The first half of the 2024 season is in the books. Aside from Logan Webb and Heliot Ramos, the Giants are off this week for the All-Star Break, providing a much-needed rest for several guys on the roster.
This has been a lackluster season for the Orange and Black. Coming off an offseason in which more than $320 million in contracts was given out, expectations were high in Farhan Zaidi’s sixth year at the helm. A new manager in Bob Melvin was a big part of that. Bringing in guys like Jung Hoo Lee, Jordan Hicks, Matt Chapman and eventually Blake Snell was supposed to be the bump this franchise needed to end the season with one of the National League’s six playoff spots. The 2024 season was set to be a thrilling ride with daily entertainment at the corners of Third and King Streets.
That has not been the case so far. There have been moments, but the Giants are going to enter the All-Star Break below .500, a disappointing development for a team with much higher expectations.
But while there has been some bad so far this season, there have been positive moments and developments. Let’s dive into some of the good and bad in the third annual installment of the good, the bad and the ugly of Giants baseball.
The Good
Logan Webb and Heliot Ramos are All-Stars
Dave Flemming said on the The Morning Roast that it was stupid that Logan Webb had not made an All-Star team yet. I agreed with him. This year, Webb has not always looked like the guy who finished second in the NL Cy Young voting last year, but he is still pitching like the ace he is. He enters the break tops in the NL in innings pitched, as well as ranking in the top five in wins above replacement (WAR), ground ball rate, walk rate and fielding independent pitching (FIP). A rare rough outing against the Blue Jays on Wednesday denied him a chance to have a top-five ERA entering the break. But Webb has, by all accounts, continued to be the ace he was for this staff the last 3 years.
Heliot Ramos also made the All-Star team, ending a 38-year curse during which the Giants failed to send a homegrown outfielder to the Midsummer Classic. After 82 combined plate appearances in 2022 and 2023 combined, Ramos was called up for good on May 8 of this season and has not looked back since. His 2.5 WAR (per FanGraphs) is tied for 3rd amongst NL outfielders. His 14 home runs not only lead the Giants, but are also third amongst NL outfielders. With 14 long balls in 250 plate appearances, Ramos is going deep roughly once every 17.9 plate appearances. For comparison, Juan Soto is going deep roughly once every 18.5 plate appearances. Don’t focus on what took so long for Ramos to get called up. Instead, enjoy the fact that he has arrived and the Giants are closer to having a star position player for the first time since Buster Posey retired.
Matt Chapman
It was a slow start, which can be excused due to a late start to the spring, but overall, Matt Chapman has been incredible at third base for the Giants. There were those (me among them) that wondered if moving off J.D. Davis for Chapman was a worthwhile move. I was dead wrong to question the logic.
Chapman has been great for this team. His slash line of .238/.324/.418 might not be the sexiest out there, but his 2.5 WAR is quietly leading all NL third baseman. His 13 home runs are the second most on the team and amongst NL third baseman. But while the bat has been good, the glove has been spectacular. Forget the number, just go off this play he made to seal the Giants win over the Mets on May 24th.
Youth Development
It is not just Ramos that has taken strides this season. Luis Matos, Brett Wisely and Tyler Fitzgerald have also gone from promising players in the farm system to contributing players on the big league roster. And it is not just the hitters. Kyle Harrison has been coming along for a while now, and despite the ups and downs of his first half, is making it hard to take him out of the rotation. New kid on the block Hayden Birdsong, despite looking like an Orioles hitting prospect, has looked good on the mound in his short run so far. After six long years, Zaidi’s farm system is at long last churning out big-league talent. And don’t forget to keep an eye on Bryce Eldridge.
9 Walk-Off Wins
The 1985 Giants had 15 walk-off wins, and that team still lost 100 games. Walk-offs are fun though, and the Giants are well over halfway to breaking that ‘85 mark. Credit the Giants hitters who refuse to let this team go down quietly for all of this. The Giants’ .740 OPS in the seventh though ninth innings is third best in baseball. Their 142 runs in those 3 innings is fourth best in baseball. This is a team that does not give up, and you’ve got to like that.
And just for fun, here is the walk-off number nine , because it was that much fun.
The Bad
Blake Snell
This could have been in the ugly section, but a dominant return start for Snell on Tuesday against the Blue Jays has me feeling confident. But aside from Tuesday;s start against Toronto (the first win the Giants had in a Snell star) it has not been pretty when Snell takes the mound.
The Giants signed him late, and not having a spring training has proven disastrous for a pitcher who is notorious for starting the season slow. The second half of the season will determine whether he pitches well enough to try the free agent market again, or if he will opt into the second year of his contract, which would give him a full spring training next season.
Camilo Doval
After representing the Giants in the All-Star Game last year with Alex Cobb, the Giants closer has taken a step back this year. He is 17-for-21 in save opportunities after leading the league with 39 saves last year, and his 4.38 ERA is over a run higher than his ERA last year. Part of the issue with Doval this year has been his usage. He has appeared in 20 save situations, and has a 3.26 ERA in those appearances.
