Buster Posey needs to give the SF Giants a clear identity in 2025

The SF Giants have lacked a clear identity in recent years. With Buster Posey as the new president of baseball operations, he needs to restore a sense of identity to the team like they had during the championship years.

There were a lot of moving parts during Farhan Zaidi's tenure as president of baseball operations, but an overall vision often seemed to be lacking. Moves seemed to contradict one another at times or Zaidi would say things that he would double back on two weeks later.

While it may be a lot to ask Posey to make the Giants competitive with the Los Angeles Dodgers in a season, it is not too much to ask him to give the team an identity. If he can lay out a vision for the team and follow through on it, then at least moves will make more sense even if they do not always work out.

The SF Giants need a clear identity in 2025

We know that in the 2010's the identity of the Giants was great pitching, solid defense, and timely hitting. In all of those World Series years they had a strong starting rotation, strong bullpen, played tight defense, and were never offensive juggernauts but they got hits when it counted.

It was a strategy that worked to great effect, delivering 3 World Series championships in 5 years. It also seems like the surest way for the Giants to be competitive again.

Right now, the Giants are lacking in all three of those areas. Their pitching has solid components but as a whole is not particularly strong with a 4.10 team ERA in 2024. Their defense is below average as they ranked 17th in fielding percentage as a team in 2024 and there are too many instances where they beat themselves with mistakes which is something those championship teams did so rarely. And, of course, their hitting has been anything but timely. In 2024 they ranked 26th in MLB as a team when it came to batting average with runners in scoring position.

Buster needs to try to turn these areas back into strengths. The Giants need to get a co-ace for their rotation, a strong defensive shortstop, and maybe look into players who have a record of getting those clutch hits with runners on base.

It will take time to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together, but at the very least Posey needs to have a cogent overall strategy so the Giants have a clear identity going forward as a team.