End of the Regular Season

FINAL NATIONAL LEAGUE WEST STANDINGS            

                  W L GB
Los Angeles 93 69 Defending champs face tough road
San Diego 90 72 3 Off to Chicago for wild-card series
GIANTS         81 81 12 Hot start, cold middle, tepid finish
Arizona         80 82 13 Lots of injuries wrecked their year
Colorado        43    119 50 Can't anybody here play this game?

  

Two days after the Giants' season ended in disappointing fashion for the fourth straight year, Buster Posey fired Bob Melvin as manager.  His successor is unknown at this time, but the Giants' new GM has sent a clear signal that the win-one lose-one on-again off-again play that has characterized this team since the epochal 2021 campaign-- Posey's last as a player-- has to stop, and no one is so valuable as to be immune from the consequences. 

Melvin is a fine baseball manager, and no one who knows the game disputes it. But this year's bewildering mid-season tumble from a tie for first place down to fourth place in one month, and then, on top of that, a 2-8 September nosedive after getting back into the race-- well, that required drastic action. It was all too reminiscent of Gabe Kapler's 2022 and 2023 el foldo finishes, and that's a place no Giants player, manager, fan, or GM wants to revisit. 

Posey himself may have made an unwise visit to Panic Beach in late July when, on the day the Giants completed a 13-26 collapse, he traded away the team's best reliever, Tyler Rogers, along with the shaky Camilo Doval, for prospects. The prospects are good-- former Tennessee Vol Drew Gilbert is a player, and he's fun to watch-- but it sure looked like a punt, if not a surrender. Posey, of course, could not have known that in short order his two best remaining relievers-- Randy Rodriguez and Erik Miller- would both be lost for the season with injuries. Almost overnight the Giants' bullpen went from one of the league's best to one of its worst.

The single most important statistic of the Giants' 2025 season, indicating where it all went so wrong, is this: following the Rafael Devers trade on June 15, the Giants blew ten games where they held the lead in the late innings. Ten games.  Had they held on to just half of them, they'd be in the playoffs today-- and Bob Melvin would still have a job. 

We haven't checked, but 2025 may be the first Giants season in which we didn't make a single update on this blog between Opening Day and the end of the campaign. It was close, though. On Saturday, September 13, with 15 games remaining in the season, we were about to start a Pennant Race update. The Giants had just beaten the Dodgers on a walk-off tenth-inning homer by Patrick Bailey, and that looked for all the world like the kind of win that could propel a team to smoke the opposition, whoever they might be, down the stretch and on into October. They'd completed a 13-4 run at that moment to vault back into wild-card contention, and the New York Mets were mired in a horrific slump and only a game or two ahead. 

 

"Let's see how the weekend plays out," we decided. 

Logan Webb was shelled on Saturday. Robbie Ray was shelled on Sunday. Seven losses in eight games later, the Giants were done, and, as it turned out, so was Bob Melvin.

As we all remember, the Giants broke out of the gate with a bang, winning eight of their first nine games. It was no mirage; they scored 49 runs and allowed only 30 during that stretch, a .700 pace.  They settled down then, as good teams do, maintaining their win-loss margin through the first 60 games. At 33-28 on June 3, they then reeled off seven straight wins and another 8 of 9 to tie the Dodgers for first place in the division on the 13th. A midseason surge like that is also is the kind of thing winning teams do, and at that moment the Giants sure looked the part. Two days later came the Devers trade, and then that dreadful two-month stretch which featured two four-game losing streaks, two six-game losing streaks, and one seven-game losing streak. At the end of it, in late August, they were seven games to the bad. There was still enough time to overcome it-- but by then it was becoming clear this team didn't have what it takes to pull it off. 

The Giants scored 705 runs on the season, tenth in the league, and allowed 684, eighth. Every NL playoff team allowed fewer runs; of those, only the Padres scored fewer. San Francisco's expected record of 83-79 was identical to that of the Cincinnati Reds, who beat out the Mets for the third wild-card spot (and who have already been eliminated in two games by the Dodgers).  The Reds, though, also underperformed their expected record by two games.  Thus the Giants landed right where they deserved to land.

By a favorite measure, Wins Above Average by Position (itself based on the WAR formulae), the Giants come in at 80-82 instead of 81-81, well within the margin of error but certainly unimpressive. They're sixth in overall pitching WAA, with the early-season lights-out success of their bullpen holding them up; the starting rotation is slightly below average. They're slightly below average as well across all batting and fielding positions; Matt Chapman is again tops at third base, Willy Adames is well above average at short, and they're below average everywhere else. Weakest spot? The entire outfield, slightly below the mark at each spot, and two wins below average overall. 

