The Giants thought they were making a clean, sensible bet when they signed Harrison Bader to a two-year, $20.5 million deal last offseason. The appeal was obvious: a strong defensive center fielder, a position San Francisco had been lacking for a while, with the chance that the upside would outweigh the injury risk and any dip from his 2025 offense.
That plan unraveled fast.
Bader finished the season hitting .170/.198/.358 with five home runs and 14 runs batted in over 30 games. He was already working through a hamstring issue early on, and plantar fasciitis also likely had an impact on his production.
The season then took an even stranger turn in July, when Bader was reportedly riding his scooter through San Francisco’s Marina district in the wee hours of the morning and collided with a fire truck, possibly the hardest contact he made all year. The crash further injured his foot, and the Giants eventually placed him on the restricted list and suspended his pay for the rest of the season.
What makes the whole thing sting for San Francisco is that the fit looked so logical before the games were played. Bader gave them the center field defense they wanted and let Jung Hoo Lee move to right field. On paper, it checked a lot of boxes.
In reality, it became a rough snapshot of the Giants’ 2026 season: a move that made sense, a player who underperformed, injuries that piled up, and a public embarrassment to go with it.
Bader’s future with the Giants is unclear, though San Francisco surely wants his contract voided. Buster Posey has had to say that Bader is still in the picture probably for legal reasons, but with Jonah Cox and Drew Gilbert both playing well in center, they should probably be the team’s options there next season.
For now, the Giants can at least point to those internal alternatives. Without them, they might have been forced to keep rolling the dice on Bader. As it stands, he is facing an uncertain future and will probably be with another team in 2027, assuming someone is willing to take a chance on him after 2026.
In Other News...
Buster Posey Just Made The Giants' Biggest Offseason Priority Clear
The Giants closed the 2026 season with more questions than answers on the mound, and Buster Posey did not leave much mystery about where the front office intends to start fixing them. As president of baseball operations, he pointed directly to the bullpen and the rotation as the clubs offseason priorities, a reflection of how much the pitching staff struggled to provide stability over the course of the year.
Posey also acknowledged the reality of trying to add arms, with trades and free agency rarely making it simple to line up the kind of pitching a team needs. San Francisco does have some encouraging pieces in the pipeline, including Matt Wilkinson, and it will be counting on familiar names like Logan Webb, Landen Roupp and Camilo Doval to help anchor the staff when next season arrives. [Read more 🡒]
Giants Fans Should Notice What The Diamondbacks Are Signaling Already
The Diamondbacks are already sending a clear offseason message, and Giants fans have reason to pay attention to it. Arizona owner Ken Kendrick said the club expects to lower payroll and probably will not be chasing many high-priced free agents, a reminder that a division rival can change its spending habits as quickly as its results change on the field. For a Giants club trying to keep pace in the NL West, those kinds of cues matter because they shape the market around them, not just one roster.
Across the league, the Marlins also made a notable coaching change, parting ways with hitting coach Pedro Guerrero as president of baseball operations Peter Bendix said the club wanted a new voice in that spot. Meanwhile, the Arizona Fall League opened Saturday, with the Scottsdale Scorpions dropping their opener to the Surprise Saguaros. It is still early in the calendar, but these moves and developments all point to the same larger reality: the offseason is already taking shape, and the Giants will be watching which teams step back, which ones retool, and where the opportunities might open up. [Read more 🡒]
Buster Posey Sees One Huge Giants Question Defining 2027
Even after a frustrating 2026 season, there is still a clear path back for the Giants if the roster can simply get healthy. San Francisco underwhelmed despite having Rafael Devers, Matt Chapman and Willy Adames in the mix, and all three finished the year on the injured list, leaving the club with far too much talent unavailable when it mattered most.
Buster Posey is betting that 2027 looks different, and his optimism starts with the return of those core pieces. Chapman and Devers have both had successful core surgeries and are expected to be ready for next season, a development that could go a long way toward stabilizing a team that never found its rhythm this year. The bigger question now is whether the Giants can turn that health into the kind of production that finally matches the roster on paper. [Read more 🡒]