San Francisco Giants Receive Mediocre Grade For 'Uninspiring' Year

The San Francisco Giants are still searching for a real identity as they receive a mediocre grade for an 'uninspiring' campaign.

Dec 12, 2024; San Francisco, CA, USA; San Francisco Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey speaks during the introductory press conference for shortstop Willy Adames (not pictured) at Oracle Park. / Robert Edwards-Imagn Images

The San Francisco Giants have changed a lot in the recent months, but is it enough to finally drum up excitement for next season?

Bleacher Report's Zachary D. Rymer recently went through each MLB team's calendar year to find a grade for how everything has turned out. The Giants received a mediocre 'C' mark, calling 2024 an 'uninspiring' year.

San Francisco finished 80-82 last year and missed the postseason. Since then they have moved on from Farhan Zaidi and replaced him with franchise legend Buster Posey.

Posey will look to finally push them from a perennial mediocre squad to finally becoming contenders once again.

The first two things that stand out as positives from this year have been the emergence of Matt Chapman as a team leader and the willingness to give Willy Adames a record contract.

Star power has been the main thing missing from the Giants' roster, so it has been good to see Posey not willing to let the team get much worse than they already were.

The offense should already, on paper, look much better next year with even more moves rumored to be on the horizon.

Another positive has been the breakout of Bryce Eldridge in the farm system. Along with not having anyone looking like franchise cornerstones on the MLB roster, their pipeline had also looked to be lacking.

Eldridge now looks like a real star in the making after posting a .293//.348/.512 slash line with 23 home runs while touching four different levels of the minors at just 19 years old.

While these were clear positive, Rymer also mentioned a few things that kept them from receiving an outright good grade for 2024.

This past campaign was the third year in a row that they finished around a .500 record. They haven't been bad enough to add elite talent in the draft, but also haven't been that good.

While the offense might be able to push them past that into contention, their pitching staff might be taking a step back.

Blake Snell left for the Los Angeles Dodgers, adding insult to injury after being unable to bring him back. His 1.23 ERA over his final 14 starts were a large reason things started to pick up down the stretch.

They then looked at replacing him with Corbin Burnes, but then lost Burnes to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Another NL West foe improving the pitching staff while San Francisco is left scratching their heads.

The Giants have yet to add anyone to the staff so they may have to run it back, minus the elite production from Snell down the stretch.

A 'C' grade is fair, given that there is just about as much to be wary about with pitching as there is to be happy about on offense.