A scientist couldn’t figure it out, but maybe we internet posters can?
These are trying times for a baseball blogger. We live in a suppositional interspace now that the San Francisco Giants have installed a new dude at the top of their Baseball Operations. Sure, that dude is literally Buster Posey, but that doesn’t make it any easier to imagine how the team will go about improving the roster heading into 2025.
It’s not that Farhan Zaidi was easy to predict but you could filter out certain players pretty easily just given some basic markers like strikeouts to walks, age, and position. That might still be the case with literally Buster Posey, but we won’t know that until the moves start to happen. Even if guys like Brian Sabean and/or Bobby Evans make their way back to the organization, then all bets are off in terms of what we can expect. Maybe a lot of their old ways could filter in, but both old baseball men might’ve learned some things during their time away (I’d like to think they have because there’s always something new to learn).
It’s hard for me to have a lot of hopes and dreams for this organization after the past few years, because from ownership down it has been a muddled mess of usually frustrating decisions that have netted out to a franchise that is mediocre at best. Still, my one hope is that all literally Buster Posey intends to do is take all the good that Farhan Zaidi has built and get rid of the negatives (mainly, Farhan Zaidi). Maybe better communication with the rebuilt infrastructure post-Sabeans/Evans will be enough — sort of how Zaidi’s fledging infrastructure supercharged the ghosts of the championship era that lingered in 2021.
But that’s naive and Baseball abhors naivete, unless you’re 20 years old and a burgeoning superstar. I am far from either label, so I’ll just stick to what I know: literally Buster Posey is tasked with building a major league roster that projects to about 84/85 wins and then hope to get lucky. That was Farhan Zaidi’s philosophy (and I assume this because of all the moves he made over the years which amounted to as much) and it certainly was Brian Sabean & Bobby Evans’. What will it take for literally Buster Posey to accomplish this?
First, I’m going to use WAR because it’s a great way to approach the answer. A team of replacement level players would win 50 games, theoretically. Baseball Reference’s total WAR (bWAR) for the 2024 Giants is 30.3. FanGraphs’ (fWAR) is 29.9. So, by either measure, the Giants were 30 games better than replacement and, sure enough, they went 80-82.
I’m going to use FanGraphs’ Wins Above Replacement to math this out because FanGraphs writers tend to get hired by front offices and so I find their calculations to usually be in line with the sport. That could change with the Giants’ new leadership, but to be clear, I’m not looking to find specific players, only provide an overview.
Position player needs
The Giants got a total of 17.6 wins above replacement from their position player group in 2024. 15 position players provided positive value: Matt Chapman (5.5), Patrick Bailey (4.3), Tyler Fitzgerald (3.0), Heliot Ramos (2.3), Mike Yastrzemski (1.5), LaMonte Wade Jr. (1.3), Michael Conforto (1.3), Jorge Soler (0.6), Brett Wisely (0.5), Casey Schmitt (0.4), Thairo Estrada (0.4), Nick Ahmed (0.3), Blake Sabol (0.2), Mark Canha (0.2), Jung Hoo Lee (0.2).
13 provided negatitve value: David Villar (-0.1), Jerar Encarnacion (-0.1), Ryan McKenna (-0.1), Andrew Knapp (-0.1), Trenton Brooks (-0.2), Austin Slater (-0.2), Donovan Walton (-0.2), Grant McCray (-0.2), Curt Casali (-0.4), Tom Murphy (-0.5), Wilmer Flores (-0.7), Marco Luciano (-0.7), and Luis Matos (-0.8).
Figure Conforto, Canha, Casali, and Thairo Estrada won’t be returning. Nick Ahmed is already gone, along with Soler, McKenna, Knapp, Brooks, and Slater. Derek Hill (13 PA) and Jakson Reetz (15 PA) provided replacement level value (0.0 fWAR) and they’re gone, too. That’s +2.8 fWAR on the positive side of the ledger and -1.0 on the negative side, which means the Giants need to replace at least +1.8 wins (let’s just round up and say 2 wins) to hold serve with how this group performed in 2024.
Now, 2 WAR is what’s typically considered “league average” (not the same as replacement level). The Giants have struggled to find these types of players or even develop them, which is why Farhan Zaidi has stuck to trying to recreate these conditions (a roster populated by league average contributions) in the aggregate through platoons, waiver claims, call-ups & demotions. If Posey is committed to eliminating this practice, he’ll have to do something the Giants have struggled with since the middle of last decade: find better players.
On top of this, they’ll need to account for fluctuations in the returning group. Matt Chapman was worth 5.5 WAR this year which is pretty terrific, but expectations should be about 4 wins. I’m not looking at any projection systems for the rest of this, just going off vibes: Tyler Fitzgerald at 3? Let’s be optimistic and say he rebounds (from his awful final six weeks of 69 wRC+ hitting) to a 2. Heliot Ramos stays a 2. Yaz, if he returns, is maybe a 1.5 still. LaMonte Wade Jr., if he returns, could maybe be a 1.5. Maybe Jung Hoo Lee jumps up to being a 1.5 or even 2.5-win guy with a full healthy season. Patrick Bailey’s value is almost exclusively on defense and catcher defense is the one weird area where FanGraphs and Baseball Reference would seem to disagree (they have him as 1.8 wins above replacement). Let’s just say he’s a 3-win player.
