By Brian Murphy
If you go back and read the reports from October 1, 2024, you’ll remember how we all felt the day Buster Posey took over the baseball operations job. It was pretty darn glowing. Buster was back. Leading the Giants. Buster said he wanted to be in the “memory-making” business.
Let’s go.
Now all anyone wants to do is forget the first 50 games of the 2026 season.
Miserable offensive production. Last in MLB in runs scored, stolen bases and walks. No closer in the bullpen. Blown games. Baserunning blunders. No comeback wins when trailing after six innings.
Buster Posey has been on the job for less than 20 months and the fan base is not impressed.
This is difficult to reconcile for Giants lifers. Buster Posey is the almost-mythical name associated with something no San Francisco Giants fan ever saw before: World Series title after World Series title after World Series title.
Buster Posey would never be associated with losing.
And yet. Here we are.
So, today’s Jock Blog asks: where do we go from here?
Here’s the thing: Buster Posey has been bold in those 20 months. He executed a trade for Rafael Devers that could be called the organization’s biggest since the Matt Williams trade in 1996. He fired Bob Melvin. He made history by hiring a college coach who’d never been in pro ball. Seeing a void at shortstop, he signed Willy Adames to a seven-year deal. He even got credit for extending Matt Chapman in September of 2024
Here’s the problem: In 140 games with the Giants, Devers’ numbers are markedly down from his career averages across the board — in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. His hire at skipper, Tony Vitello, is ten games under .500. Adames hit .176 with a miserable .553 OPS in April. Chapman has one home run and is tracking for the worst power season of his career.
Buster’s bold moves have not worked thus far.
Tough deal.
These are the kinds of things that can lead to less than pleasant radio interviews, for all involved.
Is all this Buster’s fault?
If they are Buster’s fault, well, most are the faults of the Jock Blog, as well.
I loved the Devers trade, even knowing that Kyle Harrison had ace potential. Didn’t matter. You were getting the slugger that would never sign here as a free agent.
I thought the extra years for Adames and Chapman were not ideal, but the price of doing business in the free agent market, and securing the left side of the infield for playoff contention. If it meant you had dead money in 2030, so be it.
And Vitello seemed like the kind of outside-the-box move that could rattle the industry and bring a new energy, a fresh coat of paint to a team that was mired in mediocrity.
None of those takes has reached fruition.
Let’s be positive for a moment. Here’s one I think we can agree on: I liked the Pat Bailey trade. Didn’t you? Dan Susac seems more than ready to be the guy behind the plate, and the Giants added an intriguing left arm and more draft capital.
If I had any legit complaint about Buster’s roster construction, it was the blatant lack of a closer and/or any back-end bullpen arms available entering 2026. That seemed risky, and not in keeping with a prudent Posey game plan. It has played out as such. For a team that dug such a deep hole early in the year, blowing two games in one day at Philadelphia, another one days later in Tampa, and doing it again last Tuesday in Arizona — those were mistakes the 2026 Giants could not afford.
So what happens next?
A World Series parade seems unlikely. Let’s scratch that off the list.
Could a surge of respectable baseball take place in the next 110 games, fueled by Devers, Adames and Chapman merely returning to career numbers, Trevor McDonald asserting himself in the rotation, Keaton Winn finding a few saves and Bryce Eldridge and Casey Schmitt banging baseballs around the Cove?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Look, you’re not getting rid of Buster Posey after two seasons. That would just too much tumult, and not nearly enough runway. The farm system is legitimately the strongest it’s been in years. My guy Vic Bericoto is up. The Giants own the No. 4 pick in July’s draft.
And as my Dad used to remind me, with a wink: the future lies ahead.
Here’s to the future. Because the recent past has sucked.
Ballgame tonight. See ya out there.
—30—
