The Giants aren’t ready to say that Angel Pagan will be their everyday center fielder and leadoff hitter, but that is management’s clear intention.

It’s Pagan’s intention, too.

“I was really happy with the trade,” said Pagan, on a conference call with the beat writers Thursday. “I’m going to a contending team, a great organization. If they need a leadoff man, I’ll be there.”

Pagan is the newest member of the organization. But he already understands the heart of the matter.

“The pitching staff is great. We all know that,” Pagan said. “We just need some run support so we can put those ballgames away.”

The lack of a productive leadoff man was the softest spot in the Giants’ marshmallow lineup last season, when they scored the fewest runs in the major leagues. Toward the end of his 44-game tenure as a Giant, Carlos Beltran delivered some public, unsolicited advice to the front office when he told me their first priority should be to get a legitimate No.1 hitter.

I’m not sure Beltran had his friend Pagan in mind. But when they talked earlier this year, Beltran told Pagan that he enjoyed the clubhouse experience in San Francisco.

“So I’m looking forward to spring training,” Pagan said.

Pagan didn’t often lead off for the Mets. That was Jose Reyes’ job, when healthy. But the Giants feel he has the speed, dependable contact skills (far, far fewer strikeouts than Andres Torres) and enough on-base ability to be an asset in that spot.

The Giants front office will wait until the spring to see if players like Aubrey Huff, Nate Schierholtz and Brandon Belt arrive in good condition and swing the bat well. There will be no shortage of combinations for Manager Bruce Bochy. But the more you sift through them, the more you realize that Pagan plugs in at center field most of the time.

It’ll be an automatic if Pagan has a season like 2010, when he hit .290 with a .340 on-base percentage, ripped off 47 extra-base hits and stole 37 bases.

He didn’t have that season in 2011, and blamed an oblique injury for the dropoff.

“When the injury happened, they put me on the DL. I wasn’t really happy with that,” Pagan said. “I missed 20 days and that got me out of rhythm. It was tough to find myself at the plate. It came little by little, and I was able to finish strong.”

Pagan described his leadoff philosophy as “to get on base as much as you can. If I’m the leadoff hitter, I’m going to see as many pitches as I can the first and second at-bats so my teammates can see. I love hitting with two strikes. I’m not afraid.”

As for center field, Pagan said, “I love it. You guys know center field (at Citi Field) is one of the biggest in the major leagues. I’ll be ready.”

What about the 10 errors he made last year, the second most among NL outfielders?

“Sometimes I’m too aggressive playing center field,” he said. “A ball in the gap, I’m trying to do everything to prevent a double. I had a couple throwing errors and hustling errors.”

Yet Pagan doesn’t plan to do anything differently.

“I can tell you I will stay aggressive all the time and I won’t change,” he said. “There are big gaps (in the NL West) and you want to keep guys out of scoring position.”

The Giants don’t have to worry about Pagan showing up out of shape. He’ll be motivated to produce as he approaches free agency, and he was known in New York as the best athlete on the team – even better than Reyes.

“I used to be a boxer,” said Pagan, a Puerto Rican native who laced up gloves for three years as a teenager. “You know how they train.”