Three lessons the SF Giants hopefully learned in the 2022 season
The SF Giants had a disappointing 2022 season. Looking to replicate most of the success of their franchise-record 107-win 2021 campaign, the Orange and Black started well before taking a dive; only a late push helped the team avoid a sub-.500 mark overall.
Obviously, the coaches and front-office staff know the ins and outs of their team and strategy better than us fans - but there were a few decisions made this year that seemed questionable from the beginning and ended up hampering the team's present and, possibly, future. Hopefully the braintrust led by President of Baseball Operations Farhan Zaidi learned a few lessons in these important areas:
1. Make a decision at the trade deadline
When the Major League Baseball trade deadline rolled around in early-August, the Giants had multiple paths to consider. Was it best to sell the top performers and rake in prospect talent? Shore up glaring weaknesses with a big deal that sends away prospects? Or stand pat with only minor moves here and there, keeping the team relatively intact?
The Giants chose the last of those. It was questionable in the moment, and as the team continued to watch their playoff opportunities disappear it became more of a glaring mistake. Going into the deadline the team was one game under .500 and got smoked by division-leading Los Angeles the night before. Almost 20 games out of the division and over four games behind the last Wild Card spot, with an offense riddled with injuries and age (more on that later), they probably should have picked one of the other two options.
Imagine: trading a dominant Carlos Rodon brings back a couple of top-100 prospects, and Joc Pederson in the midst of possibly his best season nets one more and/or a young player in the Majors already who just needed an open spot and playing time to break out.
On the flip side, sending some decent prospects (not their top guys like Marco Luciano and Kyle Harrison, of course) for players like Brandon Drury or Josh Bell could have helped in areas where the regulars were hurt or under-performing.
A bit of help was unlikely to make up the six games by which they missed the playoffs, and the big names traded at the deadline didn't perform as well as their teams expected (such as Juan Soto). But small deals for a team that wasn't inspiring confidence for over a month before the deadline was the worst choice.
2. Sticking with the old guys is bound to go wrong, so have good depth
Probably the biggest key to the 2021 success was a resurgent and mostly-healthy season from many older hitters. Brandon Crawford hit .298 with 24 home runs, 30 doubles and 90 RBI at the age of 34. Evan Longoria, age 35, only played half of the season but put up a .261/.351/.482 slash line with 13 round trippers. Brandon Belt was hurt at different times, as usual, but mashed 29 home runs (just missing becoming the first Giants player with 30 since Barry Bonds in 2004) and a .975 OPS in 97 games at 33 years old. Even 33-year-old Donovan Solano provided a big boost, with a .280 average and 17 doubles in 101 games.
This year? Solano was gone after signing with the Cincinnati Reds (and missing a chunk of time with injury). Belt got into 78 games and generally didn't seem healthy at all. He hit .213 with eight home runs and an OPS almost exactly 300 points lower (.676). Crawford? Hurt (118 games), had a stretch of poor defense compared to his normal standards when he tried to play through injury, and batted just .231 with nine homers. Longoria was decent but was also injured for a time; he launched 14 bombs in 89 games but hit .244.
It didn't stop there. Tommy La Stella, expected to at least be a utility man and maybe the regular at second base, played just 60 games and hit .239 with a .632 OPS at 33 years old. A total of 314 plate appearances were given to 35-year-old Darin Ruf, whose .216/.328/.373 line was a far cry from the .271/.385/.519 of 2021.
And of course, Buster Posey rode off into the sunset after a resurgent .304 average and .889 OPS in what ended up as his final year.
San Francisco this season had to rely on a rotating cast of characters at the plate and in the field: a total of 37 players took at least one plate appearance, with mostly poor results.
The best unexpected performance was trade acquisition J.D. Davis, who hit .263 with eight homers in 49 games at first base and third base. The fill-ins at shortstop were the most glaring when both Crawford and Thairo Estrada spent concurrent time on the Injured List: Donovan Walton (.158 average and ugly defense in 24 games) and Dixon Machado (emergency trade pickup from the Cubs, 3-for-15 with no extra-base hits in five appearances) turned one of the most important spots into a black hole.
It was clear the Giants weren't ready for so many players to drop off at once. It ruined a promising season, though, so ideally the future will see adequate replacements ready to go in Triple-A if something happens to the geezers on the big club.
3. Show confidence in young players getting their first extended chance
Buster Posey's retirement a year ago created a hole the Giants hadn't needed to consider for over a decade. Luckily, they took a college backstop with the second-overall pick in the 2018 draft, and he got experience at Triple-A in 2021.
But Joey Bart wasn't given the reigns at the beginning of the season.
Curt Casali, an excellent backup in 2021, was re-signed for 2022 to help Bart but also be a safe option if the youngster failed.
It seemed as though Bart felt the looming presence, and he responded with just a .156 average in the first two months before being demoted to Sacramento, while the Giants traded for well-traveled Austin Wynns to split time with Casali.
After Casali got hurt in early-July, Bart was back in the Majors and looked like a different player. He hit .236 in July and, after Casali was dealt at the trade deadline, .328 with an .888 OPS in August. It was apparent he just needed to be trusted with the job and not have to look over his shoulder.
Have other players in the past few years been affected the same way? Probably not to the same extent with the Giants, who were willing to give a longer look to players when they weren't in contention for the playoffs in 2017-2019. Would they have won more early on and staved off the mid-summer slump that sunk the season if Bart was the clear starter from Day 1? Maybe, but San Francisco probably would have been closer to a playoff spot if so.
This is one lesson the team may have learned immediately: they brought up third-base prospect David Villar in July and early-August then brought him back in September, and he responded with a .231/.331/.455 line over 52 games. Villar homered nine times, including twice in the final game, and his September performance showed the ability to be a regular (.269 average, .570 slugging).
In the coming years, players such as Kyle Harrison, Marco Luciano and Luis Matos will be stepping on the field at Oracle Park with the weight of high expectations on their shoulders. The Giants would be wise to give them every chance to work through issues, not giving up on them after just a short stretch or keeping an obvious contingency plan when the youngster has mastered the minor leagues.