The San Francisco Giants signed centerfielder Jung Hoo Lee to a long term deal to be their everyday leadoff hitter last offseason. Unfortunately, he suffered a season ending injury early in the season. After crashing into the outfield wall in May, he underwent labrum surgery and went on the 60-day injured list, ending his season.

After winning an MVP and five Gold Gloves in the KBO, he didn’t get much time to adjust in the Major Leagues, but got off to a pretty good start showing off what he was known best for in the KBO.

In 37 games before the injury, he hit .262 with a .641 OPS with four doubles, two home runs and two stolen bases from the leadoff spot. What was most impressive, however, was his 13 strikeouts to 10 walks.

He showed an uncanny ability to control the strikezone which is exactly what the Giants need in a leadoff hitter.

At the Winter Meetings, San Francisco provided an update on Lee going forward.

“Jung Hoo is good to go. Jung Hoo is ready,” said manager Bob Melvin.

Furthermore, Melvin said that Lee’s rehab went well and he will not have any restrictions moving forward into Spring Training.

Lee rehabbed all throughout the season, so to hear that news is good for the Giants. Not only will they get a disciplined hitter who will fill the leadoff role everyday, but they will get a solidified option in center field.

After Lee went down, San Francisco cobbled together both of those aspects of the lineup. Heliot Ramos got the most time in center with 60 games, but that was split up among all of the outfielders. As for the leadoff spot, that role went to Tyler Fitzgerald most of the time once his breakout really began and after the Jorge Soler trade.

Not only will Lee coming back be good for the stability and bolster the lineup even more with the addidtion of Willy Adames, it will be good for Lee as a player. He didn’t get much time to adjust to the new league last season and could have a breakout season the more he plays.

Without restrictions in Spring Training, he will be able to get tons of reps against big league pitching before the regular season starts. He is full go for next season, and another reason for the Giants to be excited about the 2025 lineup.

San Francisco State University staff are facing layoffs as the university deals with budget issues.

Sean Connelly has made his career as an adjunct lecturer in the Humanities Department at San Francisco State University.

“I spent 17 years of my life here. And I did the best job I possibly could,” said Connelly as he was walking into the humanities building for one of the last times as an employee.  

He’s one of dozens of adjunct lecturers who are losing their jobs as SF State cuts its staff amid a shrinking budget.

“It means the rupturing of a community. To lose that is angering.  It’s infuriating because I know it doesn’t have to go that way. It doesn’t have to break that way. This is a choice,” he said.

Although adjunct lecturers like Connelly are experts in their field, they typically work on year-to-year contracts with less job security than tenured faculty.

The university won’t say how many lecturers are being let go.

But a statement from the president’s office says lecturer hiring is tied to student enrollment and the numbers are down.

“SF State’s enrollment has been declining as part of a local and national trend of fewer college-going students. As enrollment has declined, unfortunately, lecturer faculty are being significantly impacted as there are fewer sections to teach – especially course sections which are populated by incoming freshmen.”

The university says enrollment is below 24,000 students, down from about 30,000 in recent years.

 “It’s been a part of my life for most of my life this university,” said Jolie Goorjian, who is losing her job as a literature and English lecturer after 23 years.

She first came to the university as a 17-year-old student and earned undergrad and graduate degrees from SFSU.

For her, parting ways is taking a heavy toll.

“It’s a labor of love. We’re not paid well. We work really hard during the school year, and we’re devoted to our students, and we’re devoted to this institution that is obviously not reciprocal in its treatment of us. Which also makes it very difficult,” Goorjian said.

Some students are starting to speak out about the cuts and spreading the word that amid the rising cost of education, there could be fewer courses, and more crowded classrooms at the school. 

First-year student and Army Veteran Tiy Todd is sharing attention-grabbing missing person posters on campus.

They have the pictures of SF State lecturers who will be missing next semester.

“I’m going to fight for what’s right or what I believe is right and that’s for people to be able to major in what they want to. Make smaller classes, make it available. Don’t take it away. Don’t make people in this economy unemployed,” Todd said.

Goorjian is taking steps to retire and possibly find a new career.

And Sean Connelly is also looking for work.

“I’ve been thinking I could do some good things in the prison system because I know there are people there who are very hungry for some sort of education. But I want to keep teaching because it’s what I love and I think I’m pretty good at it. And everyone deserves to have a good education,” he said.

Connelly and Goorjian’s last day of teaching at SF State is Dec. 11.

San Francisco has built fewer homes this year than any year since the Great Recession.

Developers in the city completed 1,205 homes year-to-date — less than half of the 2,593 homes built last year and less than the nearly 1,300 homes produced in 2011 and 2012 in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The number of homes constructed in San Francisco this year dwarf the number homes built in the boom years of  2016-2021, when developers completed 4,500 to 5,250 units.

The dearth in construction makes the city likely to fail in meeting its state-mandated goal of building 82,000 homes by 2031. 

Now two years into its eight-year cycle, San Francisco has completed 4.4 percent of its Regional Housing Needs Allocation goal.

To meet the goal, the city would have to average 13,000 units a year over the next six years. This year, its more than 1,200 homes include 600 affordable units. There are 4,792 units under construction, of which 2,210 are affordable.

At the same time, developers are preparing to build more housing, according to the Chronicle.

And with lower interest rates and a revitalized Downtown market, San Francisco could go from sitting in doldrums to a frothy bow wave of building homes.

This year, city housing officials have created enhanced infrastructure financing districts to allow builders to borrow money against future tax revenue to expand streets and utilities. 

A district was created at the 2,600-unit Potrero Power Station, where the first 105-unit affordable complex has broken ground. New infrastructure has allowed 537 units to be completed at Mission Rock, and 1,000 homes being built on Treasure Island.

Infrastructure work will spur 1,525 homes at India Basin, with site preparation slated to start next year. A first phase of 282 affordable apartments is also expected to start at Balboa Reservoir, with plans for 1,100 homes.

The city is in talks with Prado Group, the developer of 3333 and 3700 California Street in Laurel Heights, about creating an EIFD, Judson True, director of housing delivery for Mayor London Breed, told the Chronicle. The two projects would add up to a combined 1,236 homes.

Multiphase projects, from Pier 70 to Potrero Power Station to Treasure Island to Candlestick Point, would result in 38,000 of the 72,000 units in the city’s development pipeline. 

“The table is set to create vibrant new neighborhoods and build thousands of homes as economic conditions improve,” True told the Chronicle. “We’re much better at helping get the infrastructure built, which has been a major impediment in the past.”

Next year, the city is required by the state to rezone parts of the city to allow multifamily housing in neighborhoods that have traditionally not seen construction, including the Marina, Cow Hollow, West Portal and the Sunset and Richmond districts. 

Some 800 construction trades specialists are unemployed. 

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Development

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SF building costs increase less than national average

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Home construction falls 10% across the Bay Area

Residential

San Francisco

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Breed resists plan to build 75 affordable homes in SF’s Hayes Valley

Rudy Gonzalez, secretary-treasurer of the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council, said multifamily developers are winning the approvals needed to add homes to already entitled but delayed housing projects, which should help make them financially feasible.

“That is not people doing it for fun, they are doing it because it’s the only way projects have a chance of working right now,” Gonzalez told the Chronicle. “Multifamily is going to pencil when it pencils.”

— Dana Bartholomew