The Giants aren’t underperforming because they don’t have a superstar. They didn’t really have one last year and won 107 games. They’re underperforming because they don’t have any clearly defined strengths.
What counts as a strength? For the purposes of this blog, a position from which only a select few teams have gotten better production. The 2021 Giants had four positions ranking top five– as well as a #6 ranking out of starting pitching– in cumulative Wins Above Average, Baseball-Reference’s metric that is scaled to the league average player at a position rather than a theoretical replacement level. It’s not a great metric, perhaps even a subpar one, especially for catchers and pitchers (which is why we’ll ignore the latter from here on). But it’s laid out in an easy-to-sort way, and I like convenience.
Catcher, first base, and shortstop were the clear offensive positions of strength in 2021. Buster Posey and Brandon Crawford anchored the catcher and shortstop positions, while Brandon Belt, Darin Ruf, Wilmer Flores, and LaMonte Wade Jr. split time at first base. Those first basemen combined for 48 home runs, the highest total for any position in MLB. The Giants retained Crawford and Belt on short-term deals, but Posey was lost to retirement. Luckily, a top prospect in Joey Bart could be expected to put up average production, allowing the Giants to allocate some of that lost value to other positions without losing too much value from catchers. Plus, the implementation of the universal DH should allow the Giants to play around with their versatility and add further value. Let’s see how the positional breakdown has changed this year and…
Oh no.
In theory, the Giants could expect to take a slight hit in production and still weather the storm. In practice, that became much more difficult with all players listed above either taking significant dips in production or not getting much playing time due to injury. Instead of being able to rely on star production from non-star players, the Giants are using those non-star players to stay afloat and make up for lost production elsewhere. Thairo Estrada and Luis González are both above verage players, being used as main components of an offense rather than impressive compliments that lengthen the order.
What’s Happened To Get Here?
The 2022 Giants are a run-it-back squad, so it’s easy to assume that there was team-wide regression compounded by the loss of Posey. That’s not entirely true, though. The catcher position, despite Bart’s offensive struggles, has still given the Giants solid production. They’ve gotten better at second base too, mostly because there’s been one main guy who’s performed well. Plus, the defense brings down those WAA numbers a little bit. Here’s a look at positional ranks based on OPS.
Joc Pederson is going to be an all star, likely a starter, thanks to giving the Giants far-and-away the best offensive numbers in left field. On the other side of the ball, though, Pederson, Ruf, and González have combined for -13 DRS. That’s the same story for third base, who do have strong offensive numbers but -11 DRS between Longoria, Flores, and Jason Vosler. Mike Yastrzemski is back to being a borderline All Star candidate after a limply above average season last year. In a lot of areas, the team has gotten better, they’re just not good enough to make up for the lacking areas.
It’s probably unfair to call third base a weakness for the Giants, but they haven’t gotten much better than fair production from their three main players. Longoria’s in the midst of a hot streak that’s raised his season wRC+ from 103 to 139 in the last seven days, and he’ll probably go back down around the 100–110 range with another three-week-long cold stretch that happens like clockwork. Flores has been an above average hitter and slightly negative defender, though a June slump brings his numbers down some. Vosler hasn’t played much, but he’s hit well at the Major League level despite his ugly defensive numbers. The position isn’t hurting the team.
Shortstop, on the other hand, has absolutely been a weak spot. Not only is the depth pretty abysmal, where the backup choice is between someone with -8 DRS at second base and someone with a 41 wRC+, but Crawford has also been pretty bad this year. After slugging .639 against fastballs in 2021, Crawford is slugging merely .337 against fastballs this season. That’s usually an indication of a swing just not working anymore, whether for a mechanical reason or a bat speed reason. This is accompanied by overall sharp declines in whiff rate, hard hit rate, and sprint speed which has brought him from the gold glove winner to -7 DRS, tied with Elvis Andrus for least DRS from a qualified shortstop.
As for the other Brandon, he had a 140 wRC+ over his first 79 PA before bouncing on and off the IL. He didn’t take any rehab plate appearances and has begun hitting the ball better the last few games; with time he’ll probably be back to normal. His 14.3% barrel rate since that first IL stint is still a better mark than he put up pre-2020. Ruf and Flores have been worse hitters this year, though that could be based on usage because of how many offensive injuries there have been to who they normally platoon with.
