I posted this comment, and given all the work I put into it, I'm posting it here. I, of course, added some more content (I tinker constantly) and added headings. Also, the Giants signed Jordan Hicks in the meantime, so I added some thoughts on that, but didn't add to existing projections to give more buffer for the projection I'm making.
I analyzed where I think the Giants are improved in 2024 vs. 2023, and how many wins that should translate into, and whether they can make the playoffs.
ogc thoughts
The Giants Plan To Be Pitching Dominant
The Giants are trying to win by Runs Allowed excellence, led by pitching excellence, much like the Sabean Dynasty era. The team he inherited was ranked 7th, 9th, and 8th in ERA from 2018-2020, middle of the league (FIP was worse, reaching low of 11th in 2019) but in 2023 was ranked 3rd in the NL despite all the problems they had with the starting pitching where they made almost everyone a featured reliever. They were also ranked 2nd in 2021, so twice in the past three seasons, they have been among the best in ERA.
Now for 2024, they have already moved on from DeSclafani (4.88 ERA), Alexander (4.66), Manaea (4.44) and Wood (4.33). Only Stripling (5.36 ERA/5.21 FIP) is left, and while he was ranked as the #2 starter [by the article I commented on], it's much like when Zito was ranked as the top starter, it was solely because of contract and experience, we all knew that Cain was the ace of the staff. That removed 25% of our IP, and I know that Stripling isn't going to get much rope if he's as bad as he was in 2024, especially with Cobb looking like he can return in June. If he's not effective and let go, that's 30% of 2023's least productive IP jettisoned.
Now, I get that surgery isn't easy peasy and that not all players recover from surgery and be the guy he was before. We saw that with Lincecum, and his hips, and Lowry with his Thoracic issues. But we also saw Posey and his hips, as well, he got better. And that's where we are in sports today, most surgeries work and the player is back to his prior health. If they are afraid that Stripling, Cobb, and Ray won't be as good coming back, I would think the Giants would be more aggressive getting SP. So they appear to be expecting at least one of them to be productive, if not both.
And we have young pitchers coming up and producing, in Harrison, Beck, and Webb. While I get that not all young pitchers will do as well as they did in their initial introduction (like Cain had a low 2 ERA in short September call-up, then 4+ ERA his first full season), or as well as they did in the minors, Beck had 85 IP, Winn had 5 starts and 42 IP and Harrison had 7 starts and 35 IP, which at least establishes their walk and strikeout rates, which are key skills that demonstrates significance quickly, and from which projections of talent can be made.
And they had good rates and ratios, ratios that studies have shown that good pitchers achieve and attain good ERA's. Harrison had 2.9 BB/9, 9.1 K/9, 3.18 K/BB; Beck had 2.2 BB/9, 7.2 K/9, and 3.24 K/BB; Winn had 1.7 BB/9, 7.4 K/9, and 4.38. All are good rates of peripherals, and ideally you want the ratio to be over 3, and all 3 are over. So while I get that young pitchers disappoint, we have three young pitchers who in extended performances produced peripherals that are good to excellent to elite, so I would expect some success among this group.
So we have Webb, Harrison, Beck, and Winn to lead off the rotation, and Stripling likely to get #2 due to experience, but poor performances in spring training or early parts of the season will likely get him DFAed, and Black, Whisenhunt, and Birdsong will be next man up. And now, perhaps Hicks will be a starter/opener, the Giants have not been very hardcore as to what those are defined as. Then Cobb returning sometime in June and Ray returning after July.
On the bullpen side, the Giants currently has Doval, the Rogers twins, Walker, and now Hicks in the bullpen (most likely case is Hicks is in the bullpen, either as an extended opener or in the set up man role he has done well in for years), plus Luke Jackson, who did well too.
In all, that's six relievers and five starters, leaving two pitching spots (assuming 13 pitchers on the roster), which suggests that the Giants should be looking to sign one more starter, to create a bit more depth at the start of the season, then one of the young pitchers who presumably loses out on a starting position, could then take one of the two open bullpen positions. Some have thought that Eric Miller should have gotten an opportunity to show off what he can do, and maybe he'll get that last spot. I also expect Zaidi to give out a number of minor league contracts where the pitcher can try to win a spot on the roster in Spring Training.
Defense is Greatly Improved via Addition by Subtraction
What we are currently missing in Runs Allowed (i.e. run prevention) is the fielding defense. Per DRS, the five biggest offenders were Crawford, Matos in CF, Pederson, Davis, and Sabol. None of them, except Davis will be getting any playing time this season (Sabol's problems likely was as catcher). And Davis has a mixed profilie, his Outs Above Average was good at 4 in 2023, so he wasn't all bad.
Removing the four would change the 2023 Giants from -15 DRS, a poor overall performance, -1.5 wins, to +21 DRS, a good overall performance, +2.1 wins. Moving Davis to DH, if Chapman is signed, Davis was -9 DRS, pushing us to +30 DRS as a team, plus whatever Chapman provides, or 3 wins. But from -1.5 to +2.1, that adds 3.6 wins to last year's team, shifting a 79 win team to 82-83 wins.
