Are the San Francisco Giants Trying to Win or Not?
MLB's most confusing franchise is off to an early start in that regard.
Trying to figure out the San Francisco Giants is one of my longtime hobbyhorses — in part because I’ve always liked them, going back to the days of Kirk Rueter and J.T. Snow, but also because they are a perennially confusing franchise. Their 2010s dynasty didn’t make a whole lot of sense, their 107-win renaissance in 2021 didn’t make a whole lot of sense, the arc of their 2023 season didn’t make a whole lot of sense and, now, I still don’t have much of an idea what they’re trying to do.
Put aside this week’s weird report about new manager Bob Melvin’s policy on standing for "The Star-Spangled Banner" — what year is it again? — and focus on the team that Melvin will lead, as assembled by President of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi. Zaidi has been the target of a lot of criticism from Giant fans heading into 2024, both because of the team’s needlessly acrimonious divorce with franchise-icon SS Brandon Crawford and because its pitching agenda heading into the year seemed light on contingency plans.
About the Crawford thing… I’m on the fence, because he is 37 and was plainly not good enough to play regularly anymore last season (.194 AVG, .587 OPS). But if you are breaking in 22-year-old hotshot prospect Marco Luciano to fill a slot Crawford had been in on Opening Day for each of the previous 12 years, and Crawford was — as he claims — willing to accept a mentorship role to smooth the transition, it might have made sense to keep him around.
On the pitching front, San Francisco was rolling into spring training with only two of its primary starters from last season — Logan Webb and Alex Cobb — still on the roster, and Cobb was still recovering from offseason hip surgery. The plan was to retool the rotation with that duo plus another hotshot prospect (lefty Kyle Harrison), fellow up-and-comer Keaton Winn, free-agent fireballer Jordan Hicks and effective 2023 rookie Tristan Beck, while waiting for former Cy Young southpaw Robbie Ray to finish rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and return later in the season.
That’s a lot of moving parts which would have to slide into place for S.F. to repeat its 10th-place ranking in rotation ERA from a year ago. And sure enough, it’s barely March and things have already gone awry: Beck had surgery to remove an aneurysm from the upper part of his pitching arm, and is out at least a few months.
An obvious place to look for reinforcements is in free agency, with a few top-tier starters (Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery) still surprisingly on the market as Opening Day approaches. And maybe that will happen — although Zaidi has constantly stressed that fans should expect the team as currently constructed to basically be what it is when the regular season gets underway. So the pitching staff is probably still going to be a patchwork for the time being.
But the Giants have also added big-name talent elsewhere. Their most notable offseason move was signing CF Jung Hoo Lee, winner of the KBO MVP in 2022. And they did make a free-agent splash as recently this past weekend, signing former All-Star 3B Matt Chapman to a 3-year, $54 million deal.
Chapman is certainly an upgrade over what San Francisco had at the position last season; he produced more than three times as many Wins Above Replacement (3.9) as S.F.’s third basemen collectively had in 2023 (1.2). That’s a win-now move, though: Agent Scott Boras structured Chapman’s contract to contain opt-outs after both the 2024 and 2025 seasons. While the deal is guaranteed for three seasons from San Francisco’s point of view, Chapman (who’ll be 31 this year) can leave early if he has a great year — or even one in line with projections, if he thinks the market is less chilly next offseason.
And are the Giants ready to win now, with that rotation, coming off a 79-win season with one of baseball’s oldest rosters? According to my composite of different projection systems, San Francisco is currently predicted to win only 80.3 games — which ranks a very distant fourth in the NL West and 18th in MLB overall, even with Chapman on board:
As always, we must caveat that the projections just have zero idea what the Giants are going to do most years. But their own trajectory seems especially confused as we head into 2024.
Adding Chapman is the move of a team that thinks it can make the playoffs right now — and maybe that’s truer than these topline forecasts make it seem, given how top-heavy the NL is (and how quickly things fall off, with the last wild card probably belonging to whichever team sneaks into 83 or 84 wins). But going into the season with new starters at multiple positions and a developmental pitching staff on Opening Day, with the hopes that injured veterans can swoop in later, is less of a sure strategy for winning now.
That means San Francisco is primed to confuse again in 2024. If they win, it will fly in the face of the projections — what else is new? — and if not, it will be partly because of head-scratching roster building strategies. Either way, this team doesn’t make a lot of sense, and that’s exactly how the Giants seem to like it.
Filed under: Baseball