By Brian Murphy
Heavy sigh.
The heavy sigh is multi-layered. We sigh not just for the 97 losses, not just for the feeling that everything went wrong this year — but also for the feeling that the upcoming winter lockout could rob us of a lot of baseball in 2027.
That’s the rub. Even when your team has a .401 win percentage and finishes 35 games out of first place in the NL West, and 23 games out of the third wild-card spot, you still miss baseball. Damndest thing. We can’t quit the Giants.
On Tuesday, Buster Posey, Tony Vitello and Zack Minasian sat in front of the media and did the traditional year-end presser. Anyone looking for a magic pill would be sorely disappointed — mainly because there is no magic pill that exists outside of a Jackson Flora-Josuar Gonzalez time warp to the future, and also because year-end pressers for teams that miss October generally leave every fan base wanting.
Posey said the bullpen’s many failures this year were on him — “I’ll take the blame” — which counted for something, maybe. Still didn’t change the fact that the Giants’ season-save leader was . . . can you guess? . . . still waiting … Caleb Killian, with eight.
That’s Caleb Killian, the Philadelphia Phillie who isn’t even on the Phils’ post-season roster because he’s on the 60-day IL. That says something, but I’m not sure what.
Posey also took time near the end of the press conference to read the room and sense that there was too much general discussion without an over-arching declaration of failure, and ad-libbed that “we don’t have blinders on . . . the wins and losses were still not there with that group.”
To refresh: Veterans Logan Webb, Matt Chapman, Willy Adames and, for the first month or two, Rafael Devers skippered the Giants to a 23-36 record by June 1 — when the Giants closed out May by losing a series to the Rockies, including an 8-6 loss where the Rockies walked off the Giants with a five-run bottom of the ninth. Poor Caleb Killian served up game-tying and game-losing taters to Hunter Goodman and Ezequiel Tovar. Fun to revisit that box score.
The Jock Blog is not above listening to other pundits and pondering, and so it was that when veteran ball scribe John Shea suggested on Johnny Lund’s midday show this week that the Giants shouldn’t bother trying to contend in 2027, and instead should use 2027 to build for 2028, it sounded very much like the right path.
The Giants’ decades-long aversion to ever using the word “rebuild” has always rankled. The Jock Blog has touched on this before, but the seeming assumption is that the Giants are too proud a franchise and, frankly, too rich a franchise to ever take a step back in the name of the future. The contention here is that Giants fans are smart enough to see the big picture, and to embrace a smart organizational move. If 2027 becomes the year that Chapman, Adames and Devers shepherd the likes of Bryce Eldridge (who may need no shepherding; he may be a shepherd already) and Jonah Cox and Drew Gilbert and Marcelo Mayer and Bo Davidson and Daniel Susac and Vic Bericoto, and if it’s the year that Webb and a veteran free agent or two shepherds Landen Roupp and Randy Rodriguez and Hayden Birdsong and maybe Jackson Flora (!) or trade acquisition Miguel Mendez, well — that sounds pretty darn good.
Youth, for the first time since the magic days of 2009-10. Speed, for the first time in forever. Hope, for the first time in over a decade.
If there is baseball in 2027, fans want to see the future. And fans know that 2028 could bring even more — Josuar Gonzalez, Gavin Kilen, Ramon Marquez, Dakota Jordan, Jacob Bresnahan.
Asked about contending in 2027, Posey almost reflexively said, “I do believe we can”, and while that’s admirable from the leader, it’s not totally necessary. Contending for the next five years after 2027 sounds even better.
You want to get away from the dreary feeling of 2026 and that year-end presser? Embrace the kids. Don’t feel like you have to say you have to contend in 2027. You know what? You might contend in 2027 if you eschew expectations, and embrace the best thing Posey has done in his two years — the haul of young players he’s acquired at the trade deadline.
That would be the takeaway that would eliminate heavy sighs.
