Hopefully, the Giants won’t do anything silly and try so hard that they accidentally hurt anybody on a good team.
The San Francisco Giants aren’t good, but that’s okay. Baseball is very hard in the 21st century and being a .500 team is the equivalent of being a .900 team in the 1930s. Or whatever.
What the Giants have been trying to do for the past six years is become these Milwaukee Brewers. Or the Tampa Bay Rays. Or the San Diego Padres. Or the Arizona Diamondbacks. And they simply haven’t. They can’t win on a budget. They can’t win being big spenders. They can’t win and so we must toss out winning as a metric of success.
For teams like the Brewers, though, they remain stuck in the antiquated 20th century mode of trying to win baseball games, and that has put them in the weird position of having to play more games in October where, like most teams, they will probably not wind up being the last team standing to receive a meaningless piece of metal.
They’ve been aided by playing in a typically weak division — the NL Central — a condition the Giants don’t enjoy. The Brewers are spending far less on their payroll ($156.7 million, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts) than rivals St. Louis ($216.1 million) and the Cubs ($234.2 million) and both are as many games out of the Wild Card race as the Giants.
How is it that they’ve been to the postseason in 5 of the past 6 seasons (and 6 of the last 7) while only running a payroll of $120-$160 million? How is it that they’ve won the 6th-most games in MLB (466) over the past 6 seasons with a better team ERA (3.86) than the Giants (3.98) over that span besides playing in a fairer park for hitting (98-100 Park Factor compared to the Giants’ 94-97)? or scoring the 12th-most runs (3,833) despite a below league average (97 wRC+) lineup? (The Giants are 20th in runs — 3,739 — and have a 98 wRC+ over the same span — which we know are buoyed by 2021).
Seems pretty clear that they’re better at drafting, international signing, developing, scouting, and coaching up their roster. They’re able to do more with less. They’re one of many teams the Giants have been chasing, if not in the just out of reach W-L race, than in franchise management.
Now, that hasn’t stopped the Giants from performing very well against them in the head to head matchups of late. The COVID lockdown season of 2020 prevented the two teams from matching up, but outside of 2021, when the Giants won 107 games, the Giants have won the season series in 2019, 2022, and last season. They’re also 8-5 at American Family Field (fka Miller Park). I know, I know, I’m bringing up that annoying W-L component that’s as meaningful as batting average. Sorry.
The Brewers are getting tremendous value out of international signee Jackson Chourio (158 wRC+ in the 2nd half with above average defense in LF), catcher William Contreras (146 wRC+) whom they traded for in the 2022 offseason, and free agent signings Gary Sánchez (174 WRC+ in the 2nd half) and even something from Rhys Hoskins (102 wRC+ in the 2nd half). They acquired shortstop Willy Adames the same way they got Contreras: in a 3-team trade; and, ever since acquiring him, he’s been incredibly valuable to them, and here in the second half he’s also hitting as good as anyone (.264/.362/.508 with 8 home runs).
On the pitching side, it’s not so much smoke and mirrors as it would seem to be a lot of solid coaching and execution of pitching plans. They’ve pitched great at home and their bullpen has bailed them out (3.34 ERA vs. starting staff’s 3.99). In the second half, they have a team ERA of 3.38 which is 3rd-best in baseball, ahead of the Padres (3.39) and Giants (3.51), and yet the metrics suggest they should be worse. Their 4.26 FIP and 2.7 fWAR is basically on par with the Dodgers’ staff and middle of the pack for the sport.
They’re doing it by matchups and bullpenning. They do the opener bit, have traditional starters — basically beg, borrow and steal to get the matchups they want. For smart teams on a budget in cities where the season ticketholders don’t have the power to override on-field decision-making, it’s an effective strategy. They’re able to get leads and hold onto them a lot of the time.
It helps that they have a useful offense, of course. Milwaukee is 4th in MLB with a 125 wRC+ with runners in scoring position (Giants are 28th – 83). They’re also 4th in MLB in FanGraphs’ “High Leverage” situations (which they define here) with a 117 wRC+. The Giants are 25th (77 wRC+).
You can see the Giants starting to close the gap with the Brewers, though. Heliot Ramos, Tyler Fitzgerald, Patrick Bailey, Matt Chapman (especially if he signs an extension) are a solid group to build from, and maybe Grant McCray can spend the last month of the season making the case that he belongs in that group. Next year, when the Giants won’t have Blake Snell or Robbie Ray in the rotation, they might actually be closer to the Brewers in terms of pitching because they’ll have to bullpen out of necessity.
