San Francisco Giants Need To Get Over ‘Mad Pursuit of Mediocrity’

The San Francisco Giants could reach historic mediocrity over the final stretch of the regular season.

Nov 9, 2022; Las Vegas, NV, USA; San Francisco Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi answers questions from the media during the MLB GM Meetings at The Conrad Las Vegas. / Lucas Peltier-Imagn Images

The near-best case scenario for the San Francisco Giants over the final stretch of the regular season still doesn't paint an ideal picture of recent years.

As The Athletic's MLB staff pointed out recently, the Giants are fighting for chance to do something that hasn't been done in almost a decade.

While that may sound good, the thing they are chasing isn't exactly great. With an undefeated record over their final five games, they could become just the second team since the 2013-2015 New York Mets to have a .500 record over a three-season span.

"San Francisco's mad pursuit of mediocrity, after all, must be the reason they spent two weeks not playing Marco Luciano before sending him to the minors to work on his outfield defense, right," asked Tim Britton. "Yes, we remain flummoxed by the usage of Luciano. The advantage of being formally eliminated from the playoffs is you can guiltlessly switch perspectives to the future and get a more detailed look at the pieces you think can play a significant role in it. You’re supposed to use that time wisely — not on Brett Wisely."

The Luciano experiment has made little sense all season long, but taking him out of the lineup and sending him down to the minors instead of giving him at-bats in games that aren't 'must-wins' doesn't make much sense at all.

Farhan Zaidi and the rest of the Giants' decision makers have seemingly been confused on what the team is trying to do for a while now.

They decided to bring in some big money players for this past season in Jung Hoo Lee, Blake Snell, Matt Chapman and Jorge Soler.

Outside of Snell, it was a bunch of players that are seemingly great pieces to add to a championship squad. Instead, however, they were the cornerstones of a new look lineup. Results were unsurprisingly mixed.

When the entire baseball world begged them to trade Snell at the deadline instead of losing him to free agency, they decided to trade a player that they had locked down for a few years in Soler.

They gave Chapman a huge extension, but he's still an interesting choice as a franchise cornerstone given that he possesses a just okay bat.

The decisions in San Francisco over the past few years have screamed mediocrity and the results are completely matching those expectations.

Maybe some more spending in free agency can finally be the answer to turning things around in the bay area.