At a glance the Giants' lineup looks pretty good. Chapman, Devers, and Adames form a solid heart-of-the-order. Jung Hoo Lee is fast, as is Heliot Ramos; both have the physical skills to be leadoff men, but OBPs of .327 and .328 are nowhere near what the leadoff spot demands. And over the season the leadoff spot produced a .304. 'Nuff said. Outside the big three, only Dominic Smith, in 204 ABs, has a decent OBP.  He's also the only Giant to hit above .270. It's not that the Giants don't draw walks-- they're fifth in the league-- but their team batting average is 14th in the league at .235, ahead of only the last-place Pirates.  

The Giants' best pitcher down the stretch was Justin Verlander, who spent the first two-thirds of the year as the losingest pitcher in baseball. Despite his 4-11 mark (team record 10-19) he posted a 3.85 ERA (NL average 4.22) and a composite Game Score of 51. The Giants scored only 3.9 runs per game for him, half a run less than anyone else, but it was worse than that; many of those runs were scored after the future Hall of Famer had left the game. Over the last third of the season he posted 10 quality starts in 13 games including marks of 81, 72, and 72.  It seems unlikely Verlander, who wants to pitch in 2026, will come back, even though run support tends to fluctuate from year to year. Who could blame him? 

Robbie Ray's first half was so good that he was an easy choice for the All-Star Game, but over his last six starts only one was up to his standard. That definitely hurt. Logan Webb again emerged as the ace; he led the league in innings pitched, starts, batters faced, and strikeouts with 224. Overall the Giants used 14 starters in 2025; young Landon Roupp was the best of the rest but battled injuries all year long and made only 22 starts. Nobody else did much, although rookie Trevor McDonald made two fine starts in the season's final weeks. We've seen that before, many times, and we'll withhold judgment for now.  As for the bullpen, absent the traded Rogers and the injured Rodriguez and Miller, we've nothing to say. 

The Giants need to add at least one proven starter, and they need a bullpen overhaul. They need to add at least one solid every-day outfielder, and perhaps two, although both Lee and Ramos probably did just enough to hold their spots for another year. On the positive side, they have an excellent infield, a great defensive catcher, a strong bench, one legitimate starting ace, possibly another if they don't trade Ray, and a couple of young starters. They aren't that far away, but they aren't that close, either.    

And then there's this: when we review the top 20 Giants this year as measured by WAR, we see a total of 7 WAR, the equivalent of one MVP-quality player, was either traded away or lost to injury. 

The Giants were 22-10 in Ray's starts, 18-16 with Webb, 10-19 with Verlander, and 12-10 with Landon Roupp.  Quality starts: Webb 24, Ray 22, Verlander 17, Roupp 11.  They scored 4.8 runs per game for Ray, 4.4 for both Webb and Roupp, and 3.9 for Verlander. Rookie Carson Whisenhunt received 6.8 runs per game in his five starts; he went 2-3, but they did score 12 runs for him twice.

Best start of the year was by Verlander on August 16 at home against Tampa: 7 IP, 2H, 0BB, 8K, Game Score 81. And true to form, the bullpen blew that game, a 2-1 loss in the middle of that dreadful midsummer meltdown.  The worst start was by rookie Kai-Wei Teng just three days earlier against San Diego. He didn't get out of the second inning, surrendering seven runs, six earned, on four hits and four walks for a Game Score of 17.  The best start by an opposing pitcher was Brandon Pfaadt at Arizona on September 17: a complete-game one-hitter with 7 K, Game Score 91, beating Verlander, who put up a 72 himself. It was a real pitchers' duel, rare these days.  The worst start was a meltdown by Baltimore's Dean Kremer on August 29: three innings, allowing seven runs, all earned, on nine hits and two walks. Game Score: 21. This was an Oracle Park slugfest, thankfully won by the Giants 13-8 on a day where Robbie Ray didn't last much longer than Kremer. 

Willy Adames is the first San Francisco Giant to reach 30 home runs in a season since Barry Bonds hit 45 in 2004.  And Rafael Devers tied a bizarre major-league record by playing in 163 games in 2025. 