But he has also appeared in 17 games where a save was not on the line, and in those situations, he has a ghastly 4.96 ERA. To be a closer, you need to have the right mindset to handle intense, pressure filled situations. Doval has shown no issue in those situations. But take away the pressure, and it just is not the same for a closer of his caliber, and that has shown. One cannot blame Doval for his usage in those situations, as when he pitches is decided by Bob Melvin, but regardless the reason, it has been a grind for Doval so far this season.
25-35 record Against Above .500 Teams
The Giants have done well against the bad teams, putting together a 22-15 record against teams under .500. But the Giants have not been getting it down against the better teams in baseball, and have been especially bad against the elite teams in MLB.
The combined record against the league's elite teams – the Dodgers, Yankees, Phillies and Guardians – is 6-16. The Giants do not measure up with the big boys in the league, but against the teams they’re fighting for wild card spots with – Padres, Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Mets and Braves – the Giants are 13-13, which does not inspire a lot of confidence. Winning a series over a very good Minnesota Twins team going into the break is still a positive.
Mediocre Performances
.244 team batting is 14th in MLB
.706 team OPS is 15th in MLB
4.41 team ERA is 23rd in MLB
The Ugly
Jung Hoo Lee’s Shoulder Injury
Lee was the big money spend this offseason, inking a $113 million deal to be a Giant for the next six years (assuming he does not opt out after year four). The young outfielder out of South Korea’s KBO League was brought in to add a spark atop the Giants lineup, and perhaps a little star-power as well.
His numbers were rather pedestrian to start the season. A .262 batting average is not great for a lead-off hitter, and he was thrown out in three of his five stolen base attempts. But the biggest concern was the lack of awareness of outfield dimensions, which was to be expected for a player new to this league.
But in the Giants’ 6-5 Mothers Day win over the Cincinnati Reds, Lee crashed into the centerfield fencing in Oracle Park and separated his shoulder, ending his season and sapping the Giants of one of their key attractions.
Would the Giants be better if Lee had not been injured? We will have to wait until next year to find out.
Throwing Out Runners
You could be Usain Bolt or St. Louis Cardinals catcher Pedro Pages, or anyone in between: you can steal a base against the San Francisco Giants. The latter, Pages, the Cardinals lumbering catcher, got his first, and potentially only career stolen base against the Giants back on May 23rd with Webb on the hill.
The Giants have allowed 95 stolen bases this year, by far the most in baseball. The Marlins, a very bad baseball team, are second with 88 stolen bases allowed. There could be a litany of reasons for this, and those reasons have been documented and studied by many great baseball reporters. It is very much a trend they need to reverse in the second half.
Blue Takeovers
The Dodgers have played six games at Oracle Park this year, and Dodger fans easily out-numbered Giants fans in most, if not all, of those games.
It is not just Dodger fans setting up shop at Third and King this year. Yankees fans overwhelmed the seats when the Bronx Bombers were in town during the first weekend of June. Cubs fans and Blue Jays fans added their own shades of blue when their respective teams were in town.
Image from June 29th game vs the Dodgers. The left-centerfield bleachers were drenched in Dodger blue. Photo cred: Sam Lubman
Oracle Park once sold out 530 straight games, spanning from 2010 to 2017. Each of those sellouts involved a ballpark packed with orange and black clad screaming fans, passionately consuming Giants baseball like a drug. It was a real baseball atmosphere that Giants fans were proud to be a part of.
Now it seems any one can waltz into Oracle Park and root for whoever they want to these days. Such is the case when the Giants, now in year 6 under Farhan Zaidi, have failed to build a roster with a legitimate star to attract fans to the ballpark on a nightly basis.
Threats of Selling
Farhan Zaidi said the following about whether the Giants will buy or sell at the deadline:
“We're four games under .500. Overall, it's been a real disappointment. We pushed a lot of chips in with this team. We need the players to show what the right direction is for us. If we keep playing like we did for the last 5 days, we're going to have to think about selling and seeing some younger players."
Zaidi is correct in that a lot of chips were pushed in for this team, and yet halfway through the season, the Giants, so-called “off-season winners” are now faced with the notion of being sellers at the MLB Trade Deadline on July 30th.
Would selling off be the final nail in the coffin for Farhan Zaidi? That is something worth discussing on July 31, if need be. But if this team does decide to sell, in year six under Farhan Zaidi, an already frustrated and exasperated fanbase will be hard pressed to stick with this team into August, when football season returns and Brock Purdy and co. are there to capture our hearts and minds again. Falling into a two-month hole of irrelevance is not something the Giants ownership will be excited to see happen.
402 Bullpen Innings
Once again, the Giants are asking a LOT from their bullpen. Tyler Rogers (49 games, 45.1 IP) and Ryan Walker (47 games, 49.1 IP) have been asked to do a ton. A big reason the Giants have asked so much from their bullpen is due to the lack of available starting pitchers. Their 454 innings from their rotation is the fewest in Major League Baseball, and only 52 more innings than their relievers.
The good news is help is on the way. Alex Cobb and Robbie Ray will help with innings coverage, and Blake Snell looks primed to eat up five or six innings a night now. But we have seen this before with the Giants the last two years, where an overworked bullpen in the first half began to fade in the second half. It will be a monster task for Giants manager Bob Melvin to get quality innings from the bullpen in the second half.