Webb: Giants must `change the culture'
The Giants are entering year five of Farhan Zaidi's regime and year four with manager Gabe Kapler, a braintrust two years removed from an improbable 107-win season and NL West crown, but after last year's disappointing .500 finish, their ace and growing clubhouse leader, Logan Webb, said he's hoping to see a culture change this season.
“This is a big year for us to change the culture,” Webb said. “There's a lot of moving parts and a lot of parts that want to stay here for a long time and start their own culture change. We always look back to the `10, `12, `14 teams, like, we want to start our own that.”
Webb was speaking from inside a lounge behind home plate at Oracle Park, where a message was adorned on the walls and a few decorations: Good vibes only.
“I want that all over our clubhouse,” Webb said. “I want us all to feel that all of the time. … I don't want to sound like a hippie, but positive vibes. Stuff like that.”
Toward the end of last season, Webb suggested the Giants maybe “got a little too complacent” at times, while Kapler had expressed a similar sentiment at one of their lowest points, amid their first of two seven-game losing streaks, saying “I don't think that we've brought our best levels of energy to the ballpark over course of the last couple of weeks.”
Those teams that paraded down Market Street, and even the one that infused the city with the excitement of one of modern baseball's best pennant chases, had something in common: they felt like they had something to prove because few saw their success coming.
In other words, they had a chip on their shoulder.
It's as cliche as it gets, but even athletes the caliber of Steph Curry thrive on the narrative of doubters.
It can be even more powerful when it comes from within, as it will this season for Webb and many of his teammates who were disappointed with the outcome of last season.