Five reasons the SF Giants missed the playoffs after winning 107 games in 2021
The SF Giants were the talk of Major League Baseball in 2021. They caught the entire league by surprise and finished the season with 107 wins, giving them the best regular-season record in the league. While they were eliminated in the playoffs by the Dodgers in the National League Divisional Series, they proved they belonged. Heading into this season, the Giants had high expectations for themselves.
Of course, the Giants are only 79-79 with four games left this season and were eliminated from postseason contention despite MLB expanding the playoffs to include another team. Now with one of the worst cores in the league, the Giants will need to make some major improvements to return to the top of the NL West.
So what went wrong this year? Well, here's a look at the five biggest reasons the Giants were unable to replicate their 2021 success.
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Five reasons the SF Giants missed the playoffs:
5. Their bullpen went from elite to average
The Giants bullpen was not the driving force behind the team's dropoff. However, they undeniably took a step back from 2021 to 2022 and were unable to get things sorted out until the final month of the season.
In 2021, the Giants had six relievers make at least 55 appearances, and all of them had ERAs of 2.97 or lower. Even lesser-used depth pieces like Caleb Baragar and Jay Jackson were effective middle relievers during their stints on the big-league roster.
Between closer Jake McGee and a setup group that included Dominic Leone, Zack Littell, Tyler Rogers, José Álvarez, and Jarlín García, manager Gabe Kapler had so many options late in games. Furthermore, late-season additions Tony Watson (acquired via trade) and Camilo Doval (promoted from the minors) added another two dimensions.
This season, while Doval took another step forward and emerged as a legitimate closer, the rest of the pen took a step back. McGee and Leone both imploded this season and were already designated for assignment. Rogers has finished 2022 strong but was horrible early in the year and seemed borderline unpitchable at times. Littell has been mediocre all year and was recently optioned to Triple-A, and seems like a non-tender candidate this offseason.
Unlike other parts of the roster, the Giants bullpen does not look like it will need a significant makeover this offseason. Doval, John Brebbia, Rogers, and García are all under team control through at least next season and have formed a solid core. With that said, the unit was undeniably unable to match its incredible 2021 production this season.
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Five reasons the SF Giants missed the playoffs:
4. Every outfielder regressed at the plate
The Giants lineup was carried by amazing performances from several platoons, particularly in the outfield. Mike Yastrzemski, Austin Slater, Darin Ruf, LaMonte Wade Jr., and Steven Duggar were all above-average hitters last season, according to OPS+. This season, Slater is the only player in that group who generated above-average production.
Ruf had an exceptional .271/.385/.519 triple slash in 2021, but fell off a cliff offensively this season. He hit just .216/.328/.373 with the Giants before he was traded to the Mets at the deadline, where he has struggled even more.
Duggar has always been excellent defensively, but actually was a positive offensively in 2021. This year, he has a .600 OPS at Triple-A and an atrocious .153/.225/.222 line in the majors between stints with the Giants, Rangers, and Angels.
Like Ruf and Duggar, Wade's production at the plate has dipped significantly this season, raising questions about his future with the team. Even Yastrzemski has had the worst offensive season of his big-league career and seemed like a potential non-tender candidate before a hot September likely solidified his future with the team.
When three of a team's five most important outfielders collapse offensively while the other two are roughly equivalent, it's going to be hard for a lineup to produce at the same level. Perhaps nothing was a more on-brand part of the Giants 2021 success than the "line changes" that Kapler would deploy when opposing teams switched from a left to right-handed pitcher (or vice versa). This year, those platoons have had far less success and have not provided Kapler the same flexibility.
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Five reasons the SF Giants missed the playoffs:
3. Atrocious defense
The Giants used several fringey defenders last season, including Darin Ruf, Alex Dickerson, and Tommy La Stella, but despite the occasional mistakes, they remained above-average defensively according to nearly all metrics. However, in 2022, it felt like the Giants were constantly shooting themselves in the foot with poor defensive efforts.
The numbers support that case. Statcast's Outs Above Average estimates that the Giants defense has cost them 27 runs this season, the fourth-worst in the league. FanGraphs Def metric ranked the Giants as the third-worst defenders in the league this season, estimating them to have cost their team 36.7 runs. Both statistics had the Giants ranked among the 12-best defensive teams in MLB in 2021.
What changed? Well, they had three elite defenders at the most important positions.
Buster Posey (catcher), Brandon Crawford (shortstop), and Steven Duggar (center field) all played in the majority of the Giants games in 2021 at their primary positions.
Posey's retirement and Duggar's early departure this season left the Giants with two substantial defensive holes. While Joey Bart has proven to be a solid defensive backstop, he struggled to get his feet under him early in the season and is still far from Posey's Hall of Fame level. Yastrzemski and Slater have both filled in for Duggar in center and played well, but that move has pushed them out of right field, where they primarily platooned last season. That had a domino effect, which has led players like Joc Pederson and even Yermín Mercedes to see playing time in left field.
