Wednesday, August 19, 2026

Your 2026 Giants: the Silver Lining

Dieter Kurtenbach, of the SJ Mercury, wrote a scathing diatribe about the Giants titled, “There’s no silver lining to the most pathetic SF Giants team in a decade.”  (subscription needed).  
ogc thoughts 

I get the overall sentiment, but this is why it is foolish for some to think that Giants fans would accept a tear down rebuild, when fans and especially the media, which frames how fans interpret a team, reacts this way.

Rebuilding Season

Especially when it was pretty clear that this was a rebuilding season (which I posted on earlier in the season, but this was clear at spring training), and not a true competitive season.  In a true competitive season, they would have spent the money on one proven starting pitcher, instead of signing two pitchers who might be good but might be bad too, it was a true question mark for both. 

Moreover, they would not have went into the season without one proven reliever in the bullpen.  Their two most proven relievers were both recovering (Hentges and Foley) and thus questionable as to when (if ever) they revert back to good performances, and their third best (Butto), has been good but not proven back end reliever, then was injured himself before the season started. Leaving Walker as the most (and only) experienced, but also very questionable, back end reliever type.  Everyone else was unproven as relievers, let alone capable of pitching as set up relievers.  Nobody goes into a season where they seriously intend to compete with a bullpen like this.

Most of all, they would not have hired a manager whose most valuable talent and experience is developing baseball players, and not managing a winning MLB team.  Vitello had no MLB experience, so it would not be reasonable to expect him to be great at managing a MLB team. Nor to not expect some severe learning curve since it is his first experience with MLB players and processes.  This hire, above all, should have signaled to fans that the Giants were not very serious about winning in 2026.

And what should have sealed the deal was when the Giants traded Bailey for a draft pick and an interesting prospect in Tugboat Wilkinson (just had to get his nickname out there, that’s always been a charm about baseball, from the Say Hey Kid to Stretch to Moonman Minton to Jack the Ripper to Will the Thrill to Buster Posey).  No team intending to seriously compete would trade their two time Gold Glove starting catcher for future considerations (mainly the draft pick, but also Tugboat; for me this brings back memories of Caveman) in the early part of the season, then also making their inexperienced Rule 5 pick their starting catcher.  This didn’t improve the team’s chances in 2026, this brought their chances down, while it hopefully did improve it in the near future.  

So, I get the anger some Giants fans feel, because the Giants sold the season as one where they would be competitive.  But if they had paid attention to what was actually happening, and followed the team a bit closer, they would have realized that the Giants were still mediocre, and could crash badly if the bullpen and starting pitching went south, and, in any case, was being managed by a totally inexperienced MLB outsider, thus with expectations of a learning curve, whose main expertise is player development.  And, really, just about anything that could go wrong, did, all the pitching, plus some hitting, as well. 

It’s Deja Vu All Over Again 

Just about 19 years ago, Ann Killion of the SJ Mercury wrote a scathing diatribe about the Giants having no direction, and I disagreed, noting that they had a very obvious direction (pitching, pitching, and more pitching, plus defense).  For this post, I want to point out the silver lining of this season, and how I am excited about the future.

Eldridge is the Giants 2026 North Star

Most of all, I am very excited about Bryce Eldridge.  He is an above average hitter in his 21 YO season, and should only get better with experience.  He’s hitting .247/.341/.434/.775 in 81 games, a seasonal rate of 26 homers, 30 doubles, 80 runs and 64 RBI.  And that’s with a 25% strikeout rate, which is very doable for a power hitter like he is.  Moreover, he’s at nearly 50% walk to strikeout (42:87), which is a sign of a good patient hitter, a three true outcome type of hitter.  And hopefully he can figure out how to hit too, there is that potential as well. 

Looking at this season, Vitello is clearly on a learning curve as a MLB manager, and the main skill he brings to the Giants are his player development skills that he honed to perfection at University of Tennessee.  He was hired by UT to take over a mediocre college team that had not done much of anything for many decades, and despite that limitation to his recruiting of talent to the program, he built a team that was soon reaching the College World Series regularly, and winning it in 2024.

