The SF Giants have spent most of this season digging out of a hole they helped create last winter. With a little over a month left in the year, the damage is already done, and the offseason questions are piling up fast. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the front office now has a clear list of what went wrong.
Three choices stand out as the ones that have hung over this team all season.
The biggest miss came on the pitching side. The Giants knew their staff needed help, but they never really made a move that solved the problem.
Tyler Mahle and Adrian Houser were supposed to help stabilize the rotation, and neither delivered much. Now the club is getting a look at some of its younger arms, but the results have made one thing obvious: the rotation has to be addressed again this offseason.
The bullpen has been its own mess for most of the year, too. Pouring money into relief pitching is usually a risky bet, and the Giants haven’t exactly found the magic formula there. Still, there may be a better path if they get more creative and try to duplicate the kind of success they’ve had with Dylan Smith.
Harrison Bader was the other major offseason move that has not aged well. At the time, the logic made sense: improve the outfield defense and bring in a proven piece.
But injuries changed the picture in a hurry, and the deal looks rough now, scooter issue or not. The Giants are almost certainly going to need to sort out the outfield again before next season.
Drew Gilbert has put together a solid year, but he looks more like a platoon bat than an everyday answer. Other young players, including Victor Bericoto, have flashed some encouraging signs, but not enough to simply hand them left field every day and call it solved.
Then there’s the coaching staff, where the Giants took a major swing by bringing in Tony Vitello, a college coach with no professional experience. That gamble hasn’t paid off in a way that’s moved the needle much.
The staff doesn’t deserve all the blame for the season’s problems, but it also hasn’t added much value. Vitello is expected back, but some changes around him would not come as a surprise.
The Giants have plenty to clean up, and the hope has to be that last winter’s mistakes won’t be repeated. If they learn from them, maybe the next version of this team looks a whole lot better in 2027.
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Jung Hoo Lees Right Field Move Still Isnt Fixing This Giants Problem
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The Giants made the switch hoping a different defensive home would help Lee settle in and provide cleaner value in the outfield, but the underlying numbers still show a negative trend. For a club trying to tighten up every part of its game, Lees adjustment has become one of those small but stubborn issues that keeps showing up in the margins. [Read more 🡒]
Giants Have A Late-Inning Problem Fans Are Tired Of Watching
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Instead, the bullpen turned another clean-looking game into a familiar late-inning frustration. Boston kept hanging around, and Sam Hentges was asked to handle the ninth before the Red Sox tied it and then finished off a 3-2 win on Wilyer Abreus walk-off fielders choice, leaving the Giants to wonder again how many leads they can afford to let slip in the final inning. [Read more 🡒]