Despite hiring a college field manager with no professional experience on any level and a curious lack of upgrades to the bullpen, the Giants came into the 2026 season with an expectation of being no worse than the 2025 team and possibly enough wins more to sneak into a postseason berth. POBO Buster Posey's stated goal for the offseason was improving team defense and he went after that by hiring defensive coaching wizard, Ron Washington and by signing CF Harrison Bader. Those moves combined with a full season of Rafael Devers and the expected graduation of Bryce Eldridge plus the contact hitting of Luis Arraez gave hope of both run scoring and run prevention upgrades to the roster.
Then came Opening Day and the opening series against the Yankees and a near total obliteration in every phase of the game. The Giants scored just 1 run in 27 innings on 13 hits only 4 of which came in the first two games which were shutouts. It was the Yankees but the shock and awe of it all left a lot of people, including me, with a deep sense of foreboding about the rest of the season. The Giants traveled south and took 2 of 3 from the Padres then win the first game of a4-game weekend series agains the Mets and we all breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe the faceplant in the Yankee series was just a small sample fluke against a tough opponent. Then they lost the next 3 to the Mets and the first game of the next series against the Phillies. They were now 3-8 and the season went downhill from there.
The 2026 Giants never won more than 3 games in a row. There was a sweep in Philadelphia at the end of April including double walk-off losses in a doubleheader followed by a sweep to the Rays in Tampa Bay a dropped series to the Padres at home. That was a 1-8 stretch and the season was all but over. Another low point in May came after a double sweep to the D'Backs in successive weeks. I could go on.....and on and on.
By the end of the season, the Giants had tied a record for most players used in a season at 71, more than in any of the FZ years and The Churn. If I am not mistaken, Christian Koss was the only player from the Opening Day active roster who was also on the season finale active roster and even he missed some time with an injury. At least Buster Posey got a nice prospect haul from a full on sell at the trade deadline.
Let's break it down and look at some numbers starting with some Team Stats then individual team leaders(League Rankings in parentheses):
Great but depressing summary Doc...You couldn't be more right than "the Giants won't be fixed by simply adding a reliable Closer. The problem is much bigger than that.".. I 'll take it many steps further, the Giants won't be fixed even if they fix their bullpen! That's all you hear about--fixing the bullpen...Hah! .THere is soooo much else wrong up and down the team..but that's for another post another day.
ReplyDeletesteveVA
My take from the press conference is that they will work on the bullpen first and then work on the starters second.
DeleteHere is hoping Chapman starts strong and smacks seven homers (his total for all of 2026) in the opening month of the season. (But reports last week were he's hit a snag in his rehab.) If he opens hot, trade 'em in a pure salary dump and install Casey as the starter at 3B. Please, move Adames to second base and trade Lee, giving LF to a platoon of Bericoto and Bo Davidson. Buster opens his wallet and signs either free agent closer David Bednar or Emmanuel Clase. In this dream, Buster splurges to add a starter along the lines of Sandy Alcantara or Freddy Peralta. And in this fantasy, who knows, maybe Kevin Gausman might be willing to take a shorter-term deal and come back?
ReplyDeleteIsn't Clase under indictment for colluding with gambling agents?
DeleteI’m not sure if people realize that Clase is currently set to go to trial for a gambling scandal focusing on Clase giving bettors advance notice about velocity and result of 18 specific pitches over the course of two years. That might make a player like that available at a discount or not issued a qualifying offer but it’s probably not a good idea.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I think Clase might never play in MLB again. The Feds have a tight case against him and have texts between him and the gamblers. They actually have it narrowed down to 18 specific pitches because there were suspicious amounts of money bet before those pitches. ESPN reported that it might have been as much as 48 games over the course of two years. Clase said the texts were about something else. At any rate, its odd that he would endanger his career over thousands of dollars when he could have made millions pitching. MLB will decide whether or not to suspend him after the trial.