For this year, though, the Giants-Brewers matchup is one of a little brother versus his big brother.
Series details
Who: San Francisco Giants vs. Milwaukee Brewers
Where: American Family Field, Milwaukee, WI
When: Tuesday (5:10pm PT), Wednesday (5:10pm PT), Thursday (11:10am PT)
National broadcasts: None
Projected starters
Tuesday: Logan Webb vs. Tobias Myers
Wednesday: Kyle Harrison vs. Freddy Peralta
Thursday: Hayden Birdsong vs. Aaron Civale
Where they stand
Brewers, 75-55 (1st in NLC), 626 RS / 515 RA | Last 10 games: 7-3
Giants, 66-66 (4th in NLW, -5.5 WC), 568 RS / 580 RA | Last 10 games: 5-5
Brewers to watch
Tobias Myers: The first starter in the series was briefly a Giant. Back in 2022, the Giants got him from Cleveland for cash and he appeared in just 2 games for the River Cats (pitching just 3 total innings) before being placed on waivers. The White Sox claimed him and then released him at season’s end. The Brewers signed him as a free agent right at the beginning of free agency that offseason. He spent all of 2023 in the minor leagues and posted a 5.44 ERA in 140.2 IP but with 175 K. He didn’t get called up to the major league team until April 23rd, and he hasn’t left the rotation since. He’s the type of development success the Giants have enjoyed for many years and could’ve used 1 or 2 more of this season.
The 26-year old right hander has an “everything including the kitchen sink” arsenal: a 93 mph four-seamer, an 89 mph cutter, an 85.5 mph low spin slider, a changeup, and a curveball, and according to Statcast, he’s even thrown a sinker 10 times. He’s a command-control guy who pitches to the scouting report. Do the Giants have enough unknowns in their lineup to ambush the best laid plans of the Brewers’ pitching lab?
Gary Sanchez: You’ll recall that the Giants had him in their organization for a time last season. He slugged .500 for the Padres in 72 games last year and in 70 this season, he’s slashing .243/.329/.434 with 9 home runs. After missing a month on the IL, he returned on July 24th, and in the second half he’s hitting an even more robust .333/.442/.548 with a pair of homers, a double, and a triple along with 8 walks to 10 strikeouts while splitting time between DH and C. He’s the Tom Murphy the Giants wish they had.
Rhys Hoskins: The Sacramento native was somebody a sector of Giants fans wanted the team to sign in the offseason. After missing all of 2023 with an Achilles injury, the 31-year old slugger has come back to post subpar numbers: .219/.303/.425 in 102 games (413 PA) — but, with 21 home runs. In the second half, he’s hit 7 of those home runs in a .231/.291/.452 line. He’s also been a central figure in an early-season fracas with the Mets and is known to be involved in these on-field incidents. Given the Giants’ place in the standings, desperation might have finally seeped in to the point where a lil’ stinker like Hoskins might be able to get a rise out of a cranky Giant.
Giants to watch
Logan Webb: It’s not his fault that his embarrassing teammates lost to the White Sox after he pitched 8 innings, but it’s also true that he’s on a team that can’t sweep the White Sox.
So.
He’s made 2 starts in Milwaukee and in 13 IP is 1-0 with a 1.38 ERA. The Giants have squandered his brilliance before. Will they do it again?
Mark Canha: He had an .800 OPS in 50 games with the Brewers last season and was 3-for-8 in the postseason for them. In Milwaukee, he hit .284/.348/.412. Could he sprinkle some of last year’s performance on his current team during this road series? It’d be very helpful. As a Giant, he’s slashing .310/.388/.357 in 49 PA.
Ryan Walker: Just for fun, I wanted to see how the Brewers did against the slider, and well, they’ve been pretty great against it. Willy Adames is +10 in Run value, Brice Turang — a below league average hitter — is +5, Chourios is +4 and Contreras is +2. On the other hand, the Brewers’ splits in the 7th, 8th, and 9th are such that it’s really the 7th and 8th where they’re a terror (.730 and .729 OPS, respectively) and the 9th they’re like most teams: those final three outs are tough on both sides of the ball (.651 OPS). Still, as much as Walker has brought some confidence back to the 9th inning, he hasn’t been flawless, and the Brewers’ lineup is one that seems more likely to pounce on mistakes.