For the '23 post mortem of the San Francisco Giants season, I nearly copy and pasted the 2022 version. The Giants in 2022 were perfectly mediocre, finishing 81-81. In 2023, they were slightly below mediocre, finishing at 79-83. This isn't great news if you're a Giants fan. The Giants got even worse a year after they dropped from 107 victories to 81. Another drop in the wins column resulted in skipper Gabe Kapler getting scapegoated and fired. Going into the 2023 season, the talent on the roster didn't inspire a whole lot of confidence. As mentioned in my recap of the offseason, Zaidi's free agent bets had to pay off:
The Giants did sign some free agents this offseason and... well... jury is out if this team is actually better in any real way. They could easily eclipse 81 wins and show improvements over the 20223 version. They also could rack up some injuries with some very injury prone players they signed and finish under .500, which might mean the end of Farhan Zaidi honestly,
Yikes.
Mitch Haniger played in 61 games and wasn't very productive when he played. Michael Conforto played in 125 games after playing exactly zero games in 2022 and was predictably rusty. The Giants probably got less out of him than they expected but realistically his production was league average (99 OPS+) and in hindsight it was probably foolish to really expect anything more than that. Joc Pederson, after accepting the 20M qualifying offer, played in 121 games and only hit 15 home runs, a far cry from his output in 2022 when he was arguably the Giants best hitter. Those three men were supposed to make up a middle of the order with some good sock. It wasn't far-fetched to expect 60 homers combined by that trio at the minimum. You could even dream of getting 75 or more from them. Instead they got 36 combined. That was a huge reason for the subpar offensive results. Zaidi's other free agent signings didn't fare much better. Ross Stripling appeared in 22 games, but made only 11 starts due to ineffectiveness and injury. Sean Manaea, who was statistically one of the worst starting pitchers in 2022, didn't start 2023 off well in the rotation and spent the majority of the season in the bullpen. He finished strong, but he wound up making less starts than Stripling (10) and he was mostly healthy all year. Luke Jackson came back earlier than expected and was an effective reliever but also had repeated stints on the IL. Taylor Rogers was really the only true success story from Zaidi's free agency splurge. Even the minor league signing of Roberto Perez went sideways immediately when Perez blew out his shoulder on Opening Day. It's not unfair to look back on the 2022 offseason and say it was a complete unmitigated disaster, from the time spent on and wasted on a failed Aaron Judge pursuit, to the circus that was the non-signing of Carlos Correa, to the actual free agents signed who hardly delivered. Fast forward to the end of the 2023 season and all those moves didn't cost Farhan Zaidi his job, as I hinted it might if things went poorly, but it did cost Gabe Kapler his job.
Now Farhan Zaidi's seat is getting quite warm. Yes, the 107 win season was special and amazing, but the reality is that Zaidi took over a team in the 2018 season that went 73-89 and Zaidi's Giants just finished Year 5 under his watch with 79 wins, a net +6 in games won. Despite all the excuses (COVID stunting the minor league development, the 107 win season, the lockout, etc) the cold, hard truth is that the Giants major league roster is hardly any better off than the one Zaidi inherited and started tinkering with in 2019. There is not a single star on the roster: developed, acquired via trade, nor signed. That's inexcusable from a franchise that has nearly always had at least one. The San Francisco Giants are too big of a market and too historical a franchise to be running out a team of platoon players and no-names, players that no one from other fanbases knows or cares about. It is also way unacceptable to have had 35 (!!!) bullpen games in 2023. The Giants entered the 2023 season with plenty of starting pitching depth in Logan Webb, Alex Cobb, Sean Manaea, Alex Wood, Ross Stripling, Anthony DeSclafani, and Jakob Junis. That's seven pitchers for five rotation spots. That doesn't even take into account the young guys that were expected to help out at some point, like Sean Hjelle, Tristan Beck, Kyle Harrison, and Keaton Winn. On top of that, many Giants pitching prospects actually had solid seasons, so beyond those four guys, there were guys like Carson Whisenhunt, Landen Roupp, and Mason Black excelling who started making names for themselves and started being mentioned as potential call-ups. That is A LOT of starting pitching depth. So how was it possible that the Giants ran with a 2-man rotation for most of the 2nd half of the season? Webb and Cobb were the only pitchers to routinely take their spot in the rotation every 5th day. The other starting assignments were commonly TBA and more often than not, those starts went to John Brebbia, Ryan Walker, and Scott Alexander, short relievers who were better served pitching in the 6th, 7th, or 8th innings of ballgames. It was nearly criminal it took so long for Tristan Beck to get starts after excelling in a long relief role. Ditto Sean Manaea who started putting together solid appearances for the better part of two months before he was finally reinstated to the rotation near the end of the year, far too late. The Giants refused to acknowledge their opener strategy put additional stress on the rest of the bullpen but that's exactly what happened as nearly all their short relievers started becoming ineffective down the stretch in September.
