At this time last year, nobody thought the Giants had a chance to win the National League West.
Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA model projected San Francisco to win 75 games and gave the club a 0% chance to win the division.
Then the Giants started winning and never really stopped. They played at least .600 ball every month of the season. They won more games than any other team that had gone under .500 the year prior. They posted the best OPS in the National League, broke the record for pinch hit home runs and set a new franchise record with 241 homers overall.
But the computers are calling the Giants’ 107 wins relative fluke and raising the same pessimism from last spring for the 2022 season.
PECOTA thinks the Giants will win 78 games — a 29-win step back — and have the NL’s worst offense. Fangraphs predicts an 84-78 campaign. The numbers think a 107-win team will turn into a non-playoff one.
But as the Giants showed last year, expectations are made to be exceeded. For SF to again prove the models wrong, they’ll need these things, and likely several more, to go their way.
35 is the new 25
Darin Ruf could very well have a breakout year as he gets closer to everyday usage. Joey Bart could carry the confident demeanor he’s displayed in camp into the season and look like the prospect Giants fans have hoped he’d be since 2018. Thairo Estrada could build on last year and provide key depth in the middle infield as a souped up Donovan Solano.
But those contributions are all in the peripherals. Nothing really matters unless the Giants’ tricenarians don’t produce. The Brandons and Evan Longoria will have to keep that metaphoric cliff in front of them.
Only Juan Soto and Bryce Harper have posted better wRC+ (Weighted Runs Created Plus) scores than Brandon Belt has since 2020. Unless the nagging knee injury that’s slowed him through camp bleeds into the season, the late-career renaissance should continue for the 34-year-old first baseman.
Crawford, 35, is the more precarious hitter. Just two seasons ago, in 2019, he hit .228 with a 74 OPS+ (100 is average). He had a negative WAR and looked in line to start at shortstop only against right-handed starters.
Then Crawford turned his career around. He made a legitimate MVP case last year with the best offensive season of his 11-year career. But shortstops typically don’t age well and he’s not getting any older. Derek Jeter in 2009 is the only shortstop at least 35 to post a 5.0 WAR in a season this century. Only two others, Ozzie Smith and Barry Larkin, have done it in the expansion era (since 1961).
So the Giants are banking on Crawford having a historic season. Last year he proved it to be a sharp gamble.
Longoria is the most worrisome case. Though he’s more expendable than the Brandons, Longoria is nonetheless a valuable component. He recorded a 1.088 OPS against left-handed pitchers last year — among the strongest platoon advantages in baseball. And without Buster Posey and Kris Bryant, Longoria’s lefty-mashing is all the more crucial.
The 36-year-old third baseman is starting the season on the IL with a finger injury. He missed two-plus months last year with a freak shoulder injury. In his last three full seasons, Longoria has missed 151 games. How much can he be out there in 2022, and when he is, what can he give the Giants?
The computers expect the Giants’ offense to take a huge step back this year. Crawford, Belt and Longoria are the ones who can keep it humming.
Belt and Crawford’s bats in the middle of the order drives SF’s offense. Longoria adds length and a left-handed pitching crusher. The Giants can keep hitting miraculous pinch hit home runs and squeeze every possible matchup advantage out of a given situation, but if those three veterans slide, it will be tough for the team to produce runs on a competitive level.
A championship level rotation
In none of San Francisco’s three championships has its starting rotation recorded an earned run average over 4.00. Last year’s starters, in fact, had a better combined ERA than any of the Even Year groups at 3.44.
With how the NL West is shaping up and how the offseason played out for the Giants, the rotation might have to be even better in 2022.
The Logan Webb-Carlos Rodón one-two punch could be even more stout than last year’s top of the rotation with Kevin Gausman. Webb went 7-0 with a 2.71 ERA in the second half before dominating the Dodgers for two games in the NLDS. If he continues on his trajectory, he’ll be one of the best pitchers working for a long time.
Rodón, meanwhile, features the best pitch in baseball — his four-seam fastball — and is among the nastiest pitchers in baseball when he’s on.
Behind the aces, Anthony DeSclafani, Alex Wood and Alex Cobb each have the potential to be excellent supplemental pieces.
MLB.com thinks that’s the sixth-best rotation in baseball (last year’s rotation posted the third-best ERA behind the Dodgers and Brewers). For the Giants to overachieve, they might need those five arms — plus eventually Matthew Boyd — to perform even better than that.
The bullpen shouldn’t be an issue. Tyler Rogers is still going to punch into work a lot. Jake McGee, no matter how nerve racking it might be, will save a ton of games. Camilo Doval has already shown top-notch stuff.
So it’ll be on the starting rotation to go deep into games and give them opportunities to protect leads. They have the talent to do so, but if they underperform for whatever reason, things could go sideways.
Every starter has looked fantastic this spring. SF will need them to continue to post throughout the season and lift the roster in classic Giants fashion. They could determine the team’s fate.
Staying healthy
Biggest cliche in the game – control the controllables.
SF’s coaching staff has been committed to injury prevention. Brandon Crawford will be on a Buster Posey-esque plan in terms of working with the coaches to plan out rest days as needed. Veterans won’t play every day. Arms won’t be overly taxed early in the season.
But of course some injuries just happen. Sometimes staying healthy just comes down to luck.
What makes the 2021 Giants even more impressive is that they weren’t a beacon of health. There was the Brandon Belt bunt. The Evan Longoria collision. Tommy La Stella only played 76 games.
According to Man Games Lost, an MLB injury data resource, the Giants lost 12.86 wins above replacement due to injury — third most.
Farhan Zaidi has contingency plans for every possibility. Like he runs his fantasy football team, there’s always Plan B and Plan C for injuries. But SF might need more injury luck than last year. And what spring has sprung isn’t the most promising start; Evan Longoria and LaMonte Wade Jr. are going to miss Opening Day on the injured list.
Health will be the key, for the Giants and just about every team. For the rotation to reach its potential and the bats to click, contributors will need to be fresh and available. Stay away from leaning ladders and black cats.