2025 Season Reviews: Sacramento River Cats

 The AAA Sacramento River Cats were the usual collection of non-active players on the 40-man roster, AAAA players hoping for another shot, rehabbing MLB players and a few young prospects getting a bit more salt on their way up.  The River Cats finished the season with a 77-73 record good for 3'rd place in the western division.  They were 36-39 in the first half(4'th place) and 41-34 in the second half(2'nd place).  Here is a list of players who spend time on both the River Cats roster and the Giants active roster:

Drew Gilbert OF

David Villar 3B/1B

Andrew Knizner C

Christian Koss IF

Luis Matos OF

Daniel Johnson OF

Jerar Encarnacion OF/1B

Brett Wisely IF

Grant McCray OF

Bryce Eldridge 1B/DH

Tyler Fitzgerald 2B

Trevor McDonald RHP

Mason Black RHP

Carson Whisenhunt LHP

Carson Seymour RHP

Kai-Wei Teng RHP

Sean Hjelle RHP

Hayden Birdsong RHP

Joel Peguero RHP

Tristan Beck RHP

Kyle Harrison LHP

Joey Lucchesi LHP

Keaton Winn RHP

J T Brubaker RHP

Erik Miller LHP

Matt Gage LHP

Landen Roupp RHP

Hitting Leaders:

At Bats:  1.  Marco Luciano- 462.  2.  Grant McCray- 444.  Osleivis Basabe- 430.

Batting Average(Min 150 AB):  1.  Jesus Rodriguez- .322.  2.  Wade Meckler- .287.  3.  Daniel Johnson- .278.

OBP(Min 150 AB):  1.  Rodriguez- .399.  2.  Meckler- .390.  3.  Devin Mann- .382.

SLG%(Min 150 AB):  1.  Johnson- .519.  2.  Bryce Eldridge- .514.  3.  Thomas Gavello- .488.

Hits:  1.  McCray- 111.  2.  Basabe- 107.  3.  Luciano- 99.

Doubles:  1.  Basabe- 24.  2.  Luciano- 21.  3.  Meckler- 21.

Triples:  1.  Hunter Bishop- 6.  2.  McCray- 5.  3.  Johnson- 3.

Home Runs:  1.  Luciano- 23.  2.  Eldridge- 18.  3.  McCray- 15.

Stolen Bases:  1.  McCray- 27.  2.  Brett Wisely- 12.  3.  Bishop, Meckler- 11.

Pitching Leaders: 

Innings:  1. Trevor McDonald- 142.1.  2.  Mason Black- 119.1 3.  Carson Whisenhunt- 107.2.

Wins:  1. McDonald- 9.  Whisenhunt- 9.  Sean Hjelle- 6.

ERA(Min 50 IP):  1. Hjelle- 3.06.  2.  Miguel Diaz- 3.45.  3.  Kai-Wei Teng- 3.63.

K/9(Min 50 IP): 1.  Teng- 14.05.  2.  Ryan Watson- 11.37.  3.  Carson Seymour- 10.52.

BB/9(Min 50 IP):  1.  Watson- 2.84.  2.  Whisenhunt- 2.93.  3.  Teng- 3.47.

GO/AO(Min 50 IP):  1.   Seymour- 1.91.  2.  Hjelle- 1.73.  3.  McDonald- 1.68.

Saves:  1. Diaz- 9.  2.  Watson- 9.  3.  Justin Garza- 6.

Quality Starts:  1.  McDonald- 10.  2.  Black- 6.  Whisenhunt- 6.

2025 Season Reviews: San Francisco Giants(Hitting Splits)

We'll close out the San Francisco Giants 2025 Season Review with a not of optimism.  If it seemed like the Giants hit better in the second half, it wasn't a mirage.   Their Team OPS pre All-Star Break was  a measly .678, #24 in MLB.  Their second half Team OPS was much better at .724 good for #14.  Let's break that down to some of the individual players:

Willy Adames:

Pre All-Star:  .680

Post All-Star:  .829.

Jung Hoo Lee:

Pre All-Star:  .720

Post All-Star:  .759.

Patrick Bailey:

Pre All-Star:  .564

Post All-Star:  .647

Luis Matos:  

Pre All-Star:  .601

Post All-Star:  .794.

Christian Koss:

Pre All-Star:  .662

Post All-Star:  .695.

Dominic Smith:

Pre All-Star:  .682

Post All-Star:  .795

Some players did about the same or worse Post All-Star:

Matt Chapman:

Pre All-Star:  .773

Post All-Star:  .767

Heliot Ramos:

Pre All-Star:  .766

Post All-Star:  .674.

Casey Schmitt:

Pre All-Star:  .741

Post All-Star:  .684.

