It’s that gorgeous time of year again, Giants fans.
The boys are stretching and jogging out in Scottsdale to prep for another season of baseball by the Bay. Will we actually see a game this season? Who knows. But I know, like me, you’ll be glued to the TV for every pitch, more so this season than ever.
And for good reason, because despite the collision course for 100 wins each it seems the newly-loaded Padres and defending champion Dodgers are on, there’s a lot to look forward to this season for the orange and black.
Let’s go through some of it, 3 to be exact.
- BUSTER’S BACK
Yes, our beloved backstop has returned to us. After opting to sit out the last year’s 60-game COVID rollercoaster to spend time with the family, Buster Posey will once again “be in the SQUUUAT puttin’ down the signs.”
I gotta say I missed that handsome S.O.B. I mean, when the face of the team is absent, even overachieving all year to come one lousy win from the playoffs just didn’t seem as sweet.
Buster’s had more than ample time to recover from major hip surgery, an injury he’s been nursing for some time that’s visibly hindered the league’s best catcher for the past few seasons, particularly at the plate.
We haven’t seen that classic Posey swing feasting on fastballs for some time now, and early assessments of Buster are that he’s looked better than ever physically (is that even possible) and in workouts. Obviously, none of us expect to see the sprightly young catcher that fueled 3 World Series runs, but I’d say we’re looking for more consistent run production, a considerable uptick in extra base hits, and sustaining his health after a long time away from the diamond.
Of course, we have to address the elephant in the room: this season could potentially be his last as a Giant. After this season, Buster can be bought out of his contract and hit the market a year early. And as we’ve seen, Farhan Zaidi is setting this team up to land a big free agent fish soon, and is already putting the pieces around whoever that player is to compete as soon as he signs. If Buster continues to decline, he might be dead weight that Zaidi will want to cut loose.
A couple scenarios could combat this. Buster could literally ball out and Farhan would be a fool to let the fan-base’s most beloved character go after such a great campaign.
Another could be that Joey Bart, Posey’s future replacement, doesn’t make the leap…yet. Bart is already set to start the year in AAA-Sacramento after being more bad than good last year in a small sample size in an already abbreviated season. He showed flashes of the raw power he possesses, but that power did not translate into a single home run in 111 plate appearances. He also struggled at times to get on the same page with some of the staff, particularly Johnny Cueto. So if Bart doesn’t take a big step forward at some point to show he’s ready to take over, or needs more time than we’d hoped to be big-league ready, Buster might remain be the best option for a little while longer.
So in what might be Posey’s swan song in San Francisco, let’s hope his new hip gives us a few last glimpses of greatness from one of baseball’s most decorated catchers ever.
Or maybe just one more Buster hug? That’ll do also. - Farhan was in His FA Bag…Again
Personally, I haven’t questioned a single move Farhan Zaidi and Scott Harris have made in their young tenure in SF. They have an uncanny ability of finding production in the unlikeliest of places; the likes of Mike Yastrzemski, Alex Dickerson, and Donovan Solano have basically been the foundation of the Giants’ offense since they’ve been here. Turning Austin Slater and Mauricio Dubòn into super utility, Kikè Hernandez/Joc Pederson-type role players to support future stars is one of many examples that he’s using the same blueprint he unfurled in LA that turned the Dodgers into the league’s most lethal roster.
Other complimentary pieces like Wilmer Flores and Tommy La Stella (more on him later) via free agency are the aforementioned perfect glue-guy types that complete a lineup around the big bats the Giants hope to land later down the line.
Finally, he’s resurrected our farm system from the depths of despair into 9th-best in baseball, all while maintaining a competitive big league roster. I’d say job well done, and then some.
(Last little nugget, but I do appreciate the Hunter Pence and Pablo Sandoval signings at the start of his reign. Shows he understood a large chunk of the sentimental fan-base that Bochy built needed to be thrown some bones to not completely turn on him in the tough early-goings, not to mention the moves actually made some sense roster-wise.)
