San Francisco Giants President Stresses Focus as Dodgers Rivalry Intensifies

The San Francisco Giants have to focus on improvement before they can worry about their hated rival Los Angeles Dodgers.
Apr 5, 2024; San Francisco, California, USA; San Francisco Giants president and chief executive officer Larry Baer looks on from the stands during the third inning against the San Diego Padres at Oracle Park. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
Apr 5, 2024; San Francisco, California, USA; San Francisco Giants president and chief executive officer Larry Baer looks on from the stands during the third inning against the San Diego Padres at Oracle Park. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images / Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
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It has been a tough road as of late for the San Francisco Giants.

The once proud franchise has missed the playoffs in seven of the last eight seasons and outside of an outlier 107-win season in 2021, they have largely not been competitive lately after winning three World Series banners in five years to kick off the 2010s.

To make matters that much worse, their most hated rival — the Los Angeles Dodgers — are the toast of baseball. The Dodgers just claimed their second World Series title since 2020 and don't appear to show any signs of slowing down, approaching this offseason with relentless drive to get even better and chase another ring.

As is the case in any rivalry, lean years on one side coupled with success on the other is always going to lead to anger, envy, and dissatisfaction. And that has certainly become the case in this one.

Even though Giants fans are rightfully frustrated, team president and CEO Larry Baer says the comparison is not fair and overall counterprodutive to getting things back on track.

"We can't focus on them, and I know it sounds like a pretty tripe thing to say, but we've got to focus on ourselves," Baer told 95.7 The Game on Monday via NBC Sports Bay Area. "We have 30 clubs, the years we did win championships, nobody thought we'd be there in '10, '12 and 14. The years we made the playoffs, nobody thought [we would]...I think you've got to look at this in a measured way, and being a .500 team last year, our focus this year is progressing dramatically.

"Can we turn 80 wins into 90 wins? We think we can. 92 wins, 95, whatever, and see where the chips fall where they may. We don't play the Dodgers 162 times, we play them now 12 times. If our progression goes the way we're pushing it to go, then we're fine competing with the Dodgers and we should be OK."

Painfully, even in San Francisco's first division title winning season in a decade three years ago, things still ended in the NLDS against Los Angeles. There's no question, the Dodgers are lightyears ahead of the Giants in just about every category imaginable right now.

Baer is correct in saying the team must focus on themselves and how they can improve without dwelling on the success of their foe, but San Francisco should not ignore what their counterpart is doing. Los Angeles is the gold standard every franchise in baseball should be measuring themselves up against, not just the Giants.

After all, the goal of the game is to win, the the Dodgers are doing nothing but that right now.


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