Of course, there's changes. But Bailey's increased playing time at elite defensive levels will be countered by Murphy's likely below average defense (given how good his hitting is). 2B is improved by no Villar, but we'll call it even. At SS, Luciano will likely be below average, but in total, all the SS aside from him cost the team 2 wins per DRS, so even if he's -10 DRS (which is roughly his seasonal average last season), that's another win there, which will be balanced out at 3B if Davis plays there, at worse. Pederson made LF below average, but he's gone, and Conforto was positive, so there should be some overall improvement there. And Yaz and Slater were positive defensively in RF, where they were average last season, and so that should be improvement as well. And we already removed Matos in CF, so calling Lee simply average (0 DRS), means overall the OF is greatly improved defensively, let's call that extra half win, putting us at 83 wins.
Offensive Improvements
Now let's look at improvements positionally. Lee is now the starting CF, and ZiPS projects him at 2.5 wins. Giants were at -0.5 wins in CF last season, per baseball-reference.com, so that's 3 wins improvement, putting us at 86 wins.
At SS, the Giants were -3 wins in 2023, so if defense costs us 2 wins, that's -1 win offense. Now, Fangraphs projects Luciano at 0.6-1.0 Wins in 2024 (and if he plays the full season, that prorates higher, but I won't include it here). Let's just say he's 0 Wins, replacement level, since he could falter and the guy Zaidi acquires to back him up is at least replacement level. That adds 1 wins there, putting us at 87 wins.
Conforto in LF, where the Giants were -1.7 bWAR overall, even if he is 0 (he was 0.7 bWAR overall and projected at 1.1 by ZiPS) this season, that adds roughly 2 wins, putting us at 89 wins. I'll call the rest of the position players a push (but Murphy is projected at 1.1 WAR and Bart/Sobol together was 0 WAR roughly).
Pitching Improvements
There's likely to be pitching improvement, given the pitchers let go, and how well the young pitchers did (Beck in particular, +1.1 bWAR, or roughly 2 bWAR season; Harrison +0.2 bWAR or roughly 1 bWAR; Winn +0.3 bWAR or roughly 1 bWAR), but lets call it even, in case the young guys falter. So that leaves us at 89 wins. Hicks probably produces around 1 WAR, as reliever or opener/starter, if he pitches like he has done before. But let's leave him out as a buffer for errors in projections.
Playoffs is a Good Possibility for the Giants
Now, do I believe that this is an 89 win team? Only if Harrison has a great first full season and becomes the ace that all his performances up to now suggests that he can. But I think my logic above is sound, reasonable, and conservative, especially losing all the defensive holes and replacing most of them with better defensive players.
Do I believe we have a good offense? Not even close. I was happy to see ZiPS project Jung Hoo Lee to be so good, and he would be a nice addition to the top of the lineup. ZiPS projects him at .762 OPS. With him atop the lineup, we were already about league average from 1-6 except for the important 4th cleanup, so now we are league average 1-6. We were also weak in LF (.609 OPS) and Conforto is projected at .742 OPS (he was one of the holes at 4th last season, but he projects to be better). That should get us to league average 1-7. Before you scoff at league average, they were league worse almost (14th of 15) in Runs Scored, just getting us to 9 or 10 is a huge improvement (that's additional 50 runs in a season, right there, or five wins).
Given that an 84 win team made the playoffs last season, and 87 wins the season before, I think the Giants currently is very likely to fall into that 84-87 wins range, and thus be competitive for one of the Wild Card positions, with some good chance of getting to 90 wins, if players just play to their projected improvements or just to what they produced last season, for the players still on the roster, given how conservative I was in not counting every little addition of possible wins. I think that allows a lot of room for errors (i.e. poor performances), while there are areas where they can out produce.
Especially Harrison, he could be anywhere between 1 win (ZiPS project 1.4 WAR), 2 wins (if he's closer to Cobb's projection), or 3+ wins (if he's in Webb's territory). For reference, Cain had 4.15 ERA in his first full season (2.3 bWAR) and Lincecum had 4.00 ERA (2.1 bWAR), and Harrison had 4.15 ERA in 2023 in 7 starts. And while Harrison had 2.9 BB/9 and 9.0 K/9, with 3.1 K/BB ratio, Lincecum had 4.0 BB/9 and 9.2 K/9, with 2.3 K/BB ratio and Cain had 4.1 BB/9 and 8.4 K/9, with 2.1 K/BB ratio.
Top Ranked Runs Allowed Teams Usually Makes the Playoffs
And with good pitching (via reduced bad pitching) and good defense (via reduced bad defense, plus Lee), that #3 ranking in ERA should be reflected in their Runs Allowed ranking, where they were 6th. Historically in the Wild Card era, if there were N playoff teams (4, 5 or 6 teams), out of the Top 4-5 RA Leaders (which the Giants should be within in 2024), 75% of teams reaching that ranking made the playoffs. So, while no guarantee, I also think that there's a good chance that the Giants will make the playoffs as is, without adding any other players.
Of course injuries have ruined projections before (like Bumgarner getting hit on the hand in the last ST game, or Kent hurting himself "washing his truck"), so we need to get through spring training first, and that's why I would not mind the Giants signing another position player, starting pitcher, or both, to make the playoffs more of a reality than a possibility. Signing Hicks is a great quality addition to the pitching staff, but another starting pitcher or position player would be best.
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