This gives them a solid base of 16 WAR. And that’s before you consider if Wilmer Flores returns and provides any positive value; or Luis Matos, Grant McCray, Tom Murphy or Marco Luciano (lol) providing positive value and then Bryce Eldridge down the line. It doesn’t give them much insurance if the negative performers don’t improve much or if Tyler Fitzgerald crashes and burns, or Heliot Ramos struggles (.241/.283/.424 combined in August and September).
C – Patrick Bailey / Tom Murphy (sigh)
1B – LWJ / Flores
2B – Fitzgerald / Schmitt / Wisely
3B – Chapman
SS – Fitzgerald / Schmitt (?)
LF – Ramos
CF – Lee / Fitzgerald
RF – Yastrzemski
DH – Rotating
It’s a group that has a lot more defensive value than offensive, and if I’m trying to fix a lineup I don’t think glove first, so, even if we all agree that the numbers say this is a pretty solid group, it doesn’t pass the eye test on the hitting part of being a position player. And they want to do better than “hold serve” — they want to improve upon the 2024 performance. So, it makes sense to consider Willy Adames or Jurickson Profar or Pete Alonso. It’s critical to accumulating players where league average is the floor, sure, but it’s fatal if the hitting measure isn’t the primary factor for adding them into the mix.
Pitchers
15 pitchers provided positive value of +13.4 fWAR: Logan Webb (4.4), Blake Snell (3.1), Ryan Walker (1.7), Kyle Harrison (0.8), Tyler Rogers (0.6), Landen Roupp (0.5), Randy Rodriguez ( 0.5), Jordan Hicks (0.5), Erik Miller (0.4), Sean Hjelle (0.3), Taylor Rogers (0.2), Spencer Howard (0.1), Tristan Beck (0.1), Hayden Birdsong (0.1), Camilo Doval (0.1).
Robbie Ray, Nick Avila, Trevor McDonald, Raymond Burgos, Keaton Winn (55.1 IP!) all provided replacement level value (0.0 fWAR).
If you discount the position players pitching, only 7 provided negative value for a total of -1.5 fWAR: Austin Warren (-0.1), Mitch White (-0.2), Luke Jackson (-0.2), Kai-Wei Teng (-0.2), Daulton Jefferies (-0.2), Mason Black (-0.3), Spencer Bivens (-0.3).
Right off the bat you can see how losing Blake Snell is going to cause some problems for the 2025 Giants. That might be a situation that has to be replaced in the aggregate rather than hoping they re-sign him. Just to get back to the 2024 team’s level of performance (from a WAR standpoint), some of the current arms will have to take big steps forward.
Let’s assume that Robbie Ray’s ceiling might be his post-Cy Young season of 2022, when he posted +1.6 fWAR. As much rah-rah as Jordan Hicks has gotten for converting to a starter, the Giants spent $11 million on a guy who wasn’t much better than replacement. He’ll have to do a lot better than that, and even if he somehow jumps up to 1.6 fWAR to match Robbie Ray (and replace Snell’s contributions), that’s still $36 million the Giants will be spending on 3 wins. A tough look to be sure. But! That would replace Snell in the aggregate.
Can Kyle Harrison take a step forward? What about Beck, Winn, Birdsong, Roupp, and Mason Black? At least a couple of these pitchers would seem destined for dangling as trade bait and maybe that’s what we’ll learn as the offseason progresses but, boy howdy, it’d be a lot easier to stabilize this group by simply re-signing Blake Snell. At least, in theory. Does Buster Posey like the pitching stew philosophy that Zaidi had or does he prefer more definition. For now, let’s consider the stew, which this year was worth 12 WAR:
STARTERS: Webb, Ray, Hicks, Harrison, Birdsong, Roupp, Black, Beck, Winn
RELIEVERS: Walker, Doval, Rogers, Rogers, Miller, Hjelle, Rodriguez, McDonald
In theory, this stew has a ceiling of about 18 fWAR in 2025, about as valuable as the Twins’ staff was this season (which ranked 5th in MLB). That’s assuming they can figure out what’s wrong with Camilo Doval (I’m skeptical), and most of the Birdsong-Roupp-Black-Beck-Winn group positively develops in 2025 (seems unlikely), while Jordan Hicks completes his transition into a starter (questionable). On the other hand, it ignores Ethan Small or Carson Whisenhunt emerging from the minors, but that could go either way, too.
Still, the Giants are already pretty close to 85 wins if they just return the current group, get decently lucky with health, and are able to get positive development out of a not-insignificant number of first and second year players. As smartly as it has been assembled, it’s still a risky roster. And this set of conditions has been what we’ve been saying about every Giants roster since 2021 and only once did it really — REALLY — work out. This is where a change in leadership could really help (or make things much, much worse).
Aiming a roster at 85 wins is one thing, but the “hope to get lucky” part is only possible with either a surprise or two (rookie or veteran outlier performances) or a known quantity playing to their limits (as Matt Chapman did this season). The FZ years were littered with lottery tickets intended to find such surprises because the team’s strict budget limited their pursuit of high-value/high-floor players. The budget will stay the budget even with a co-owner running ops, so it’s logical to assume that Buster Posey will be a lottery ticket purchaser, too. But what he brings to the table is his on-field experience, in some cases with potential free agents. That’s gotta be a net positive, right?
What’s lacking about the approach is this: the jackpot is too small. I think updating the end goal will refresh their entire project — at least for 2025. Webb, Chapman, Bailey, Walker, Ramos, and maybe Bryce Eldridge down the line is a fascniating starting point and as the numbers show, they’re already interesting. The Giants are only stuck in the middle if they want to be. So, with this idea in mind, I submit my answer to this post’s question:
The Giants need to aim for 90 wins.