SF Giants should ignore, not emulate, the Los Angeles Dodgers

The Los Angeles Dodgers are more talented than the SF Giants. This has been the case for about a decade now. While it is easy to say the Giants should try to emulate the Dodgers, the only thing they can do for now is ignore them.

This may seem counterintuitive. The Dodgers won the 2024 World Series and the Giants play them 13 times every season. How can they be ignored?

It’s quite simple, really. The Dodgers have constructed such a powerful Evil Empire that they cannot even be a model the Giants can pine for. The rich have gotten richer and richer and richer this offseason. It seems unlikely that we will ever see as talented of a team assembled on paper as what the Dodgers have constructed through deferred money and other various means.

SF Giants must carve their own path for success

The Giants are in a completely different league. They are not some small peanuts team by any means and are actually a team with one of the highest payrolls in the league. But their path to success, and I assure you there is a path, is going to look different than the gilded one the Dodgers are currently on.

We all know the Dodgers are probably going to win the National League West barring a slew of injuries or underperformance on a massive scale. That means the Giants are really competing with the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks for the second or third spot in the division with an eye towards trying to snag one of those three Wild Card spots. This is a proven avenue towards potential success. The Diamondbacks made it to the 2023 World Series as the third Wild Card team and the Giants could certainly do the same. The New York Mets were the third Wild Card team in 2024 and they made it to the NLCS, giving the Dodgers more of a scare than the New York Yankees did in the World Series.

We should also not forget that the Dodgers were on the ropes in the NLDS against the San Diego Padres, a wild card team, having to win both Game 4 and Game 5 just to advance. If just a few things go differently we are all laughing and pointing at the Dodgers because of another early postseason exit.

The Giants can be one of those teams. They can be a Wild Card team that can go toe to toe with the Dodgers and just needs a few things to go their way over the course of a five or seven game series to slay Goliath. I seem to remember them being pretty good at getting things to go their way in October a little over a decade ago.

The team has their blueprint because president of baseball operations Buster Posey lived it. He knows that the opposing team can have the big names and all of the pundits singing their graces, but if you take care of the fundamentals of the game and make less mistakes than the other team while also getting some timely contributions from unlikely sources like Cody Ross or Marco Scutaro, you can come out on top. He also knows the only way to attract more free agents to San Francisco is by putting a winning product on the field.

Anything can happen in October. Giants fans should know that better than anyone. The trick is getting there. Perhaps 2025 is a building year for the Giants as they try to get back to the postseason. They are behind the Padres and Diamondbacks from a talent perspective, no doubt. But maybe 2025 is a year where the team wins 85 games and comes up a couple games short of snagging a Wild Card spot. That would be a success is my eyes. Breaking .500 would be a step in the right direction and would lay the groundwork for the Giants to make a key addition or two before 2026 that could help them get back to the postseason.

This may all seem like small potatoes when compared to the Dodgers, but that’s the whole point. The Giants are not the Dodgers. They are different teams with different rosters on different timelines. It’s terrible to watch the Dodgers have all of this success, but to think the Giants can get on the same level as Los Angeles just by splurging on a couple free agents misses the point. The Giants have to build a solid baseline first. They must become a team with an identity consisting of solid pitching, solid defense, and a streaky offense. We have seen that that can be enough to take home a World Series title or three.

This is not to suggest that any of this will be easy, especially with other teams in the National League like the Mets trying to make their own version of the Empire. But it is to suggest that there is a glimmer of hope and that the Giants can succeed in their own way, not by desperately trying to emulate a team that cannot be emulated right now. The Giants must keep their head down, improve the team slowly and steadily, and focus on trying to get back to the postseason. If they can do that, then they are just a little bit of pixie dust and some luck away from winning a championship which is all it takes sometimes.