The DH position is both the most telling and most worrying. La Stella, Ruf, and Flores have taken the bulk of PA, but Ruf has a 99 wRC+, La Stella 103, and Flores 106. Wade’s loss is really felt here. Ideally, the outfield is Wade-Yastrzemski-González against RHP, which moves Pederson to DH and La Stella to the bench. Of course, the ideal world only exists for a small window of time, if at all. Wade has played eleven games this season and González is currently shelved with back soreness. While the Giants are certainly not complaining with the production they’ve gotten from the outfield, the returns of Wade and González would make the entire lineup better.
The Giants also just don’t have the offensive depth they did last year, if Donovan Walton’s continued presence on the roster is any indication. They’ve had to resort to using their backup catcher as a DH against left handed pitching because they didn’t have anyone else with the platoon matchup. The next-man-up mentality that was present through not just the 40-man roster but also the everyday lineup is not as dominant. For example, if Hitter A struck out with two on, one out, we could reliably expect that Hitter B was in a good position to do something still. This year, I’m looking at the lineup to check who Hitter B is a lot more often.
How Can They Turn It Around?
Despite the nitpicked struggles, the Giants have the tenth best team wRC+ in MLB. There’s room to improve, but they haven’t taken a complete collapse, which makes those improvements easier. And, no, signing more free agents wouldn’t have mattered much. The full list of free agents that are definitely better than what the Giants have is: Freddie Freeman, Kyle Schwarber, Carlos Correa, Chris Taylor, Trevor Story, and Starling Marte. The response to if the Giants were ever going to sign those guys range from “get real” to “look at their contract, dude.”
I would like to see the front office be more active on the superstar aspect of the free agent market, but the truth is there haven’t been many generational talents on the free agent market in Zaidi’s tenure. I suppose you could count Correa as one, but after Crawford’s 2021, it’s entirely reasonable to stick with him when he’s an in-house option rather than trying to bid against 29 other teams. There is a future free agent who is a generational talent who happened to grow up a Giants fan and is rumored to prefer AAV to contract length which could lead to a perfect storm that Farhan can’t pass up, but we’ll cross that path when we get there.
Since the issues are all on the infield, hoping Heliot Ramos can make those needed mechanical adjustments quickly probably isn’t satisfactory. Joey Bart making adjustments and improving would help a lot, though it’s probably going to be a while before we see him again if Casali and Wynns stay healthy. David Villar is having an incredible year for the River Cats, but I’m not fond of bringing up a prospect with whiff issues in the midst of a playoff race and no path to consistent playing time without a significant injury. The in-house solutions appear to be hoping that the struggling players turn it around ahead of the August 2 trade deadline.
There are expected to be plenty of short and long term options on the trade market, and the Giants appear to be in a good position to pursue both. They have many prospects worth keeping who will have Rule 5 eligibility this offseason, and a front office which cherishes 40-man flexibility may not like using upwards of ten spots on prospects. It’s not likely that they swing a trade for, say, old friend Luis Castillo, but don’t be shocked if they’re offering a package that includes Randy Rodriguez or Jairo Pomares for someone with multiple years of club control.
We’re too far out from the deadline to know who’s really available, but rentals on rebuilding teams such as Josh Bell, Brandon Drury, Willson Contreras, and Donovan Solano all fill a need for the Giants. Adam Frazier and Tony Kemp could be potential buy-low utility candidates, though their track records have a lot more bad than good.
It’s a tough position to be in, and I’m glad I’m not in it. The Giants’ offense is coming off a poor June month after hitting well through the first two months of the season. Ironically, it’s when the pitching finally bounces back after a poor month of May. That inconsistency has frustrated them this year; the pitching has been there when the offense hasn’t, and vice versa. Yet, they’ve been good enough to be firmly within grasp of a playoff spot and have a lot of room before they reach the ceiling. Months are arbitrary periods of time, but if July can finally be that month where the offense and pitching fires on all cylinders, this blog may become entirely redundant. Retain optimism for now, this is a team that could very easily be within a couple games of the division at the All Star break. If it’s July 23 and they’re still performing like a .500 team, then it’s time to panic and offer a king’s ransom for Bryan Reynolds.