I found myself meditating on the Giants 2024 season which, based on reading comments here and other Giants-oriented social media sites, most fans hated. On one level, I hated it too. I want the Giants to win the World Series as bad as any fan alive, although at least I know know when my life ends I have witnessed not just one Giants World Series win but 3! From a results-oriented perspective, 2024 was an extremely disappointing if not disastrous season. Farhan Zaidi deserved to be fired, not just for the outcome of the one season but for his overall body of work and apparent dysfunction at multiple levels of the organization.
On the other hand, if the prospect of winning the World Series or getting into the postseason the only reason we hardcore fans watch the game? If that was the case, I can count on less than two hands the total number of seasons worth watching in my lifetime. Speaking for myself, I find fascinating things to watch and remember from almost every season, no matter how disappointing or unsuccessful from a W-L standpoint. Even the 2023 season, which IMO, was way more disastrous than 2024, was fascinating to watch as the team descended into under chaos on the field leading up to Gabe Kapler's emergency firing. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like that in almost 60 years of following this team. Horrifying but also fascinating enough I couldn't not watch it.
With that in mind, here are some the experiences from the 2024 season that made it enjoyable and worth watching despite the lack of success in making the postseason:
Matt Chapman's Defense. What a joy to watch! It was like you wanted to watch every game just to see him make another amazing play. The one game-saving, bare-handed play has to be one of the greatest defensive plays I've ever seen and I spent 13 seasons watching Brandon Crawford play shortstop. Chappy wasn't too shabby at the plate either. Much better than I anticipated. I knew he was a good defender but the D was an absolute revelation too.
The Jorge Soler roller-coaster ride. Overall, Jorge Soler's tenure with the Giants was a disaster but fascinating to watch at the same time. From completely face-planting as a middle-of-the-order power bat to actually making some contributions after Bob Melvin moved him to leadoff hitter to his uexpected trade to the Braves at the deadline. I found the whole saga interesting, if frustrating to watch. Even the trade was a disaster and a microcosm of why FZ needed to go. The Giants offense was measurably worse after Soler's departure and FZ had no plan to replace his contribution, little as it was. He said the plan was for Marco Luciano to be the DH but that lasted, what, one game? From then on DH was one more black hole in the lineup.
Heliot Ramos and Tyler Fitzgerald. How fun was it to watch a couple of rooks, one who had dropped off the prospect radar screen and another who was never on it, come up and win starting jobs and make some memorable plays in the process. Ramos became the first right-handed batter with a Splash Hit in the entire history of PacBell/AT&T/Oracle Park. Did you see it in person or on TV? I saw it on TV. And didn't Fitz set some sort of record for a certain number of home runs within a certain number of days?
Kyle Harrison and Hayden Birdsong. They had their ups and downs but I enjoyed watching both of them take their first steps toward becoming building blocks for the Giants rotation of the future. There were several other young potential future starters or relievers who made their MLB debut. Maybe someday we'll look back and say it was fool's gold but maybe we'll look back and say we saw the next Giants dynasty form.
Ryan Walker's emergence as the Giants Closer. He's got that extreme cross-over delivery and man, does he compete! Give me a Closer like him over a 100 MPH thrower any day.
Camilo Doval's struggles. OK, I'll admit most of this was not only not fun it was extremely frustrating and disappointing to watch, but there was one game after coming off the IL where he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn and there was this weird game-delay while the umpires hashed something out. Doval just kind of stood there and then lazily played catch with Patrick Bailey(I am actually not sure if Bailey was catching at that time. It might have been Curt Casali). Anyway, you couldn't help but think the delay was icing him and he would be even worse when play resumed. Lo and behold, he suddenly had perfect command of his pitches and finished off the inning with aplomb. Amazing and fun to watch!
The promise of Grant McCray. McCray's late callup was admittedly a mixed bag and he clearly needs some more seasoning in the minors but he had his moments and the tools were obvious. Power, speed, defense. Fun to watch.
Blake Snell's No-hitter. Overall, the Blake Snell signing was a disaster and I wish him the worst with the Dodgers but for a brief moment in the second half he was the best pitcher in the game and we got to watch another Giants no-hitter. How about that?
After all of this hoopla over the Dodgers’ offseason signing, this column really put things into perspective for me. It made me remember why I’m a Giants fan. Winning is great, but what has been so much fun over the years to me is when we get to see a team get better — both individually and as a group — as the season wears on. That’s why those World Series winning teams were extra special, nobody thought they were the absolute most talented or high-priced roster in baseball. Last season, my hopes weren’t high for winning the division. I was really rooting for signs of improvement from some of the youngsters. One of those was Keaton Winn. Although he wound up missing most of the season with a bum elbow, I thought he looked sharp in the early going. If he could ever stay healthy, I think Winn could be a real contributor. Same goes for Tristan Beck. Roupp surprised me when he got called back up in late summer — he looked like he’d finally put it all together. I’ll be looking forward this season to see if Harrison can keep building on his off-speed arsenal and whether Birdsong is the real deal, or just a flash in the pan, so to speak. I’d like to see Wisenhunt get his chance, too, and prove he’s a keeper.
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