The San Francisco Giants have spent plenty of time trying to sell themselves as a team with a fast track to October. That pitch doesn’t fit what’s actually sitting in Oracle Park right now.
What this club looks like instead is a rebuild, even if that’s not the message a big-market franchise wants to hear. Strange as it sounds, that might be the best thing that’s happened to them all season.
Over the past month, the Giants have stumbled into a real identity. It wasn’t planned.
It came from necessity. But if they can carry it forward, they may have found something worth building on instead of another polished sales job that goes nowhere.
The odd part is how this happened. The Giants have about a half-billion dollars tied up in veteran star power, yet they only started looking like a functional, entertaining team after half the payroll landed on the 60-day injured list.
Since Willy Adames played his last game on Aug. 23, the Giants are 12-11. That’s not the record of a contender.
But for this team, it’s a meaningful stretch. Better-than-.500 baseball over 23 games is enough to matter because it has looked so rare here.
More important, they haven’t folded. They’ve turned into an irritating team to play against, which is a far cry from the flat, lifeless version that showed up earlier in the year.
The earlier group was, as the source article put it, comatose. This one has some bite.
Tony Vitello has been a big part of that shift. For four months, he looked miserable trying to manage veteran egos and the weight of big-market expectations.
Lately, though, with a younger roster around him, he’s looked more settled. He’s a teacher, and in a dugout full of young players fighting to stay in the majors, that seems to suit him.
That’s also where the Giants have started to uncover players who could matter beyond this season.
Jonah Cox is the clearest example. When the Giants brought him up from Double-A, it looked like desperation.
At the time, it was hard not to see it as another baffling Buster Posey move. But since mid-August, when necessity turned him into a lineup regular, Cox has looked like a real piece.
Over his last 29 games as an everyday player, Cox is hitting .303 with 10 stolen bases. He also has an on-base percentage of .354 and a slugging percentage of .438. The strikeout rate is around 33 percent in that span, and the batting average on balls in play is inflated, but the broader picture is a player who changes the temperature of a game.
He’ll drop a bunt against Mason Miller’s 101-mph heat. He’ll steal third whenever he gets the chance.
That kind of energy matters. Pair Cox with Bryce Eldridge and Rafael Devers at the top of the order next season, and there’s a case for a dangerous 1-2-3 group moving forward.
Devers was the only one of the Giants’ expensive bets who really held up this year. He finished with 37 home runs, 98 RBIs and an .865 OPS, and he played through pain before eventually shutting it down for abdominal surgery. That all came after a brutally slow start.
The rest of the high-end payroll didn’t deliver. Some of it was injured.
Some of it simply wasn’t effective. Logan Webb falls into that group too, according to the source article.
Those veteran underperformances helped define the first miserable four-and-a-half months of the season.
Now the cheap labor is giving the team a different feel.
That sets up a complicated winter, especially with an impending lockout hanging over the sport. Matt Chapman and Adames are expected back next spring, or maybe summer, and the real question is whether they fit into this new style or drag the Giants back toward the old one.
The answer the Giants need is obvious: keep the scrappy version. Make it the standard. Build around youthful zeal and add to the one thing that has actually worked.
There’s a lesson there, even if it doesn’t match the organization’s preferred self-image. The Giants may need to operate more like the Brewers, the Rays and the Guardians - clubs that have done well with less - and the farm system suggests they might have enough to try.
None of this guarantees anything for 2027. Rebuilds are messy, baseball is brutal, and a good September can vanish fast. But this is the first real foothold the Giants have had in a while.
They don’t have to love that reality. They do have to face it.
If they choose to ignore it and force the old script again, they’ll waste another year pretending to be something they’re not. And after the way this season has gone, that act is wearing thin.
In Other News...
Giants May Have Quietly Solved A Daniel Susac Roster Problem
Daniel Susacs 2023 season ended with a left knee patella fracture, but there was a roster wrinkle attached to his injury that the Giants may have quietly worked through. As a Rule 5 draft pick, Susac had to spend enough time on the active roster to satisfy the leagues service-time requirements, and his stint reached the needed threshold before the season shut down.
That matters because it changes how San Francisco can manage him going forward. Starting in 2027, the club can strip away the Rule 5 restrictions and treat Susac like a normal 40-man roster player, giving the Giants control over him through at least 2031. For a team always balancing young talent, roster flexibility and long-term depth, that is the sort of behind-the-scenes development that can matter later even if it barely registered at the time. [Read more 🡒]
Giants May Have Found An Outfield Answer In An Unlikely Trade
The Giants February 2024 trade with the Athletics looked minor at the time, but Jonah Cox has turned it into a far more interesting development than anyone probably expected. Since reaching the majors on May 31, 2026, the outfielder has shown enough contact, gap power and overall athleticism to force his way into the conversation, hitting .294/.333/.445 with four home runs and 13 RBIs across 53 games.
What keeps Cox on the radar is the speed that has long been part of his profile, the same trait that helped him pile up stolen bases in the minors and gives San Francisco a different look in an outfield still taking shape. With 2027 now looming as the next big checkpoint, Cox looks like a legitimate candidate to claim a roster spot if he keeps blending that running ability with the kind of production he has already flashed in his first extended big-league look. [Read more 🡒]
Giants Prospect Jonah Cox Is Forcing A Real Roster Debate
Jonah Cox has given the Giants something they rarely get from a rookie outfielder this early in the process: a real conversation about fit. Even in limited action, he has separated himself with elite speed on the bases, enough to lead the club in stolen bases, and his defensive range has added another layer to his value. Coaches have taken notice of the way he can change a game just by getting on base and putting pressure on the defense.
For a Giants roster that is always being weighed against versatility, Coxs profile is hard to ignore. The speed plays in every phase, from first-step bursts in the outfield to the aggressive decisions on the basepaths that can turn singles into scoring chances. With Opening Day roster planning already taking shape, he has done more than create buzz. He has made it difficult to imagine the conversation without his name in it. [Read more 🡒]