Tyler Mahle’s latest outing only sharpened the spotlight on a problem the Giants don’t seem eager to address.
The former SF Giants right-hander was sharp again for the Atlanta Braves in the playoffs, firing seven innings in the Wild Card round against the Philadelphia Phillies. He gave up one earned run, struck out six, and walked only one. It was the kind of performance that makes San Francisco’s handling of him look even worse in hindsight.
What stings for the Giants is how quickly Mahle found another level after leaving. Once Atlanta got him, the advice was simple: use the splitter more.
The results followed almost immediately. He posted a 1.99 ERA in nine starts and started looking like the pitcher San Francisco thought it was getting when it signed him to a one-year, $10 million deal in the offseason.
That’s why the Giants’ lack of coaching turnover feels so hard to defend. Buster Posey said during his end-of-season press conference that he doesn’t envision any major changes to the coaching staff, and that stance is tough to square with what happened to Mahle. San Francisco’s pitching group - Justin Meccage, Frank Anderson, and Christian Wonders - clearly didn’t unlock what Atlanta did.
To be fair, Mahle’s turnaround may not have been just about coaching. He had looked better in his final few starts before the trade deadline after time on the IL, so it’s possible he wasn’t fully healthy earlier in the year. But even with that caveat, the Giants still didn’t get the most out of him.
And that points to the larger issue: if San Francisco is going to keep operating this cheaply when it comes to signing pitchers, the coaching staff has to be elite at squeezing value out of arms. Right now, it doesn’t look that way. The Giants are leaning on a very inexperienced group that hasn’t shown it can consistently extract everything available from the roster.
Yet the organization appears ready to keep the same setup in place - coaching staff, front office, all of it - and hope year two under the Tony Vitello-led staff looks different. After the way year one went, that’s a hard sell.
There’s a recent Giants example that makes the contrast even sharper. In Gabe Kapler’s first year as manager, the impact was felt quickly.
The 2020 team showed improvement, and 2021 turned into the 107-win miracle season. Whatever was being taught, especially on the pitching side under Andrew Bailey, was working.
That doesn’t mean the Giants need to go back to Kapler’s approach. But after how 2026 unfolded, bringing in new voices would make sense - especially with Mahle’s Atlanta success sitting there as a glaring reminder. Instead, the Giants seem content to stay put, avoid shaking anything up, and trust that better results will somehow follow.
In Other News...
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The appeal is obvious from the Giants side, especially with openings to fill and an offseason that could get complicated fast if a potential MLB lockout affects the usual timeline. Gausmans numbers in Chicago were uneven, but the bigger question for the Giants is whether a reunion makes sense before contract talks and the calendar start to tighten the window. [Read more 🡒]
Giants Tried To Sell Progress Fans Saw A Very Different Finish
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The message, though, landed against the backdrop of an 8-16 finish in September, the clubs worst month of the season, and that made the upbeat framing hard for many fans to square with what they had just watched. There is value in identifying long-term pieces, especially for a team trying to build a sturdier pitching picture, but the gap between the internal optimism and the late-season results was wide enough to invite skepticism. [Read more 🡒]