DeleteI agree that the Save Opportunities stat is illuminating- it would be foolhardy for the Giants to spend lavishly on a top tier closer like D Bednar and have him go something like 28/31 in Sv/SvO in 2027. With that said I still think the Giants must address the bullpen as one of their top priorities, if not the absolute top. When the team was already struggling for wins the multiple gut wrenching blown saves took a huge psychological toll on fans, and I’m sure on the team as well. The snowball effect was that everyone TV sent out to the mound was tight, tentative, and averse or unable to throw strikes. While retaining Doval and rehabbing Rodriguez are steps in the right direction, they need a stabilizing veteran presence in the pen, not necessarily an expensive shutdown closer. Who that might be we have to hope the FO works hard to identify- maybe a Fairbanks, L Weaver, Minter or ironically, Philips and Vesia.
ReplyDeleteThe really illuminating stat was that the leader in saves was Caleb Killian with 8. By the way, Killian got into four games with the Phillies then suffered an oblique strain, ending his season.
DeleteSolid summary of the season. And it was backed up by the eyeball test. Constantly couldn’t throw strikes. Constantly swinging at balls.
ReplyDeleteThe Giants are laden with a lot of unmovable future payroll without much hope of relief.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, their record tying 71 players used with even worse results as the veterans went down suggests what would happen in 2027 if they somehow divested the bad contracts: they would be worse, especially taking note of the thinness of dependable pitchers and promote-able non-pitchers.
It felt nice to unload tradeable players at the deadline, but their system is unable to replace them in the short run.
How many long term big contracts can they add?
Is Ownership likely to be convinced that it will pay off any better than FZ's or Buster's efforts have been?
And what's going to happen when all the players on the injured list are added back in?
The worst is yet to come.
I feel like the need for a full tear-down/rebuild is now so obvious they would be better off admitting it and doing it than continue the charade of "reloading", whatever that means.
DeleteIs it even possible for them to do a full tear-down without eating an incredible amount of money, money that's owed into the future? To the far future in several cases.
DeleteAnd their bloated management: They not only paid 3 to 4 million each for TWO managers this year, they also had to pay another $3 million to the University of Tennessee to buy out their manager! And they owe him for at least 2 more years plus a potential buyout.
It's quite possible that their problem is at the top, namely Buster Posey himself, and they'll be paying him millions for more failure next year.
I've heard comments from Andrew Baggarly and Susan Slusser during the season and if they chose to move off of Vitello as manager, the contract money would not have stood in their way. I think part of it was to not wanting to change managers once again after firings of Kapler, Melvin, and Zaidi. Vitello will not necessarily have to sing for his supper this off season but he should have an action plan in place for 2027 and not let overpriced veterans run the show.
DeleteThey have to be careful with their words and no one is going to say this is a rebuild. What they will say is that even in the best of years, there is an element of rebuilding. Also, a lot of 2027 ticket sales is going to tie in to the 2028 All Star Game so they want to put a positive spin on it. In post-mortem press conferences, you will always hear "we will try to get better" but as Pavlovic says, 29 other teams are saying the same thing. Maybe a longer lockout might not be the worst thing at this particular time.
DeleteYou don't have to say "rebuild". You can say, we're going with the kids or hark back to the "You gotta love these kids" promotion.
DeleteThe old Giants regime was very clever at turning negatives into positives. "You gotta like these kids" was brilliant. They also had "Come on Giants, Hang in there" and the Croix du Candlestick. A lot of fans might go for the chance to see the 2028 All Star Game in person but it could potentially mean watching a lot of bad baseball to be able to see the lone Giants representative make a pinch hitting appearance.
DeleteDoc notes that the "2026 Giants never won more than 3 games in a row."
ReplyDeleteHow bad is that?
In the long history of the NY/SF Giants, 144 seasons (1883–2026), that has never happened before!
Contrary to the near complete discouragement among Giants' fans and sports writers, this is to suggest that perhaps things are not as bad as they appear.
ReplyDeleteLots of gloom is due to the rash of injuries that decimated the team including the pitching, and the poor 2026 performance and inuries to Adames and Chapman.