Wilmer Flores:

Pre All-Star:  .696

Post All-Star:  .656

Rafael Devers is tougher since he was traded on June 16.  He was better in the second half even including his Red Sox numbers:  .844 vs .861.  Here are his monthly splits(Giants only):

June:  .620

July:   .705

August:  .989

September:  .774.

Comments:  There are reasons to think the second half improvements were more than random regression:  Adames was trying too hard in the first half(he is also a notoriously slow starter).  Lee made definite adjustments at the All-Star Break.  Bailey got off to a terrible start, tried a torpedo bat that seemed to make things worse.  He improved noticeably when he went back to a standard bat.  Christian Koss obviously worked his but off to get better.  Dominic Smith found a home.  Luis Matos batted .415 in August but then was sent back to AAA after batting .143 in just 6 games in September.  Why?  Of the regressers, I think Ramos and Schmitt are the most concerning.  Chapman battled a sore hand most of the season and Flores probably won't be back in 2026.  It took Devers 2-3 weeks to recover from the shock of the trade but after that he was everything the Buster Posey and the Giants hoped for.

2025 Season Reviews: San Francisco Giants(Pitching)

Although the Giants pitching, particularly the bullpen, failed at critical times, overall the pitching was better than the hitting.  Once again the Giants proved the saying, you can never have too much pitching, as depth became a problem as the season progressed due to injuries and trades.

Team Stats and Rankings:

ERA- 3.82(10)

HR Allowed- 143(1)

BA Allowed- .248(20)

Saves- 41(15)

Save Opps- 63(18)

Blown Saves- 19(3)

K/9- 8.52(16)

BB/9-  3.18(15)

GB/FB- 1.29(3)

LD%- 19.6(11)

HR/FB%- 9.9(2)

Hard Contact%- 29.6(29)

Med Contact%-  53.9(3)

Soft Contact%- 16.5(5)

Takeaways:  1.  Giants pitchers did three things really well: kept the ball on the ground, did not allow home runs, limited hard contact.  2.  While it sure seemed like to a lot of fans, including me, that the season was lost due to blown saves, they were actually had the third lowest Blown Saves in MLB.  The problem was they were not presented with enough Save Opportunities, mainly due to their poor hitting(This does not mean Blown Saves were not a problem nor that Ryan Walker should be the Closer next season).

Individual Stats:

Starts:  1.  Webb 34.  2.  Ray 32.  3. Verlander 29.  4. Landen Roupp 22.

Innings:  1.  Webb 207.  2.  Ray  182.1.  Verlander  152.  4. Landen Roupp 106.2.

Strikeouts:  1.  Webb 224.  2.  Ray  186.  Verlander  137.  4.  Landen Roupp 102.

GIDP:  1.  Webb 22.  2.  Bivens 9.  Ray 8.

Saves:  1.  Walker 17.  2.  Doval 15.  3.  Rodriguez 4.  4.  Spencer Bivens 3.  5.  Tristan Beck 2.

Blown Saves:  1.  Walker 6.  2.  Doval 4.  3. Butto, Rodriguez 3.

2025 Season Reviews: San Francisco Giants(By the Numbers- Batting)

Having reviewed the up and down, streaky narrative of the Giants 2025 season, let's look at how the numbers stacked up.  We'll first look at where they ranked as a team against other MLB teams and then look at who the team leaders were in statistical categories.  

Team Stat Rankings:

Runs:  705(17).

Hits:  1261(26).

Doubles:  239(28)

Triples:  28(6).

HR:  173(19)

Walks:  556(6).

Strikeouts:  1380(12)

BB%:  9.2(4)

K%:  22.7(13)

BB/K:  0.40(10)

SB:  68(29)

CS:  24(27)

BA:  .235(25)

OBP:  .311(20)

SLG%:  .386(25)

HBP:  66(12)

Sac:  22(9)

SF:  52(6).

GIDP:  103(14)

GB/FB:  0.98(22)

BABIP:  .281(25)

Hard Hit%:  30.1(26)

Med Hit%:  53.5(6)

Soft Hit%:  16.4(6)

Oppo Field%:  24.7(9)

Cent%:  33.6(29)

Pull%:  41.7(13)

HR/FB 10.5(22)

A few points here: 

1.  Strikeouts were NOT the problem with this team.  The Giants were solidly in the top third of the league in walks, near the top third in least K's and their BB/K was top third.  

2.  I am never sure what people mean when they speak of "situational hitting" but the Giants were in the top third in at least one situational category:  Sac Flies.  