Thus, I have to think that one of the major objectives of this season was to get Eldridge ready to be a MLB hitter.  And I would call it a success so far.  Eldridge development is a huge silver lining to the 2026 season, and depending on how well he continues to develop, could make the season well worth it (much like Lincecum’s first season in 2007).  And apparently the Giants and Posey agreed, because Posey came out and announced recently that Vitello will be back for the Giants 2027 season. 

2026 Draft

Now, some of this MLB draft silver lining wasn’t from the Giants doing, it was simple good luck getting the 4th pick overall.  While that means we don’t get a Top 10 pick next year, which this bad season would have earned, I see it as getting our good pick a year earlier, which is still a silver lining, especially since it allowed the Giants to pick the best pitching prospect, Jackson Flora.  Who knows which pick we could have gotten next season, since it is a lottery, as well as who might be available.  Getting the top pitcher a year early is a silver lining.

On top of that, the Giants engineered the great trade to get the 29th pick from Cleveland.  Now, this appears to be a plan that they were working on during the offseason, and perhaps as early as middle of the 2025 season.  The plan being trading Bailey because he was a liability as a hitter, which should have been clear by the middle of last season, if not earlier, Posey was a great hitter.  

Once they decided to move on from Bailey, they, of course, needed to find a good defensive replacement. Which they eventually determined would be Daniel Susac, via the Rule 5 draft, who they identified as a good replacement.  And this has been mostly true (when he was healthy), as Susac has been in 2026 among the leaders in catching metrics, despite starting the season as a backup and then missing time the first time he was on the IL.  

Next, once they decided to trade Bailey, they, at some point, came to the decision to trade for one of the supplemental picks awarded to teams after the first round.  And that made sense given that the industry viewpoint was that there would be a bounty of HS pitchers available after the first round, because teams were avoiding HS pitchers with their first round picks.  This is a historic trend:  teams have been leaning towards college players, then HS hitters, and avoiding HS pitchers.  Too much risk of getting nothing from their first round pick.  Getting a supplemental pick would give the Giants first dibs on one of the best HS pitchers.

And at that point of the trade, the pitcher who was highly regarded was Carson Bolemon.  He was actually considered by some to be the best amateur pitcher available in the draft before the season started.  But he had a slow start, and teams have been rather suspect of players who have an off year.  Like Brandon Crawford, who was ranked 10th overall before the season started, but while he hit well, more was expected, and he fell to the Giants in the fourth round.  Like with Bolemon, the Giants since Barr joined the front office, has prioritized prospects in the draft who were ranked highly before, but fell for a variety of reasons.  So getting Bolemon, who could end up the best pitcher in the draft, is another silver lining.  

Here’s where it gets even better:  they also ended up selecting Waechter with their next pick.  Apparently the Giants ranked him highly too, high enough that had another team had snagged Bolemon with a pick before, the Giants could have selected Waechter with that 29th pick instead.

Thus, the Giants arguably ended up with two of the best pitchers in this draft, and then ended up picking up another pitcher who they would have considered for the 29th pick.  That’s a huge silver lining.

2026 Trades

The Giants losing is a silver lining because it allowed them to decide to punt the season and trade away a number of players who would not fit the timeline for when hopefully Eldridge and others in the farm system would be on the rise in production, in the 2028-30 timeframe.  This is much like how Zito pitching so bad early on enabled the Giants to lose more, and get in position to draft Posey and Wheeler, and eventually Crawford and Belt, as well (had Zito pitched even a little bit better, one win better, the Giants would have fell to the 6th pick, and lost Posey to the Angels, who also picked a catcher with their pick).  It’s not something you plan for, but it is still a silver lining.

Losing this badly enabled the Giants to trade a lot of players, especially Arraez and Ray.  If they were around .500, as baseruns says they should have been around, they probably would’ve had to keep most of them, in order to stay competitive.  Maybe Arraez could be traded because of how well Schmitt was playing. This applies to Kilian, Miller, and Ramos, as well.  They are still valuable players who they had to keep around to be competitive, but as bottom dwellers, they could be traded. 

