Giants need to rebound this season

If the San Francisco Giants want to have any shot at the playoffs this season, they’re going to have to lead the league in rebounding.

Not the basketball type of rebounding, but the type that involves bouncing back from a lousy season, an injury, agerelated decline, or some combo plate.

Let’s put it this way: If every player on the Giants’ roster has a season comparable to his 2022 performance, this team is doomed.

That’s not to say that the Giants aren’t capable of a return to top form by a dozen or more players. When it comes to fixing broken toys, no organization is more confident in what it can do. With advanced analytics, progressive training and a deep, new-agey coaching staff, the Giants believe they are at or near the top of baseball in maximizing player potential.

Example: Brandon Crawford. Two years ago, at age 34, Crawford had his best season. He opened his mind to what the new coaching/training crew had to offer, he listened and worked and believed, and he became a new man, a walking advertisement for What the Giants Can Do For You.

Then last season his batting average fell from .298 to .231, his homer output from 24 to nine, his stolen bases from 11 to one.

What did that show? That Father Time is undefeated? I’m not sure. But it cast at least some doubt on the Giants’ miracle-working ability.

The Giants probably didn’t want to build a roster so heavy with down-and-outers hoping to bounce back. They tried to get Aaron Judge and Carlos Correa, both at the tops of their games. But the Giants whiffed, and the key men they did pick up fit mainly in the category of needing a career revival. Most of the holdovers fit the same profile.

Scanning the roster, I come up with four position players and three starting pitchers who, if they simply do what they did last season, plus normal improvement for the younger players, they will be productive big-leaguers.

The four position players are Joc Pederson, David Villar, Thairo Estrada and J.D. Davis. No reason to think Pederson at 31 can’t match his 23 homers and .874 OPS. Estrada seems ready — he hit .260 with 14 homers in his first full season in the bigs, and he’s 27. Villar, big question mark, but he crushed Triple-A last season, and batted .291 in his final 26 big-league games (.231 in 52 games overall).

Of the seven starters, I’ve got Logan Webb and Ross Stripling coming off effective seasons. Alex Cobb is fine, also. His W-L fell from 8-3 to 7-8, but his other numbers were solid. The other four will be expected to get healthy and be better than last season.

The big offseason signings, Mitch Haniger and Michael Conforto, are both fix-it projects. Haniger had 39 homers and 100 RBIs two seasons ago, but he missed most of 2022 with COVID and an ankle issue, and he’ll turn 32 this month. Can he be what he was two years ago? That’s the question being asked of many Giants.

Conforto needs a trip to the past. He hit 88 homers over three seasons, ’17-’19, but fell way off in ’21 and was out all last season with shoulder surgery.Most in need of bounce-back? I would go with Mike Yastrzemski and LaMonte Wade Jr.

Young Yaz had a big dip last season, batting .214, and his homers fell from 25 to 17 and RBIs from 71 to 57. That’s a bad look for someone now 32. The Giants are counting on his glove and bat, 2021-level.

Wade fell off the table last season. Chalk it up to a bangedup knee that threw his batting mechanics completely out of whack. He believes that he is healthy now, and that he and the staff have his swing back to its former level, but we’ll see. The Giants need “Late Night LaMonte,” not late-swinging LaMonte.

Wilmer Flores, maybe the team’s steadiest and most dependable player, declined last season, and he’s 31.

At catcher, Joey Bart has to produce quickly and find his big-league footing, or step back down to the minors. Roberto Perez, 34, has to find his 2019 form (24 homers), before injuries derailed him.

I’m not saying the Giants are doomed. There is a general vibe among experts that this club will scuffle, and those gloomy predictions might form a chip on the team’s collective shoulder, lifting it to surprising heights.

This will be a test of the Giants’ conceit, in the Farhan Zaidi era, that they can do more with less, that they can create a fine-dining experience using perceived leftovers. That’s increasingly harder to do, with every team moving deeper into the analytics/tech world.

But maybe the Giants still know some things other teams don’t about rehabbing, recharging, retraining. We’re about to find out.

Ash Ponders/Special to The Chronicle Brandon Crawford had his best season two years ago at 34. But in 2022, his batting average dropped from .298 to .231 and his homer output decreased from 24 to nine.