Baseball is back. In Buster Posey we trust.
Gilbert S.C. Keith-Agaran | Photos courtesy Gil Keith-Agaran
My San Francisco Giants won three World Series in 2010, 2012, and 2014. 2016 could have added to the lore if the Good Lord wasn’t hellbent on finally letting the Chicago Cubs win a World Series. Odd years in that decade weren’t so great—injuries, bad luck, and all the other intangibles that happen. That’s baseball.
2025 will be the debut of the first Giants roster with Buster’s stamp.
We have a solid nucleus in solid 3B Matt Chapman, budding superstar 2B Willy Adames, ace Logan Webb, talented backstop C Philip Bailey, gritty CF Jung-Hoo Lee (a top signee returning from injury), corner OFs Heliot Ramos and Mike Yastrzemski, good starters Jordan Hicks and Robbie Ray, developing closer Ryan Walker, bullpen stalwarts Camilo Doval, Sean Hjelle and Tyler Rogers and an experienced and wily 40+ year old Justin Verlander. If youngsters Kyle Harrison, Hayden Birdsong, Grant McCray, Landen Roupp, Keaton Winn, and Tristan Beck can contribute, it might make for an entertaining year. Hopefully, top prospect Bryce Eldridge can cut down on his strikeouts in the higher minors and Marco Luciano makes a successful move to the outfield. I wouldn’t be surprised if they get up to the show this summer.
Sure, we missed out on keeping Blake Snell (after we let him take all of last summer to get into Major League form) and signing another supposed ace pitcher from Japan to that other team in the NL West. Some other teams in the NL West no doubt look pretty loaded on paper. The Giants lineups in the Kapler-Zaidi era didn’t scare anyone. But the fan in me keeps thinking those 2010, 2012, and 2014 rosters weren’t loaded either.
The nucleus of the Even Year championship teams—Posey, Brandon Belt, Madison Bumgarner, and Brandon Crawford continued to flirt with more post-season magic following the glory years. But I think they were running on the fumes of their success. Once the consecutive sell-out streak ended at PacBell-SBC-AT&T-Oracle (the name sponsor has changed over the years) and Timmy Lincecum (still the best Filipino hurler I ever saw), Matt Cain, Barry Zito, Hunter Pence, Panda Sandoval, the Brandons, Bumgarner, Posey and Bruce Bochy and Dave Righetti departed, baseball in the Bay felt different. Wait ’til next year came earlier and earlier in the season or made forever disappointing late-July and August standings watches.
The Giants hired Canadian Farhan Zaidi away from the hated dodger organization, fired GM Bobby Evans, and shifted Brian Sabean to a different role in the front office. And after only six years, the Zaidi era ended. Six years of platoons and what seemed like an overapplication of analytics. Except for a rather magical 2021 107-win season (one game better than the bums in blue that year) Zaidi oversaw in retrospect a pretty mediocre stretch—no winning record in five of six years and a final tally of 346-362. They made only one post-season appearance and lost an epic match up with a 106-win rival in a five-game divisional series. Perhaps the one saving grace was the boys from down south managed only one World Series win (during the COVID-shortened 2020 season) in that stretch despite glossy regular season totals of 92, 106, 43, 106, 111, and 100 wins.
We Fans remain confident we always know better than the front office. Zaidi should have traded MadBum when our ace had more value (rather than letting Arizona sign him away). But then again we always had that nagging feeling Farhan couldn’t be trusted because at heart he was always a dodger (he went back to them after getting fired). Things just didn’t go Zaidi or our way.
He named failed Phillies manager Gabe Kapler to follow Hall of Famer Bochy (Waiākea-native Kai Correa was the bench coach and moved on to the young Cleveland Guardians after Kapler’s dismissal). Picking up talent wherever he could (through trades, waiver claims, and what looks like big gamble free agent signings), Zaidi added OF Yastrzemski (Orioles trade), Utility Mauricio Dubón (Brewers trade), IF Donovan Solano (free agent), OF Alex Dickerson (Padres trade), IF Wilmer Flores (free agent), IF LaMonte Wade, Jr. (Twins trade) and 3B Evan Longoria (Rays trade). He brought up the best of the farmhands like OF Steve Dugger (2015 draft) and Austin Slater (2014 draft). It wasn’t a team stocked with everyday players.