This silver lining enabled trades that added the other teams’ Top 5-10 prospects, as well as other interesting prospects, going more for quality than quantity.  In particular, Marcelo Mayer, who was a Top 15 overall ranked prospect just last season.  The farm system was already loaded, even after Eldridge graduated, with Level, Gonzalez, Hernandez, Kilen, Davidson, Jordan and Bresnahan.  These trades added interesting prospects like Mayer, Marquez, Munoz, Gonzalez, Lalane, Kent, and Gair.  

NextGen Giants 2028-30

Prospects are iffy, but the Giants have over a dozen prospects who could develop enough to be starters for them.  I get that any one of them is not likely to become a starter, but to think that none of them will is also an unlikely outcome.  The Giants are going with a volume approach here. 

Catcher

The starter is TBD.  Susac has been an able defensive replacement, amazingly, when healthy, being great at catching metrics, but after his hot start, his hitting fell off the cliff.  Cavanaugh appears to be good at getting on base, but has no power, and has been at best average defensively.  The Giants also might draft their next catcher next season, or sign or trade for one by 2028.

1B/DH

Devers will be 31 YO in 2028, Eldridge only 23 YO. Both should hopefully be middle of lineup forces, as Devers should still be a good hitter and Eldridge should be maturing with experience, batting somewhere 2-3-4 in the lineup because they are that good at getting on base and hitting for power, while not striking out too much.

Middle Infield and 3B

Chapman would be 35 YO and Adames 32, with Schmitt 29 YO.  I believe Schmitt likely would have been sold in the purge, had he been healthy, and likely to be traded in the next year or so, something on par with what we got for Arraez, a top pitching prospect.  
And given Chapman’s age, and only two years left on the contract after 2027, a trade could easily be done to get him onto a playoff bound team in mid-2028, since he would only have a season and a third left.  And given how much value his defense produces, they only add money to improve the prospect they get in return.

By 2028, Adames could be moved to 2B, where he should be okay offensively and defensively.  He would have four seasons left, so he could be the starting 2B during this period.

That means we need to get a starting SS and 3B for 2028-30 out of Kilen, Level, Gonzalez, Luis Hernandez, Jonial Hernandez, and Mayer.  I would think getting two average or better starters out of these six prospects seems doable, especially because of how highly all of these, except Jonial, are so highly considered.  We might even get our starting LF from this bunch too.  

RF

Jung Hoo Lee is 29 YO in 2028, and could use his opt out to leave the team after the 2027 season.  Based on how slightly above average he has been in 2025-26, and the likelihood that there won’t be much season left to play in 2027, I think he opts to stay.  And with time and experience focusing on RF, he will get to be average defensively there, maybe slightly above average, because of his speed.

CF and then LF

Both Davison and Jordan are highly regarded CF prospects.  They would be 26 and 25, respectively, in 2028.  So one or both should be reaching the majors in 2027, and perhaps cementing starting roles in the OF (LF is open too).  Then there are all the prospects competing for middle infield, they could be pushing for an OF position as well.  Parks Harbor is also a possibility at 3B/LF, as well.  Plus there’s Cox, Hill, Cohen.  And during the dynasty period, Sabean often picked up LF off the waiver wire or traded for them.  Given how many interesting prospects the Giants have, they could also engineer a quantity over quality trade to pick up an interesting veteran to fill any of their needs, not just LF, but also SP, RP, C, or others, as needs crop up.  

Starting Pitchers 

As I had written before about the beauty of pitching (see my business plan) is that each pitcher you find improves the pitching staff, first the starting rotation, and then the bullpen, with the pitchers who fail at starting, but excels at handling one inning of MLB quality hitters.

First off, in studying the pitching rotation of MLB teams over a ten year period, and looking at how many pitchers actually qualified for a pitching award (minimum 162 IP) and how good their ERA was, saw that most teams struggled with having a reliable 4th and 5th starter.  Thus, having a reliable average pitcher like Zito as your fourth starter was an advantage.  And even during the 3 in 5 Dynasty, the Giants usually struggled finding a reliable 5th starter.  So a team needs at least three good starters and one average starter.  

