San Francisco Giants need a plan
SF expects to compete, but the two top teams in the NL West are also World- Series favorites
SF expects to compete, but the two top teams in the NL West are also World- Series favorites.
After earning their first playoff berth since Bruce Bochy managed the club, the San Diego Padres have dominated offseason headlines with trades for elite starters Blake Snell and Yu Darvish and by signing highly touted South Korean shortstop Ha- seong Kim.
The Padres have gone all- in on winning the 2021 World Series, but they face one big problem: They play in the same division as the 2020 champions and current title favorites, the Dodgers.
If the Padres and Dodgers are the top two clubs entering the 2021 season, where does that leave the San Francisco Giants? Great question.
Returning to the playoffs is a concern for every Giants fan, particularly after the team suffered through its fourth consecutive losing season this year. After establishing an improbable dynasty during the first half of the last decade, the Giants appear destined to spend the early portion of this decade vying for relevance in their own division.
A team that consistently boasts one of the highest payrolls in baseball shouldn’t have ended up in a long- term rebuild, but that’s exactly where the Giants found themselves after ownership and previous front office executives chose to term a 98- loss 2017 season an “aberration,” instead of seeing it as a gigantic, flashing warning sign.
It’s possible the Giants would be in a much better position to challenge the Padres and Dodgers right now had the franchise elected not to use Mark Melancon’s four- year, $ 62 million contract as a Band- Aid following a 2016 secondhalf collapse, but re- examining past failures is no longer as relevant to the organization’s current status.
To understand where the Giants are and where they’re headed, it’s imperative to look back at the day the franchise changed course and hired Farhan Zaidi away from the Dodgers.
At the time of his hiring in November 2018, Zaidi’s presence gave the Giants’ front office a muchneeded shakeup and a lead executive who understood how to develop a model for sustainable success. In the present, Zaidi’s risk- averse process to building the roster has led to a certain level of frustration among fans who think the Giants should flex their financial muscle to contend sooner rather than later.
Teams that finish above .500 generally find themselves in the playoff mix a lot longer than teams that don’t, and even with the Dodgers and Padres expected to finish atop the division, Zaidi and Harris would be among the first to express disappointment and frustration if the Giants failed to improve upon their 2020 record ( one game under .500 at 29- 31).
It may seem unrealistic to expect Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford and Mike Yastrzemski to replicate their career years, but last offseason it was unrealistic to expect the trio of players to have those types of seasons in the first place. It may feel foolish to believe the improvements the team’s offense, defense and bullpen made over a 60game season will remain steady over a full 162- game slate, but few expected significant progress last season anyway.
Given the relative steadiness of the Giants’ roster heading into 2021 and the talent that resides in Southern California, the path back to the postseason looks as if it’s straight uphill. That might be the case, but the Giants have shown signs they’re steadily climbing.
There will come a point in the not- so- distant future where the Giants will need to spend big money to reinforce a roster led by new homegrown talent and potentially even part with prospects to acquire major league players who will help immediately. If the Giants continue to show improvements under secondyear manager Gabe Kapler, that point in time should be next offseason.
The Giants’ realistic path forward doesn’t look nearly as fun as the road the Padres and Dodgers are taking this year, but it’s easier to see why people inside the organization are optimistic about the future. A lot has to go right — and a lot can still go wrong — but the Giants shouldn’t be all that far from contending again.