Ever since the San Francisco Giants won the World Series in 2010, 2012, and 2014, fans have been expecting another championship. We’re still waiting.
In 2018, the Giants hired Farhan Zaidi as president of baseball operations. A disciple of the Oakland A’s Billy Beane and Moneyball, Zaidi’s analytics-driven approach proved effective in 2021, when the Giants won 107 games. However, the fans’ trust in Zaidi eroded as the Giants went 82-82 in 2022 and then suffered two consecutive losing seasons.
The Giants’ management also soured on Zaidi, as they replaced him with Buster Posey, who played on all three of those World Series champions.
The fans let out a collective sigh of relief when Zaidi was let go. The writing was on the wall shortly before Zaidi was fired, when Posey, according to The Athletic’s Andrew Baggerly, “personally dealt” with third baseman Matt Chapman to finalize a six-year, $151 million extension.
Zaidi’s poor showing might have been more tolerable if the Giants had done a better job of developing players, but they are generally considered to have a bottom-third farm system. He also failed at acquiring enough good young players. Only one of Zaidi’s first four first-round picks has reached the Majors, and there are legitimate questions about the other three. Too often, the Giants ran out of depth, which frustrated many within the organization who had believed that Zaidi’s greatest strength was building a 40-man roster.
Alex Pavlovic: Many of Zaidi’s most controversial moves made a lot of sense on paper, but there was a coldness to them, and over time, that added up. The most notable example occurred a couple of years ago, when the Giants agreed to terms with Carlos Correa without giving Brandon Crawford advance notice that he might be changing positions.
So when the Giants hired Posey late last September, hope sprang among the Giants’ faithful. With the future Hall of Famer leading, depending as much on his great baseball instincts as on analytics, fans hoped for a Giants resurgence.
In the off-season, Posey made a bold free-agent signing of Willy Adames for seven years and $182 million. Paired with Chapman, it would give the Giants a premier defensive left side of the infield. In 2024, Adames hit 32 homers for the Milwaukee Brewers and drove in 112 runs. San Francisco also acquired future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander. Even at 42 years old, Verlander seemed like an excellent addition. The Giants were expecting big things from Jung Hoo Lee, the South Korean centerfielder who lost 2024 to injury.
For much of the first half of this season, those hopes were fulfilled. The Giants stayed neck-and-neck with the Dodgers for first place. In the early months, the hitting was strong. The pitching improved as the season progressed, especially from the bullpen.
But before long, the wheels began to fall off. Adames is hitting .211 with ten homers and just 37 RBIS. Lee has nosedived into a prolonged slump. The bullpen is in a tailspin. Chapman is out with an injury. Now, both of his backups, Casey Schmitt and Christian Koss, are on the injured list.
The whole team is in a prolonged slump. Hitting with runners in scoring position has been abysmal. Verlander has pitched well, but has yet to win a game thanks to no run support. Robbie Ray, the outstanding southpaw with a record of 8-3 and a 2.75 ERA, has also been victimized by paltry offense.
Posey made another great move in mid-June, acquiring Rafael Devers from the Red Sox in a blockbuster trade. Devers has contributed but has yet to pick up steam, especially in the power department.
As of this writing, the Giants are hitting .230 as a team, 25th out of the 30 Major League teams. They rank 25th in home runs and 24th in OPS. They have lost 12 of their last 17 games and fallen nine games behind the first-place Dodgers.
They keep finding new ways to lose. Their recent road trip started with a three-game series against the abysmal Chicago White Sox. They beat the Sox in the first game, 3-1, but in a portent of things to come, Brett Wisely was picked off first base. In game two, Wisely was on third and Koss on second with no outs and Devers at the plate. As Devers swung and missed to strike out, Wisely took a few steps toward home, trying to get a good jump if Devers hit a ground ball. The catcher threw a strike to the third baseman to nail him. Double play! They lost the game 1-0.
In the final game of the series, behind a strong six innings from Verlander, the Giants led 2-1 until the Sox scored four runs in the seventh. Then, in the top of the eighth, San Francisco loaded the bases with one out and their best hitter, Heliot Ramos, at the plate. He grounded into a double play.
If the Giants weren’t already feeling snake-bitten, the Diamondbacks delivered the coup de grâce the next day in Arizona. With the score 2-2 in the eighth, Koss hit a fly ball to deep left-center field. As the left fielder leapt for the ball, a fan leaned over the wall and caught it. It appeared on replay that the ball would have hit the top of the wall and bounced over for a home run. But the umps called it a ground-rule double. Devers struck out for the second out. Then Ramos was called out on strikes on a pitch that looked outside. Giants manager Bob Melvin had had enough and got himself tossed from the game for arguing that call.
No one is blaming Posey for the Giants’ struggles. He secured Chapman, Adames, and Devers, all of whom have proven track records. Melvin is managing well. Unlike in the Zaidi years, the lineups have been stable.
But, as Casey Stengel moaned about the New York Mets in their inaugural 1962 season, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”