Webb is likely to be the ace of the rotation still.  He has adjusted his pitching as necessary to stay productive and retaining his low ERA.  He is focused on long term health, as well as throwing more innings, reaching 200 innings in the three prior seasons.  He would still be only 31 YO in 2028, though that is roughly when Lincecum, Cain and Bumgarner started to lose it.  

However, he should be better than this trio.  He has a better pitcher’s body than Lincecum, whose small build is why most teams saw him as a reliever in the draft. He has a lot less injury concerns than Cain, who had a long history of elbow problems dating to his first pro season, which was bad enough to drop his prospect status behind another Giants pitcher drafted that same year, and to convince the Giants to remove one year from his first extension.  Lastly, he is vastly more dedicated to baseball, unlike Bumgarner, who injured himself riding a bike on mountain trails, then was exposed to have been competing in dangerous rodeo events while he was a player still.  He should be the Giants great to continue to be great in his 30’s.  

Roupp will be 29 YO in 2028, so we will have to see if he can be a reliable 4th starter, or if it would be better to trade him for a prospect.  But his career FIP is 3.69, xFIP is 4.05, xERA is 3.99 (as well as his ERA is 3.99), SIERA is 4.30, so he’s a roughly average or slightly better pitcher, which would be maybe a 3rd at best, or at least a 4th starter, except that his max IP in a season is the 129.1 innings pitched that he’s at now, and we need at least 160 IP (32 starts at 5 IP).  If he can finish the season at 5 IP per 8 starts, that would put him at 169.1 IP.  ZiPS project roughly 3.80 ERA over the next three seasons, which works for the rotation.  So the Giants need a #2 and #3 starters to set up the rotation for 2028-30.

The Giants currently have a large number of pitching prospects, but not all of them will necessarily be the good starters they need to fill out the rotation. If they can at least be average, then Roupp becomes a tradeable asset.  The Giants might need to either trade for a top of rotation starter or sign one in free agency.  The possibilities include:  Flora, Marquez, Bresnahan, Bolemon, Lalane, Martinez, Waechter, Mendez, Cayama, Tidwell, McDonald, Wilkinson, Whisenhunt.  

I would put Flora (ranked 31st overall), Marquez (ranked 100th), Bresnahan, Bolemon as the possibilities for a #2 starter to pair with Webb in the 2028-30 timeframe.  Most likely, it looks to be Flora, the 4th pick overall.  Hopefully he can rise to the majors by 2028 and figure it out 2029-30, much like Lincecum did.

Ideally, Bolemon is also a strong possibility as well.  Hopefully he can be the Bumgarner to Flora’s Lincecum, and be contributing to the team in 2029-30.  He should have that type of potential given that he was viewed as the top pitcher in the preseason.  Moreover, although he’s only a HS pitcher, he is rated as having better than average control (55), which is better than Flora, Marquez, or Bresnahan.  

If none of them are able to make the leap, the Giants will have to pursue such a starter in the 2027-28 off seasons, as that’s when Eldridge will hopefully be starting his climb to superstardom.  The goal is to have the team rising along with Eldridge, riding on his back to new heights, much like how they rose on Posey’s back.  

Then the remaining of these plus the others for a middle rotation (#3) or better starter.   And while achieving such a strong rotation is tough in any circumstance, but given so many of these prospects, it seems doable, especially since the missing starter type should be available to sign or trade for, once the Giants figure out another two starters out of this bunch, especially since Flora has a lot of good qualities, and was the top pitching prospect, he looks likely to fill one of the two pitching roles the Giants need for their next competitive era.  Filling the #3 starter looks relatively easy, with Flora looking like he can be at least that, so the real question is how to find a co-ace level starter to pair with Webb.  

Bullpen

Once the starting rotation is settled, all the remaining pitchers become possible relievers.  And I have seen enough good pitching prospects become relievers that I think it should be relatively easy to cobble together a good bullpen over the 2027-30 timeframe.  Especially starting with Randy Rodriguez likely returning to become a top set up man, or even as closer in 2027.  

NextGen Competitive Giants

So the next generation of competitive Giants teams appear to be on the runway, only needing experience to find who will fulfill what roles.  It’s not a sure thing, it’s never a sure thing, but there are so many options that it seems unlikely that every option will fail.  That’s a hell of a silver lining!
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