Only four Giants-- Devers, Adames, Ramos, and Lee-- had enough at-bats to qualify for the batting title. Adames' 30 homers are good enough for 29th in this homer-saturated game. Rafael Devers hit 35, tied for 12th, 15 with Boston and 20 with the Giants.  He also drew 109 walks, third in MLB, scored 99 runs (13th), drove in 109 (9th), and hit 33 doubles (22nd). In case any of you all are still wondering, yes, he is the real deal, one of the best pure hitters in baseball. His OPS was .851, tied for 16th.  As for Lee, his 12 triples, third in MLB, are two short of Angel Pagan's franchise record set in 2012. Those 12 triples, plus 31 doubles, boost his SLG to .407, which is very good for a .266 hitter who doesn't hit home runs.  Those of you who were hoping Ramos would improve on his rookie year shouldn't exactly be disappointed; his 21 homers and 85 runs are good, if not among the league leaders. His baserunning exploits are, unfortunately, well-known; he stole six bases but was caught four times, which is a lot worse than simply staying put. 

Webb led the league in strikeouts, as we mentioned above, though AL'ers Garrett Crochet and Tarik Skubal (we spent all of 2024 thinking his name was "Tank") had more. Webb's 3.22 ERA is 16th in MLB, Ray is 23rd with a 3.65, way down from his first-half numbers.  His 1.22 WHIP ranks 24th; Webb is 30th at 1.24. Ryan Walker's 17 saves are 24th in MLB. He also blew seven saves. The dear departed Camilo Doval had 16-- fifteen for the Giants and one (1) with the Yankees. 

Who won the Devers trade? Well, the simple answer for 2025 has to be "Boston." They made the playoffs and the Giants didn't. At the time of the trade, the Sox were on a downward spiral with fans threatening to mutiny; the Giants were tied for first place and had just beaten LA.  As soon as the trade was completed, it seems, the teams promptly took off in opposite directions. Nobody is really stupid enough to believe the Sox won and the Giants lost because of Devers; but we can't say the trade has hurt Boston in the short term, either, especially if they beat the Yankees in this wild-card series and go deep into the playoffs. We can say the guys the Giants sent to them, Kyle Harrison and Jordan Hicks, have had little to do with the Red Sox' late success. 

Roll the Statistical Parade

Teams on average allow about 50 or 60 unearned runs per year. The Giants this year were near the top of the list with 75. Boston led all contending teams with 80, and worst overall were, as you might expect, the woeful Rockies, who allowed 89 unearned out of a staggering total of 1021. Best of the bunch were the Atlanta Braves, who allowed only 38-- but their pitchers kept themselves busy allowing earned runs, 696 total, more than the White Sox and 22nd among the 30 teams. 

There's little doubt that the Phillies' Cristopher Sanchez will win the NL Cy Young Award. BBRef has him with 8 WAR, better than anyone in the game not named Aaron Judge. Whether or not Judge wins another MVP depends on the voters' affection for Seattle's amazing catcher Cal Raleigh. The young man hit sixty (60!) home runs, the first catcher ever to do so, and his team won the division in impressive manner, dethroning the perennial Houston Astros, who faded down the stretch not unlike the Giants and missed the postseason entirely for the first time since 2016.  

Sanchez is only 24; Raleigh is 28, and he's put up some good seasons with the bat before, but nothing like this: 110 runs scored, 125 RBI to lead the league, 97 walks and a .948 OPS to go with the 60 homers, all while catching 121 games (he did DH 38 times, but still). 

Is it time for Juan Soto to win the MVP? Though he didn't walk more times than he struck out this year, for a change, there's still 120 runs, 110 RBI, 43 homers, a league-leading 38 steals with only 4 CS,  and of course 127 walks. His team stumbled down the stretch and lost a "gimme" wild-card spot, and while it's hardly his fault, we may be looking at another top-5 finish without the trophy. And though Kyle Schwarber is, we believe, as valuable as any hitter in the game (56 homers, 111 runs, league-leading 132 RBI and a .928 OPS, second only to Shohei Ohtani), he's never finished higher than 15th in the vote despite some monster seasons. It's just unlikely the voters will ever honor a DH.

Ohtani has already won three MVPs, two in the AL and last year in the NL, and he'll be encroaching into Barry Bonds territory if he wins his fourth this year. He'd be the first to win it twice in both leagues. It kinda seems inevitable, don't it?  He's the starting pitcher for tonight's division series opener at Philadelphia, and while the MVP votes are already in, that again underscores how phenomenally unique he is. 

