FoundSF

Historical Essay

by Matt Sieger

       Buster Posey in his playing days with the Giants

Note: Still a lifelong New York Mets fan, when I moved to San Francisco in 1980 I also became a Giants fan. When the two teams play each other, I lean toward the Mets.

Ever since the San Francisco Giants won the World Series in 2010, 2012, and 2014, fans have been expecting another championship.

We’re still waiting.

In 2018 the Giants hired Farhan Zaidi as president of baseball operations. A disciple of Oakland A’s Billy Beane and “moneyball,” Zaidi’s analytics-driven approach worked in 2021 when the Giants won 107 games.

But the fans’ trust in Zaidi eroded as the Giants went 82-82 in 2022 and then had two losing seasons. The Giants’ management also soured on Zaidi, as they replaced him with Buster Posey, who played on all three of those World Series champions.

The fans let out a collective sigh of relief when Zaidi was let go. The writing was on the wall shortly before Zaidi was fired, when Posey, according to The Athletic’s Andrew Baggerly, “personally dealt” with third baseman Matt Chapman to finalize a six-year, $151 million extension.

Zaidi’s poor showing might have been more tolerable if the Giants had done a better job of developing players, but they are generally considered to have a bottom-third farm system. He also failed at acquiring enough good young players. Only one of Zaidi's first four first-round picks has reached the majors, and there are legitimate questions about the other three.

Too often the Giants ran out of depth, which frustrated many within the organization who had believed that Zaidi's greatest strength was building a 40-man roster. As Alex Pavlovic wrote, “Many of Zaidi's most controversial moves actually made a lot of sense on paper, but there was a coldness to them, and over time that added up. The most notable example came a couple of years ago, when the Giants agreed to terms with Carlos Correa without giving Brandon Crawford a heads-up that he might be changing positions.”

So when the Giants hired Posey in September 2024, hope sprang among the Giants’ faithful. With the future Hall of Famer leading, depending as much on his great baseball instincts as on analytics, fans hoped for a Giants resurgence.

In the off season, Posey made a bold free agent signing of Willy Adames for seven years and $182 million. Paired with Chapman, it would give the Giants a premier defensive left side of the infield. In 2024 Adames hit 32 homers for the Milwaukee Brewers and drove in 112 runs.

San Francisco also acquired future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander. Even at 42 years old, Verlander seemed like an excellent addition.

The Giants were expecting big things from Jung Hoo Lee, the South Korean centerfielder who lost 2024 to injury.

For much of the first half of 2025, those hopes were fulfilled. The Giants stayed neck-and-neck with the Dodgers for first place. In the early months, the hitting was strong. The pitching improved as the season progressed, especially from the bullpen.

But before long, the wheels began to fall off. As of June 28, Adames was hitting .211 with ten homers and just 37 RBIS. Lee had nosedived into a prolong slump. The bullpen was in a tailspin. Chapman was out with an injury. Both of his backups, Casey Schmitt and Christian Koss, went on the injured list.

The whole team was in a prolonged slump. Hitting with runners in scoring position was abysmal. Verlander pitched well, but was yet to win a game thanks to no run support. Robbie Ray, the outstanding southpaw with a record of 8-3 and a 2.75 ERA, had also been victimized by paltry offense.

Posey made another great move in mid-June, acquiring Rafael Devers from the Red Sox in a blockbuster trade. Devers contributed but was yet to pick up steam, especially in the power department.

As of June 28, the Giants were hitting .230 as a team, 25th out of the 30 Major League teams. They ranked 25th in home runs and 24th in OPS. They had lost 12 of their last 17 games and fallen nine games behind the first-place Dodgers.

They kept finding new ways to lose. A road trip started with a three-game series against the abysmal Chicago White Sox. They beat the Sox in the first game, 3-1, but in a portent of things to come, Brett Wisely was picked off first base. In game two, Wisely was on third and Koss on second with no outs and Devers at the plate. As Devers swung and missed to strike out, Wisely took a few steps toward home, trying to get a good jump if Devers hit a ground ball. The catcher threw a strike to the third baseman to nail him. Double play. They lost the game 1-0.

In the final game of the series, behind a strong six innings from Verlander, the Giants led 2-1 until the Sox scored four runs in the seventh. Then, in the top of the eighth, San Francisco loaded the bases with one out and their best hitter, Heliot Ramos at the plate. He grounded into a double play.

If the Giants weren’t already feeling snake bit, the Diamondbacks delivered the coup de grâce the next day in Arizona. With the score 2-2 in the eighth, Koss hit a fly ball to deep left-center field. As the left fielder leapt for the ball, a fan leaned over the wall and caught it. It appeared on replay that the ball would have hit the top of the wall and bounced over for a home run. But the umps called it a ground-rule double. Devers struck out for the second out. Then Ramos was called out on strikes on a pitch that looked outside. Giants manager Bob Melvin had had enough and got himself tossed from the game for arguing that call.

No one is blaming Posey for the Giants’ struggles. He secured Chapman, Adames, and Devers, all with proven track records. Melvin is managing well. Unlike in the Zaidi years, the lineups have been stable. But, as Casey Stengel moaned about the New York Mets in their inaugural 1962 season, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”

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Matt Sieger, now retired, is a former sports reporter and columnist for The Vacaville Reporter. He is the author of The God Squad: The Born-Again San Francisco Giants of 1978 and In My Humble Opinion: Musings of a Sports Columnist. Matt lives in Martinez.

This article first appeared in The Sports Column on July 4, 2025