Oh, and let's not forget about the second season in a row of poor defense. The Giants declared their goal for the 2022 offseason was to get younger, more athletic, and better defensively. They failed in these goals. They signed older, injury prone veterans in Haniger and Conforto, re-signed a platoon DH for 20M who stopped caring about defense a few years ago, and then traded for 35 year old AJ Pollock at the trade deadline. The only reason they even got a whiff of younger and more athletic players was due to the injuries to the veterans, which required them to call up their prospects a lot earlier than likely anticipated. Which was fun for awhile. Giants fans finally got to see the likes of Casey Schmitt, Marco Luciano, Luis Matos, and eventually Kyle Harrison. Those are 4 of their top prospects. That's exciting! Except, like rookies, they ran hot and cold. The 26-man roster opened with the youngest player being Brett Wisely (23), who was a last minute addition to the squad. Beyond Wisely, there was Rule V rookie Blake Sabol (25), then David Villar (26) and Thairo Estrada (27). After that it was all thirty something vets. Add in the fact Sabol was an experiment at catcher and that isn't a roster that screamed younger and more athletic. The additions of Haniger and Conforto pushed Mike Yastrzemski to centerfield, where he's good but not great like he is in RF. Even once the rookies came up, the defense remained more bad than good. Giving away extra outs is never a recipe for success and the Giants gave up their fair share of them.
Ironically, despite only having two reliable starting pitchers, the pitching was the strength of the team. Logan Webb will receive Cy Young votes and both Camilo Doval and Alex Cobb were NL All Stars this season. The bullpen went from a sieve in 2022 to a strength in 2023. The only real other highlight of 2023 was Patrick Bailey, who leapfrogged Joey Bart as the catcher of the future and put up a Gold Glove caliber campaign. Bailey looked like he belonged immediately and although the offense fell off a cliff later in the season, his defense and pitch framing was a huge boon to the pitching staff. After playing in the most games of his professional career, even the sterling defense began to slip, but Bailey was still named a Gold Glove finalist at the position and, out of all the rookies, he should be the only one that has a guaranteed starting assignment on Opening Day 2024. It's likely Kyle Harrison and Marco Luciano will also join Bailey on the chalk lines on Opening Day in 2024 as well. Brandon Crawford had his unofficial farewell during and after Game 162 of the 2023 season at Oracle Park and after another dreadful year at the plate and sadly, in the field as well, Crawford should announce his retirement shortly after the 2023 World Series. If he doesn't, he'll be holding out for a part time role on a team other than the Giants but his performance should tell him it's time to hang it up. Marco Luciano showed enough promise in a very small sample size to be given the chance to start next season as the starting shortstop. His defense looked more than adequate at the position and he consistently hit the ball hard in his limited at-bats. Kyle Harrison seemed to tire at the end of the season as well, but he showed enough stuff to be penciled into the rotation in 2024 starting from Day One.
Putting 2023 in the rearview, there isn't a whole lot of positives to latch onto as a Giants fan. The team regressed but fans did get to see some of the youngsters. Unfortunately, none of the youngsters clearly asserted themselves as future offensive all stars. Casey Schmitt looked excellent for a handful of starts, then looked like he'd be lucky to have a career as a defense first utility infielder. He finished the year strong but he hardly looked like a guy the team should hand the keys to 3B over to automatically. JD Davis took a great leap defensively at the position but his bat went cold after a scorching start for most of the 2nd half. Maybe the Giants roll into 2024 with JD Davis at 3B and Schmitt at AAA getting more seasoning. Luis Matos looked green and did not look like any sort of power threat. It would behoove the Giants to acquire at least one excellent outfielder to allow Matos to marinate longer in the minors as well (or trade him in a package for a star level player). Heliot Ramos had his best year in the minors but still couldn't show it at the MLB level. Joey Bart became an afterthought. Tyler Fitzgerald made a cameo and produced enough excitement with his legs and his bat to be considered a Chris Taylor-like swiss army knife.
The pen looks to be in decent shape going into 2024 as well, though there may be concerns on how well Camilo Doval can handle big time pressure moments as he wilted in some of his opportunities when the team needed him most. That being said, he was electric for most of the year, an All Star, and looks to be the Giants closer for the foreseeable. Ryan Walker was a revelation. The Giants strength is in their pitching depth. Their offense, however, was atrocious and their speed was nonexistent. If Zaidi wants to save his job and get an extension, he will need to make this 2023 underachieving squad into a legit postseason team next season and he'll need to shore up the offense and defense to get there. The pressure is on, because combined with the 2022 disastrous offseason, the lack of excitement for the product on the field from fans, and a sub .500 year (Zaidi't 3rd in 5 seasons) it seems ownership is getting antsy. Not that ownership has anyone to blame but themselves, but they won't fire themselves and their president of baseball ops just fired the manager. We know who goes next if 2024 ends without a postseason appearance. It doesn't help at all that the Dodgers will look to rebuild a weak starting rotation after another 100 win season but early playoff exit, or that the Dbacks have officially arrived by making it to the NLCS, or the Padres will still have a roster full of stars to build on going into the offseason. Zaid has work to do to keep his job and that thought is both exciting and terrifying if you're a Giants fan.
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