One game does not make a season in baseball. Every year, 30 teams play an Opening Day game, and every year, 15 of those teams lose that Opening Day game. Just because your favorite team lost Game 1 does not mean that the following 161 games will be chock-full of the same amount of misery that the first one had. Heck, as recently as 2021, the Atlanta Braves dropped their first game, and the three games after that, and they still decided that they would win the World Series that year, beating out two separate 100+ wins teams in the National League that also happened to lose their first game of the year.
But first impressions matter. Show up to a first date with no flowers and shirt with mustard stains on it, the odds of a second date are going to drop precipitously. And yesterday, the San Francisco Giants had a chance to make a positive first impression on their fanbase after a horrific offseason that left the Orange and Black Faithful doubting their ability to root for their team.
Instead, not only did they show up without flowers and wearing a mustard stained shirt, but they also vomited all over the table and then asked you to split the check with them, with a 5-0 blanking in The Bronx. The Giants were hoping to turn the page from 2022 to a new world order of sorts in 2023. And while it is JUST ONE GAME, the 2023 Giants are already giving off a 2022 Giants vibe that does not feel easy to shake off.
Giants fans cannot be faulted for trying to be optimistic about this team. Despite all the offseason turmoil and all the jokes about platooning and how directionless the Giants are, this is not that bad of a baseball team. There is legitimate hope that this year’s Giants team could actually be interesting. And myself and Joe Shasky tried to lean into that optimism on The Morning Roast, knowing how fragile it was.
This is not to come down on Beaty, who very well could be a fine player. But you don’t care about that. No one cares about that. The reason no one cares is because last week, Giants embattled President of Baseball Operations Farhan Zaidi joined Dave Flemming and Shawn Estes in the broadcast booth during the Giants spring training game against the Cleveland Guardians (a definitely NOT ominous 10-0 loss) and said this, bolding is mine.
“We’re not actively seeking to fill any specific position. We like the internal options we have even with some injuries. We’re excited about some of the guys who have stepped forward in this camp. And it’s a good thing culturally to be able to reward those guys. So, I fully expect this to stay internal.”
Internal, meaning that any players that would be a surprise addition to the roster would be guys who are already employees of San Francisco Giants Enterprises LLC. Gone were the days of the massive roster churn that we saw in 2019, when Michael Reed and Connor Joe appeared on the Giants roster at the conclusion of spring training, only to then be in the opening day lineup days later. Gone were the days of setting records for players used, which Farhan and Friends did last year when 66 players put on a Giants jersey, breaking the previous record set by Zaidi in 2019. We were finally going to see this team take those steps forward, even if they were small, to contention.
All of that was blown up before Logan Webb could even hang a sinker to Aaron Judge.
It is always fun to wonder what the breaking point will be. It is not always something big. Maybe it is the moment Lois Griffin found out there were no more paper towels, or the moment when Springfield ran out of coffee. It is always something that out of context seems trivial. It was no different for the Giants.
It was not the moment we found out that Casey Schmitt would be opening the season in Sacramento. That decision was not ideal, but understandable if you try to explain it long enough. It was not when we learned that Sean Hjelle was opening on the taxi squad. A surprise to be sure, but not a detrimental one. It could have been when Bryce Johnson opened the season in Sacramento after leading all of baseball in stolen bases in spring training and Austin Slater being on the Injured List, which was certainly a head-scratching move.
But when Beaty was acquired for cash considerations hours before the season started, coupled with the rest of the news the Giants released that morning, that felt like the straw that broke the camel’s back. If the goal was to show that the Giants are moving forward, yesterday was a masterclass in how to show your fans the opposite is transpiring.
How can Giants fans feel any sort of optimism when the moves being made are taking the team in reverse? How can Giants fans trust that the future can be better when the organization does not seem to want to trust that future? Why would Giants fans feel like their concerns are being heard when Larry Baer is chiding fans for their lightbulb not going off fast enough to understand the moves that are holding this team back, not moving it forward?
And more so, why should players in the Giants own farm system trust that their hard work will be rewarded when that hard work only nets them an all-expenses paid trip to our state's capital? The San Francisco Chronicle’s John Shea joined 95.7 The Game's The Morning Roast hours before first pitch and postulated that same thought when talking about the Giants’ decision to leave Johnson off the roster.
“I think [Bryce] Johnson would have been exciting to watch and with the smaller bases,” Shea said. “I think we would have seen the up-tempo game that the Giants had talked about all spring and it does not send a great message to the to the prospect ‘Hey, you just tore it up in spring training. You did everything we asked’ and at the very last minute they trade for somebody else and they're sending you back.”
Losing credibility with fans is one thing, but this endangers the front offices credibility in their own farm system and players. Farhan has said on numerous occasions that the Giants employ a merit-based system of promoting prospects in the minor leagues, and in one press release, he made it clear that that standard was not necessarily true either.
And it has been 1,100 words before I could even get to the decision to start Wilmer Flores at third base and bat him third in the lineup over David Villar, who the Giants said would be the primary third baseman this year. Flores was given the start because, as manager Gabe Kapler said, “he had earned the right,” because now baseball is about rewarding players with participation trophy levels or gratitude?
Losing games is one thing, but the Giants are playing a dangerous game in how they are trying to doubt the intelligence of their own fanbase. Giants fans are smart. We know what a good team looks like, and we can tell when the turd you are polishing is in fact a turd, no matter how much the front office attempts to gaslight fans into believing that it is not a turd.
There is still a lot of baseball left to play this year. Perhaps the Giants win these next two games in New York this weekend. Perhaps they win a bunch more games after that. Perhaps they win so many games that they make the playoffs. Baseball has a way of surprising us that way.
But if the goal this week was to show Giants fans that a step forward is being taken and all the frustration and roster churn was finally going to provide results, then mission failed. Spectacularly. Instead, the Giants have a front office with no credibility, and perhaps no future beyond the contracts they already have signed. The clock has been ticking on Farhan Zaidi for a while, and this week he moved his own doomsday clock closer to midnight after a winter spent watching that clock tick ever closer to that dreaded hour.
If there is any reason to give Farhan and Friends any benefit of the doubt, it is officially on him to show it. The bad news for him is it might be too late. I want to root for Farhan to succeed at this job. I also want to see the Giants succeed and compete for a World Series. It is apparent now that for the foreseeable future, Giants fans will have to pick one or the other. Both are simply not an option.
If 2023 sticks with the themes and motifs of 2022, it may only be a matter of time before Giants fans are not able to root for either outcome.
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