Devers slow start and inopportune late injury didn't bolster confidence.
OTOH, reports available online very much agree that the injuries won't carry on into next season, and we can expect, at least hope for, Bryce Eldredge to improve defensively with experience at 1st base, something he had little exposure playing before he was drafted as a 2-way player.
If, and this is the big off season task, Buster can improve the depleted and abysmal pitching enough, the Giants could bounce back to be a near .500 team and provide confidence that things are getting better.
And then, the youth will begin to arrive.
I'll agree with this take if the Giants make good moves to improve their bullpen and rotation they'll have a chance to play 500 baseball. Also Giants need to get back to the days when pitchers signed such as Gausman and Alex Wood with the Giants and revitalized their careers. Instead Tyler Mahle struggles with the Giants, gets traded to the Braves, who changed his pitch mix, and turns his season around. That makes me wonder how good are the Giants pitching coaches?
DeleteAre we, as Giants fans, simply spoilt and slightly entitled to what we think we deserve?
ReplyDeleteI keep thinking about how bad this team has been this year and compare it with say the Rays of the early 00s and Astros of the early 2010s and see how much they suffered before coming good. Much more so the Astros.
I think we have to face another losing season and potentially another after that before hopefully a couple of bad contracts disappear and several of our legit prospects mature.
I do, maybe foolishly trust Buster to bring us round but maybe we had be better looking at the run of 2030, 2032 and 2034 instead of next year etc.
I'm not sure anyone who watched the Giants play all season would say we are spoiled or entitled. The Rays were an expansion team. The Astros intentionally cut their payroll down to nothing. The Giants TRIED to be a good baseball team & fell flat on their faces. Even the bad teams we've watched over the years went on a streak or two. This team was, essentially, about as bad as it gets, and much of it was predictable. Where's the entitlement in that?
DeleteAgree with Cove Chatter. Everybody on this blog obviously stuck it out through 4 years of mediocrity and then a disaster year. You do that and you are a true fan. No entitlement. I mean, it's hardly entitlement to either expect a significant improvement next season or at least see movement toward replacing the underachievers with younger, hungrier players.
DeleteA lot of it depends on perspective and age of the fan. My nephews and nieces lived through the championship era and they expect more championships and playoff runs because that's what they were used to. I started as a Giants fan in 1963 so I had 50 years, with flashes in the pan every so often. The reality is, if everything were equal, it would be one championship every 30 years so 29 years would be failure.
DeleteI've lived with Dodger fans. They tend to be smug and they get miffed if they fall short. Its not just the Dodgers, its the Lakers, Rams, USC football, and UCLA basketball. They love their championships and even point to the Lakers' NBA Cup championship (totally meaningless). There is more sense of entitlement down south. What is weird is that Dodger fans never admit to or do not have any concept of how much more that team spends compared to the rest of the league. They just feel its what championship teams do and if they bend the rules to circumvent salary caps, its doing business. They feel that they are good fans so that the increased team spending is to reward the good fans.
I don't expect a championship every other year but I do expect them to build up the organization from within, keep trying, not to repeat the same mistakes over and over, and be accountable.
Remember that ad where the championship team gets to go to Disneyland? A local radio station asked "Which Bay Area team would be the most likely to go to Disneyland first?" The answer was Valkyries and Sharks.
Question: Where did the Giants rank in batter K with RISP? Answer: 5th most K. Question: Of the five teams with the most K with RISP where did the Giants rank in runs scored? Answer: Dead Last, by a wide margin. Question: Where did the Giants rank in team pitching strikeouts? Answer: 4th fewest in MLB. Question: Where did the Giants rank in K with opposing RISP? Answer: Dead Last. As Tony V acknowledges, “information is power. You’ve got to take that information and make it useful.” OK, Giants Front Office, make yourselves useful!
ReplyDeleteBBJ, thanks for that data! Getting close to defining the elusive if not, intangible, 'clutch' stat?
DeleteRob in Vancouver