Even Crawford had some rare mistakes early this season and then missed most of July with an injury. The Giants saw firsthand the stabilizing force an elite defender can be when Crawford returned from his prolonged absence in August. San Francisco's defense has been far more acceptable in the second half, but it easily cost them at least five games this season (and frankly, that might be a conservative estimate).
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Five reasons the SF Giants missed the playoffs:
2. Their lineup went from three stars to none
Posey's retirement (more on that later) was an obvious loss for the Giants, but he was far from the only Giants veteran who played like a star in 2021. Crawford and first baseman Brandon Belt were also exceptional. The trio of mid-30s bats combined to hit .293/.380/.534 with 67 doubles and 72 home runs in 2021.
The Giants went into 2022 seemingly expecting Belt and Crawford to replicate the best season of their career despite their advanced age and long injury histories. Belt's season ended prematurely with knee surgery and Crawford missed most of July, but more importantly, they were not just worse at the plate than they were in 2021, they had the worst offensive seasons of their careers.
After hitting .274/.378/.597 in 2021, Belt posted the worst triple slash of his career (.213/.326/.350). He managed just eight home runs in 78 games and seemed like a shell of himself at the plate all year long. He was arguably the best hitter in MLB (per plate appearance) from 2020-2021, but Belt posted a sub-.700 OPS and sub-.400 SLG for the first time in his career this season.
Similarly, Crawford was coming off the best offensive seasons of his career in 2020 and 2021, but set to turn 35 in January, it was hard to believe he could replicate the career-high 24 home runs and .895 OPS he recorded last season. In 2022, his production cratered. Crawford has a .235/.308/.348 line in 115 games and has actually been worse against right-handed pitching (.652 OPS) than left-handed pitching (.666 OPS), making it even harder for Kapler to put him in a position to thrive at the plate.
It was the mid-30s breakouts of Belt, Posey, and Crawford that lifted the Giants in 2021, but it was the drop off in that trios production that spelled disaster this season.
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Five reasons the SF Giants missed the playoffs:
1. They didn't make an effort to replace Buster Posey
The Giants lost Kevin Gausman, who was easily the team's best starting pitcher from 2020-2021, in free agency last offseason, but that loss did not kill their postseason hopes in 2022 because they made sure to acquire an equivalent talent in Carlos Rodón. The same cannot be said for Posey.
Yes, the Giants clearly had Posey's heir apparent behind the plate in Bart, the former second overall pick. They also had a proven quality veteran backup in Curt Casali. However, they needed to expect the production from their catchers to drop this season. If they were not going to get the same contribution from catcher, they needed to make a significant addition elsewhere.
Even though Bart has had a solid season, and looks like the team's long-term option behind the dish, his .219/.296/.377 triple slash is a reminder of how privileged the Giants were to have a player as good as Posey. There's a reason he's heading to the Hall of Fame.
While it's worth pointing out that the Giants signed Joc Pederson as a free agent, who has been the best hitter on the team this season, Pederson more directly addressed the departure of Kris Bryant, who the team acquired at last summer's trade deadline.
Many of the top free-agent hitters in last winter's free-agent class got off to slow starts this season, and had many fans crediting the Giants for avoiding those moves. However, now with the 2022 campaign nearly over, that argument is far less strong.
Marcus Semien, Seiya Suzuki, Trevor Story, Kyle Schwarber, Carlos Correa, and Starling Marte only rank behind Pederson in OPS among the Giants qualified hitters this season. Furthermore, Freddie Freeman would easily have the best triple-slash on the team.
Of the hitters who received contracts worth at least $70 million in free agency, Javier Báez and Nick Castellanos were the only ones who would not have been the Giants best all-around position player this season given Pederson's defensive limitations (even Bryant was limited to 42 games by injuries, but hit .306/.376/.475).
The Giants could have easily invested in one of those players without severely limiting their flexibility beyond this year. Adding a shortstop like Semien, Story, or Correa would have given them much more depth in the middle infield and likely helped them handle Crawford's injury and offensive slump. Marte and Suzuki would have solidified the outfield equation while Freeman could have been the team's primary designated hitter before replacing Belt after his drop off. Schwarber, who is quite comparable to Pederson, is the only player in this group where finding him a role on the 2022 team would have been difficult.
Furthermore, offense was far from the Giants only option to upgrade the team. Last offseason's free-agent class was stacked with starting pitching. The Giants could have easily signed Rodón and Gausman or another marquee arm, like Marcus Stroman, Robbie Ray, or Max Scherzer to try and make up for their expected offensive regression by trying to have an even better rotation.
The Giants took neither path, opting to save ownership money for the 2022 season. Fans can argue all they want about whether that was the right or wrong long-term decision, but there's a strong case that one of these big additions would have likely pushed the Giants over the edge to at least a wild-card spot this year.
Ultimately, the SF Giants went from one of the best teams in MLB to a mediocre .500 squad. A 20+ win drop is never caused by any one decision or poor performance. A series of things went wrong for the Giants this year. From the bullpen stumbling out of the gate to the front office's decision not to make a significant addition, several factors played a role. It will be interesting to see how that impacts the organization's decision-making this offseason as they try to bounce back.
