How Buster Posey can ensure 2026 isn’t a repeat of 2025 for SF Giants

The SF Giants have officially been eliminated from playoff contention. Despite a late-season surge, their summer swoon was just too much to overcome. Now, Buster Posey is tasked with ensuring 2026 will not be a repeat of 2025.

On Father’s Day, Buster Posey and his Giants were on top of the world. They were ten games over .500 at 41-31, and Posey pulled off a bombshell of a trade by finally acquiring the elusive slugger the team had long coveted in Rafael Devers. Unfortunately, the wheels came off pretty much immediately afterward. Now the Giants find themselves in a position of having to win every game left this season just to avoid a losing record. The playoffs, which seemed all but assured that fateful holiday, will now feature twelve different, luckier teams.

Buster Posey must ensure 2026 will not be repeat of 2025 for SF Giants

The Giants still look decent on paper looking ahead to 2026, with a full year of a core featuring Devers, Matt Chapman, Willy Adames, and Bryce Eldridge likely to provide more thump than Giants fans are used to seeing from their favorite team. However, there are multiple needs they’ll need to address in the offseason to overcome the chasm that exists between them and the Dodgers and Padres. Here are three areas that Posey will need to address so that the Giants can at least be considered Wild Card favorites going into next year.

The Bullpen

When the Giants traded away Tyler Rogers and Camilo Doval at the deadline, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that the season was lost. Ironically, the way things turned out, the Giants may have ended up a couple strong bullpen pieces away from securing a Wild Card berth after all.

The Rogers trade was particularly savvy and still looks like a good deal, but there’s no denying that both of those late-inning arms departing left them short on dependability. The real backbreaker came when it was announced that breakout reliever Randy Rodríguez will need Tommy John surgery and will miss all of next year.

No team can withstand losing all three of their best relievers, and the Giants are no exception. Ryan Walker has been hopelessly miscast in the closer’s role, and even he is one of the only arms you can write into the Giants’ 2026 bullpen with a pen. Joel Peguero has been very promising and José Buttó was a reliable addition, but the Giants need at least two arms in the offseason who can handle late-inning duties and push Walker from the closer’s role.

A reunion with Tyler Rogers makes so much sense that it’s practically just as likely to happen as it is to not happen. Even in the event they’re able to bring him back, one more arm for the pen will still be needed, and it would be even nicer if it were a lefty. Fellow Met A.J. Minter is having a great year and comes with closing experience, or Posey could end up seeing what’s out there on the trade market.

The Rotation

It’s hardly a surprise that two of the Giants’ three biggest needs going into the offseason are pitching, and more pitching. Once the hallmark of the Giants’ championship teams, the pitching staff is arguably what’s led to the team’s demise this year. Logan Webb has been his dependable self and Robbie Ray has been an excellent #2 despite tiring in September, but no one else other than 42-year-old Justin Verlander have been effective in the rotation.

Landen Roupp will be healthy by spring training and will have the inside track on a job, but Verlander will be a free agent and Ray will be on the last year of his contract. Two starting pitchers, whether they’re re-signed à la Verlander or brought in externally, will be critical so that the Giants won’t have to have big expectations from depth options like Hayden Birdsong and Kai-Wei Teng. Either of those names could also be pushed into a long relief role and deepen the bullpen even further.

The Giants have already expressed interest in re-signing Verlander, but a younger option on a multi-year deal would be a good complement to him that provides some stability for when Ray and Verlander would depart the following year. The Marlins and Reds are two teams with a pretty healthy stable of young arms, and the Mariners were a favorite trade partner of Zaidi’s before he lost his job to Posey. A trade to bring in some young blood would be the best option for this need, but it wouldn’t preclude bringing back a veteran leader like Verlander on a one-year deal.

The Outfield

Backup catcher has been another need of the Giants’ for a long time, but let’s have some optimism that Jesus Rodriguez could fill that role next year. A more visible problem this year has been the Giants’ weakness in the outfield corners. Drew Gilbert has been a shot in the arm for the clubhouse and has a skillset similar to Yastrzemski’s, but his 72 wRC+ in his first 34 games of action hasn’t announced his presence with authority on the field.

Worse yet, left field has suddenly become a big problem when this time last season it was anything but. Heliot Ramos was an All-Star last year and looked poised to become the Giants’ first left fielder to start consecutive Opening Days since Barry Bonds. That’s not a sure thing anymore. He’s still been slightly above-average at the plate, though not as good as last year, but he’s taken a confoundingly huge step back in the outfield. In fact, he’s been one of the worst defensive players in all of baseball this year. Mental errors, lapses in concentration and a regrettable case of the yips have all combined to make him a negative asset on the grass. Last season he was worth 2.3 WAR in 121 games, and now he has only been worth 1 WAR playing almost every day in 152 games.

In an ideal world, he and Gilbert would platoon in just one of the outfield corners next year, and the Giants would bring in a bat from outside the organization who can play well on both sides of the ball for the other corner. Kyle Tucker is the big squeeze that lots of sportswriters will be connecting to the Giants until he signs somewhere, but he may be out of the organization’s price range after their nine-figure obligations to Devers, Chapman and Adames. You could say the same thing on both accounts about Cody Bellinger.

Luis Robert Jr. could be a name to keep an eye on as a trade target, coming off back-to-back down years but still boasting a sky-high ceiling. Whoever Posey has his eye on to upgrade the outfield, solidifying the defense will probably be his priority, and if they have the ability to hit their way out of a wet paper bag that’d be nice too.

It will not be easy, but Posey has to address these areas in the offseason if he wants to ensure that 2026 will not end up looking a lot like 2025.

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