By Jack Loder
It’s bad enough to live in the moment with the 2026 San Francisco Giants. The product this team is putting on the field on a daily basis sufficiently triggers your daily allotment of angst and frustration. But when zoomed out, the reality actually becomes even scarier. The very players whom the organization has invested years of huge dollars for are the biggest reason the team is losing, and they’ll be on the books for years to come. They aren’t getting any younger either.
We really can’t complain too much. We all begged the Giants to spend more money for years. When they lost out on Bryce Harper, Carlos Correa (medical) Aaron Judge, and finally Shohei Ohtani, fans of the perpetual bridesmaids clamored, lamenting cheap ownership and pleading for more aggressive spending on the open market.
Well, the Giants have paid their stars now, and the reason they may have been reluctant to in the past is now potentially on display. The Giants are being dragged down by their highest-paid players. Those who are paid astronomically to generate wins, are the reason the team has lost at such a clip through 37 games. It’s not a referendum on the signing process, but the reality of the contracts of Matt Chapman, Rafael Devers, and Willy Adames could be incredibly bleak.
None of that trio of bats has been even replacement level for the Giants this season, which is a disaster for a club that was built around their success. The supporting cast hasn’t been good either, aside from Casey Schmitt and Luis Arraez. But a team, with those two as the centerpieces of a lineup is a team that will lose 100 games.
Let’s take a peak at some of the carnage that lies on the Giants’ stat sheet. For the sake of horror, I’ll clump the three players owed a total of 77 MILLION AAV dollars this season together. The group has accounted for 90 hits in 412 at bats, good for a .218 batting average. The trio has homered, drum roll please, seven times. Matt Chapman and Willy Adames haven’t homered in a month. Devers’ homer on Wednesday afternoon was his third of the year, and first in three weeks. They’ve driven in a grand total of 32 runs in 37 games. The Giants’ highest paid, supposed to be middle of the order bats, are driving in about 0.86 runs per game.
The last two weeks and change have seen intensified struggles for Willy Adames and Matt Chapman, as Rafael Devers begins to actually see the ball better, to his credit. Adames is six for his last 60. A stretch worse than Patrick Bailey’s worst career slump. In those 60 at bats, he’s doubled once, driven in a grand total of ZERO runs, and has been punched out 24 times. He’s struck out 47 times this season. In 36 games. Last, and least, Adames has six RBIs on the year. He’s on pace to drive in just over 25 runs on the season. Based on the AAV of his contract, the Giants would be paying Willy Adames $1,040,000 per run batted in. Great.
Chapman has clubbed just one home run, back in March during the second series of the year. His overall batting stats are better, because he actually had a solid start, but the recent numbers tell a much worse story. Chapman has seven hits in his last 15 games, and hasn’t recorded a knock in a week. He got two hits in the second game of the disastrous doubleheader in Philadelphia. The downturn in power is probably most alarming, especially considering the 33-year-old will be cashing Giants’ checks until he’s 37. Chapman has been to the plate 152 times so far. He has the aforementioned lonely home run, six doubles, and a triple. Doing quick math, that’s eight extra base hits in 152 plate appearances.
It’s easy to harp on guys like Patrick Bailey and Harrison Bader, but they’re far from the biggest offensive issue facing the Giants. Even Heliot Ramos, a former All-Star, isn’t making bucks that might hamstring the club for half a decade. Simply put, the Giants won’t succeed in the present without above average production at the plate from Rafael Devers, Willy Adames, and Matt Chapman.
There’s not enough words in this bulletin to address Logan Webb, another star who, by his own admission, has performed well below his standards this season. Bryce Eldridge isn’t saving this team, not in 2026. Neither is Jesus Rodriguez. The only way this gets better is if the Giants’ best players just play a whole lot better.
