San Francisco Giants: Let’s Pump the Breaks on Bochy Bashing

For some reason, San Francisco Giants Manager, Bruce Bochy, is under the microscope. It’s time to cool it with the “Bochy Bashing.”

2018 just didn’t go to plan for the San Francisco Giants. They tried their hardest to re-tool and rebuild a pathetic team in over a year. They got close, but injuries clearly got in their way this year. Now, as the Giants approach a potential second straight losing season, it has some calling for the head of the man in charge.

Let me be clear right from the start: It’s not Bruce Bochy’s fault. The notion that it is on him, is absolutely ridiculous. The notion that he in any way, shape, or form isn’t fit to lead this ball-club, is far fetched as well.

There are significant issues with the roster construction of this team. They are one of the most expensive teams in baseball, and one of the oldest. The offense isn’t good, and their own medical staff can’t properly keep people healthy and rehab them properly.

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The San Francisco Giants have had everyone of their first choice players off the disabled list for 0 games this year. Zero. Not one game have they had a fully healthy 25 man roster. That’s the hardest part about this season.

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When Bumgarner came back, the only stretch of games where he, Cueto, and Samardzija made their correct turns in the rotation came while Evan Longoria and Joe Panik were hurt. Not one game with a fully healthy lineup on the 25 man roster. So let’s take that into perspective.

Let’s also be clear that I definitely think Bochy has made his mistakes. I think they care too much about lefty vs. righty lineups instead of just playing their best possible lineup each night they can. I think he’s mishandled the bullpen a lot over the last couple years, but nothing to the point of costing them results. In the end, Bochy can only do so much with what he’s given.

The offense is putrid. They hit below .250 as a team, their Slugging percentage is yet again in the bottom five in the league, and they strike out at an alarming rate. They average 3.9 runs a game and are firmly planted in their place when it comes to offense, AGAIN a bottom five team.

The roster construction: old, inconsistent, and expensive, combined with their injury problem was clearly too much for them to overcome into contention this year. That’s fine. But the problem with this is the fact that the Giants say one thing but are actually feeling another way.

In John Shea‘s recent interview with Brian Sabean, we get mixed signals. They feel that they can’t rebuild because the fanbase expects them to be a playoff team every year. Fine. But the fact that two paragraphs later he described the feeling surround this year as a “building-block” completely contradicts the notion of “competing every year.”

The biggest thing that gives hope going forward is that Sabean owned up to the fact that the offense was inept. And it probably won’t get a whole lot better by running the same squad out there with someone different than McCutchen.

If this team could correctly deal with injured players, and can shed a lot of dead weight in contracts, they have something. But by virtue of those being the major issues with this team, it takes the responsibility for their performance off of Bochy’s shoulder’s.

So, while their might be the simple idea of “winds of change are needed, the same voice get’s stale, etc.” for the reasoning of moving on from Bochy, there is no concrete evidence that damns Bochy as the reason for the way this year went. That makes any argument claiming such a thing, invalid. This team has issues it needs fixed. But it’s not Bochy.