3.  If you had the feeling the Giants hit into bad luck all season, the numbers support you as they were solidly bottom third in BABIP(for comparison their BABIP was .290 or almost 10 points higher in 2024 when they ranked #15, so this is a number that should regress positively in 2026).

4.  Part of the BABIP problem is likely that they hit the ball in the air a lot and didn't hit it hard often enough.  HR/FB is supposed to normalize with large enough sample sizes.  Does that mean flyball hard-hit rates also normalize?  

Now that we've wrung team stats dry, let's look at team leaders in the standard categories:  

PA:  1.  Ramos 695.  2.  Adames 686.  3.  Lee 617.

Runs:  1.  Adames 94.  2.  Ramos 85.  Chapman 76

Hits:  1. Ramos 159.  2.  Lee 149.  3.  Adames 133.

Doubles:  1.  Lee 31.  2.  Ramos 24. 3. Chapman 23.

Triples:  1.  Lee 12.  2.  Bailey 3.  3.  Adames, Chapman, Wade Jr 2.

HR:  1.  Adames 30.  2.  Chapman 21.  3.  Ramos 21.  4.  Devers 20.

RBI:  1. Adames 87.  2.  Flores 71.  3.  Ramos 69.  

Walks:  1.  Adames 80.  2.  Chapman 71.  3.  Devers 56.

Strikeouts:  1.  Adames 179.  2.  Ramos 158.  3.  Bailey 133.

SB:  1.  Adames 12.  2.  Lee 10.  3.  Chapman, Fitzgerald 9.

BA(Qualified):  1.  Lee .266.  2.  Ramos .256. 3.  Chapman .231.

OBP:  1. Chapman .340.  2.  Ramos .328.  3.  Lee .327.

SLG%:  1. Chapman .430.  2.  Adames .421.  Lee .407.

If you add in players who had more 150 or more AB's, Dominic Smith led in BA with .284 and Christian Koss batted .264.  Devers led in SLG% with .460.

2025 Season Reviews: San Francisco Giants(The Narrative)

 The Giants 2025 season was one of the odder ones in my memory characterized by a great start, several strong player performances, some bitter disappointments and several brutal losing streaks.  In the end they finished 81-81, another mediocre,  middling, lukewarm performance that left both fans and upper management frustrated culminating in Bob Melvin being fired as field manager.  The reasons behind this outcome have already been hashed and rehashed.  I am not sure I have anything left to add to all the shouting but I did piece together a timeline which I think sheds some light.  

After getting off to a hot start despite early struggles by Matt Chapman 3B and Willy Adames SS, the Giants stood at 41-29, 12 games over .500 on June 13 after Logan Webb RHP outdueled Yoshinobu Yamamoto RHP to beat the Dodgers.  12 games over .500 on June 13.  Let that sink in.  It was disappointing but unsurprising they lost the next two games in LA but they went 4-11 over the last 15 games of June including a stretch where they went 1-6 against the Marlins, White Sox and D'Backs.

They recovered a bit in early July and defeated the Dodgers at home on July 8 behind Logan Webb.  They again lost the last two games of that series and spiraled to a 2-12 record over the rest of the month including a brutal home series sweep to the Mets and Pirates leading up to the trade deadline.  At that point, Buster Posey had seen enough and sold impending free agents Tyler Rogers RHP and Mike Yastrzemski OF as well as Camilo Doval RHP for a shipload of prospects.  

The Giants went 5-2 immediately after the trades but then went on a 7-game losing streak, part of a 2-11 stretch.  They were now 7 games below .500 and all but out of it.  Inexplicably they then went on an 11-1 stretch to get 3 games over .500 and back in the wild card race.  They reached another high-water mark when they beat LA 5-1 in extra innings on Patrick Bailey's walk-off grand slam.  For the third time after a series-opening win against the Dodgers they faceplanted and went 2-9 before a 4-game win streak to end the season got them back to .500.  

So whatheheck happened?  Bob Melvin didn't have answers which probably contributed to him losing his job.  Buster Posey struggled for words at his end-of-season press conference.  The beat writers keep asking questions but offer few answers.  I don't think it was any one thing but a series of confounding factors.  Matt Chapman went on the IL with a hand injury on June 9 and was clearly limited by the hand until late in the season.  By the timeline, his loss seems to be a huge factor.  I think the June 16 trade came as a shock to Rafael Devers who needed time to get settled into his new situation.  While Devers eventually made a major contribution, the trade initially seemed to destabilize the team(although the dark clouds had already gathered).  The team seemed to struggle with the pressure of winning.  Three times they went on prolonged losing streaks after reaching high-water marks in series-opening games against the Dodgers.  Is that on Bob Melvin or a part of the basic mental makeup of the core players?  That's kind of a scary question and one which may reveal itself next season.