Speaking of repeat winners, is there any real competition for Tarik Skubal in the AL Cy Young sweepstakes? A 2.21 ERA, 0.89 WHIP, 241 K, and his team is in the playoffs. But real competition there is, with Max (19-5) Fried, Garrett (18-6 ) Crochet, and our old buddy Carlos Rodon (18-9). All of them have ERA under 3.10 and all pitch for playoff qualifiers.

Speaking of old buddies, former Giant Zack Littell had a nice season for himself in Cincinnati, part of a good starting rotation which includes lefties Andrew Abbott and Nick Lodolo, both of whom we saw three years ago at the GABP, and Hunter Greene. Yes, they got lit up pretty well in the wild-card series against LA, but it still looks like a good young group going forward; the above three are all 27 or younger (Littell is 29). And we'll see "old buddy" Kevin Gausman starting tomorrow's series opener for the Blue Jays in Toronto against the Yankees. Gausman didn't have a "Cy Young"-type season in 2025, but he was and is an ace starter, and he has a tremendous lineup behind him-- almost as good as the one he'll be facing. 

Is Texas outfielder Adolis Garcia the worst every-day hitter in the major leagues? Combine a .227 average with 28 walks in 507 AB and you get a .271 OBP. He has a little power (19 HR) and usually bats fourth, though it's hard to see why. Among qualifiers, White Sox second baseman Lenyn Sosa drew the fewest walks (18 in 518 AB) and struck out 127 times (though he did hit .264, which nudged his OPB "up" to .294). On the other side of the coin we have a couple of Blue Jays: Vlad Guerrero junior (81 BB, 94 K) and catcher Alejandro Kirk (48 and 59). Then there's Jose Ramirez, whom we never get tired of praising, and who once again is out of the playoffs too early: 66 BB, 74 K, .863 OPS, 30 homers, 103 runs, 85 RBI, 44 steals with only 7 caught. At 33 years old, is there anything this guy can't do well, and will he ever win a MVP award? 

And whither Mike Trout? The once-surefire Hall of Famer is also 33, and coming off a season which can only be called weak for him, though pretty good for most guys: 130 games .797 OPs, 26 long balls to bring his career total up to 404, and 1.5 WAR. He hasn't scored or driven in 100 runs in a season since 2019, and while he played in 130 games this year, also his best total since 2019, 106 of those games were as DH. We don't believe there ever has been a three-time MVP who isn't in the Hall of Fame, but to see this one-time All-World center fielder reduced to DH duty, with middling DH numbers, in the midst of a six-year decline is troubling and disappointing for one of the game's Really Good Guys.  

If Seattle goes deep in the playoffs, expect to see Randy Arozarena get hit by a pitch. He led all of baseball with 27 plunks this year, about one every 26 at-bats, almost twice as many as anyone else. The well-traveled Charlie Morton, with Detroit, hit 14 batters, more than any other postseason pitcher, so keep your eyes on those two in the upcoming division series. 

The modern game tends to depress enjoyable outliers in the statistics, so there's not much oddball stuff to report. Seranthony Dominguez of the Blue Jays was one of three pitchers to uncork 12 wild pitches this year; presumably Aaron Boone has taken notice.  Nobody balked more than three times this year, and nobody hit more than nine sac flies or dropped more than 7 sac bunts. Cal Raleigh, to no one's surprise, has the lowest groundball-to-flyball ratio of any qualifying batter this year; his opposite number is Tampa Bay's Yandy Diaz, who puts 60% of 'em on the ground. A Tampa teammate, Junior Caminero, grounded into 31 double plays this year, leaving his closest competitor, the wonderful Jose Altuve, in the dust. Caminero, though, hits as many in the air as he does on the ground, but perhaps not as often with men on base.  

The list of the ground-ball-centric pitchers is short: the Angels' Luis Soriano (2.79 to 1!), Houston's Framber Valdez, the Cardinals' Andre Pallante, our own Logan Webb, the Phillies' ace Sanchez, and the Mets' Clay Holmes and David Peterson. Mostly National Leaguers. No surprise, therefore, that Soriano coaxed 30 ground-ball double plays; we wonder how many of them were against Junior Caminero. At the farthest end of the spectrum we find the Reds' Andrew Abbott at 0.49.  And while most of the heavy strikeout pitchers tend to get the ball up in the air when it's hit, Garrett Crochet is an exception. This guy gets more ground balls than fly balls, and his K/9 is still second only to Dylan Cease of San Diego. It's pity they're both already out of the playoffs.