the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014 after not making the playoffs in the previous season.