For a team known for playing classic National League small ball (former Giants third base coach Tim Flannery joked about the number of RTIs—runs thrown in—scored by SF) with good pitching (Timmy-Horse-Peavy-MadBum-Vogelsong-Hudson), the solid bullpen (#FearTheBeard, Romo, Casilla, Affeldt, Lopez) and dependable defense (Crawford, Panik, Pence, Posey, Belt), Zaidi cobbled together a roster that somehow hit dingers (okay, SF did bring the fences in a little by moving the bullpens to the outfield). Even with Kapler’s analytic-driven game moves that frustrated the romantic baseball instinct fans like me, it kinda worked at times. Makes ya wonder if the Johnsons et al. had opened the wallet a bit more whether it would have made a difference. I doubt if Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani would have signed but you gotta question whether all that campaign cash for right-wing political candidates could have been better spent on free agents and building up the farm system!
Zaidi surprisingly cobbled together a rotation of former Reds hurlers Kevin Gausman (free agent), shimmying Johnny Cueto (free agent; healthy again finally), veteran Alex Wood (free agent), and a then-promising Logan Webb (2014 draft), and an adequate corps of relatively nameless bullpen arms. After letting Kapler and his crew go, Zaidi brought in former SF catcher and Oakland A’s manager Bob Melvin (who led a star-stocked Padres team to a mediocre record in his only season in San Diego) and signed Cy Young award winner Snell (who promptly conducted his own Spring Training for much of the first months of the regular season). Melvin managed the Giants to an improved record from 2023 but still a losing 80–82 record and missed the post-season.
Bandwagon fans who jumped on during the dynasty were unreasonably spoiled (they never sat through doubleheaders or free baseball at Candlestick Park). I don’t consider myself one of those Johnny come lately fans (a wise man observed a city that doesn’t have a band wagon when the home team starts winning doesn’t have any real sense of community so I welcome newbies—they pay for their tickets with the same cash or credit cards as lifelong fans). But with the wealthy and farm deep dodgers winning again (and making a habitual mockery of the rivalry season after season) and getting all the best free agents (and NOT just the U.S. but Japan!) and the Friars building a powerhouse on paper, and the Snakes youngsters balling out, the Giants felt mighty disappointing. Thank the baseball gods for the Rockies.
I grew up as a fan of small kid time in Pā‘ia (even if our pee wee and little league team were Yankees). I started following the Giants in earnest while attending law school in Berkeley. We saw the early careers of players like Will Clark, Robby Thompson, and Matt Williams, with veterans like Jeffrey Leonard, Chili Davis and Candy Maldonado and manager Roger Craig moonlighting in the dugout during the Spring and Summer and on the gridiron in the Fall and Winter. My Rotisserie Baseball partners and I—all diehard Giants fans—had a few of them, including pitchers Scott Garrelts, Dave Draveck,y and Attlee Hammaker on our roster (which may explain why we never contended regularly—we drafted and kept players we liked rather than trusting sabermetrics which, when you think about it, is all that matters in Fantasy ball).
Those were also the guys we had during the Bay Bridge World Series against Oakland. We lost that earthquake World Series but the changes brought by that natural disaster to the San Francisco city shoreline resulted in some iconic changes.
Bob Lurie sold the team to folks who wanted to keep the Giants in the Bay Area.
The former Hawaii Islander Barry Bonds came home to the Bay Area, and we built a new stadium in China Basin in 2002, these West Coast Giants behind Barry, Jeff Kent, JT Snow, Jason Schmidt, Benito Santiago, Rich Aurillia, Kenny Lofton, Robb Nen and manager Dusty Baker finally won a World Series after collecting five in New York. We beat the Anaheim Angels in six games (I don’t recognize what happened after we led 5–0 with Russ Ortiz dealing in game six).
So with every team starting even, hope springs eternal. I manifest that the Giants will win their next World Series in October.
After all, it’s a long season and there are a lot of games left to play.
Gilbert S.C. Keith-Agaran attended law school in the Bay Area where he spent many evenings at Candlestick Park and Oakland Alameda Stadium. He “studied” for the California Bar Exam at the ballpark. He and his spouse witnessed Barry Bond’s 700th home run on September 17, 2004 in the SBC Park outfield bleachers. He still loves Even Years but is hoping for Odd Year magic in 2025. He still firmly believes Dusty should have left the starter continue in Game 6 of the 2002 World Series.