He’s still got to land a big fish, and in the next 2-3 off-seasons he’ll finally have his first real chances. So toast to Farhan, and let’s see if his version of a Giants, ‘band of misfits’ team, can shock the world again in 2021.
He once again took flyers on low-risk, high reward names, this time to bolster a starting staff that desperately needed some stability. Alex Wood, Anthony DeSclafani, and Aaron Sanchez are all guys with plenty of experience that will be hungry to prove their worth, much like Kevin Gausman did, and Tyler Anderson kind of did, last year. Jake McGee and Matt Wisler will fill holes in the back-end of the bullpen, with McGee providing closer-potential for a team that starved for one last season. And finally, Tommy La Stella is the at-bat grinding, utility-infielder that’ll fit perfectly into Gabe Kapler’s culture now and for a few years to come, if he isn’t traded for more younger talent; a team that’s in the hunt will always overpay for malleable guys like La Stella they can stick anywhere on the field and/or in their lineup and get instant production.
With another stellar off-season under his belt, I once again scream from the rooftops:
IN FARHAN WE TRUST! - Everybody Loves the Underdog
Like I said, the Dodgers are reigning champs, and the Padres literally loaded their roster to dethrone them. Everyone with half a mind is flipping a coin to determine which of those two will win the West, and in most cases, will win the World Series.
That leaves the Giants, the Arizona Diamondbacks, and the Colorado Rockies to duke it out at the bottom of the division, and potentially play spoilers. The Rockies just traded their entire identity to St. Louis with Nolan Arenado, and the Dbacks were more than underwhelming last year and, in my opinion, are set up to perform similarly this year barring any surprise outbreaks from their pitching staff.
So that leaves San Francisco as the sole source of any potential Earth-shattering upsets.
An even lesser roster almost weaseled their way into the COVID-playoffs last year, and who’s to say they can’t turn even more heads this time around?
Could the Dodgers have some World Series hangover like we’ve seen other champions, including us, have in the past? They did just throw the entire world at Trevor Bauer and over-payed for an aged Justin Turner, but both of those guys’ energetic presences probably won’t allow that to happen. But aside from 2011 when the Buster Posey injury deflated them, I’d say it happened to the Giants twice, among other teams that phoned in the season after winning it all. It’s possible.
The Padres have assembled a super-team, adding Blake Snell and Yu Darvish to their pitching staff, and locking up Fernando Tatis Jr. for the next 14 years so he and Mookie Betts can terrorize the Giants for the next literal decade. In some people’s eyes, they’ve already overthrown the reigning champs (on paper) who not only kept their roster of All-Stars intact, but added the reigning NL Cy-Young Award winner to it to further their cause.
But I’d like to remind folks of the last time the Padres went all in to assemble the Avengers 2.0.
The 2014-2015 offseason saw the Padres grab the likes of James Shields, the Upton brothers, Derek Norris, Matt Kemp, and Craig Kimbrel in an attempt to stockpile talent to finally regain control of the NL West and escape irrelevancy. It quite literally blew up in their face and led to a bunch of nothing for the franchise, and was one of the biggest ‘going all-in’ busts in MLB in some time.
The talent they’ve garnered this go-around is far beyond that of the 2015 Padres at the time; it’s younger, more athletic, and more proven. But, I’m just sayin’ this is the San Diego Padres, and it has happened before. In any sport, sometimes it takes a year or two to gel.
And an already close-knit, hungry group like the Giants could take advantage of some chemic trials and tribulations.
Dodgers have some hangover, Padres need some time, things could get weird.
So let’s get weird, G-men.
We’re set for another season where the Giants have limited expectations, with any successes being cherries on top of their cake while they retool towards a brighter future. But the team’s front office has once again put together a roster of vets looking to turn back the clock and young players looking to make a name for themselves against perhaps the league’s most talented division.
I’m in for all of it. Baseball’s back, baby.
Cheers.
Mat Chat 