Your 2026 Giants: An Identity That Posey Sees As Ideal

A while back (took me a while to finish this), the Mercury’s Dieter Kurtenbach wrote this opinion piece, “The SF Giants stumbled into an identity. Will they embrace it?”  He likes the new Giants who have stepped up after Adames was ILed for the rest of the season, going 12-11 since then (at the time of his article; of course, they ended the season getting swept, multiple times…).

Because this little run of competence represents a team that isn’t rolling over and playing dead. They’re finally, mercifully playing an irritating brand of baseball (complimentary), which sure beats their prior brand: comatose.

As usual, I have thoughts. 

ogc thoughts 

There has already been a clear preference by the Posey led Front Office for contact hitters.  So his column is addressing something that Posey has been focusing on, with player acquisition.  From drafting Gavin Kilen and Trevor Cohen in the 2025 draft, to trading for Jesus Rodriguez, to signing Luis Arraez, to promoting Jesus Rodriguez, Drew Cavanaugh, Jonah Cox, Nate Furman, and Turner Hill.  Contact hitters galore!

So this reminds me of Ann Killion’s article in the Mercury asking what’s the Giants plans, after they let go of Barry Bonds (ironic, since she steadfastly was one of the open baseball writers who did not vote for Barry for the Hall of Fame).  As I wrote then, the Giants had pitching, pitching, and more pitching.  And that’s the identity that Sabean pursued and executed on, to a 3 in 5 Dynasty.

So, similarly for Dieter, he’s missing that this is something the Giants under Posey has emphasized in developing in the minors and acquiring:  contact, contact, and more contact hitters.  Not that they are against homerun hitters, with their drafting of Peyton Bonds, and keeping Eldridge, Davidson and Jordan, when there were many fans and media advocating for the Giants to trade Eldridge for pitching.

More Contact Results in More Consistent Offense

Contact hitters are good for more consistent run production. People forget, but Sabean had more contact hitters in his lineup, not power hitters.  Pablo Sandoval, Freddie Sanchez, Angel Pagan, Melky Cabrera, Marco Scutaro are the most prominent contact hitters, topped by the best of that bunch, Buster Posey.  

Sabean felt that was best for the club because acquiring power hitters is so hard. It’s especially hard when a team, like the Giants did under Sabean, used most of their first round picks on pitching, as well as more draft picks overall on pitching, meaning lower odds of their position players developing into starters. Plus, trading for one is hard because the other team normally wants top prospects back, and Sabean found them but wanted to keep them.  You only trade them if they are failures (like the Red Sox trading Mayer to the Giants, or Sabean trading Foppert to Seattle for Winn, or Torres for Estes).  

But Posey has been able to acquire them, in a variety of ways: via free agency (Willy Adames), trade (Rafael Devers), as well as player development (Bryce Eldridge, Casey Schmitt, Heliot Ramos).  So that’s likely part of his calculus for focusing on acquiring contact hitters, since he already had many power options, in the majors and the minors (Eldridge, Davidson, Jordan, and now Bonds).  As well, contact hitters are usually able to continue to hit for high contact at every level of the minors, and then bring that to the majors. 

Under Pressure

In addition, contact hitters are what’s needed for Posey’s objective for the lineup:  always putting pressure on the pitcher (as noted again in his end of season presser).  Contact hitters can pressure pitchers in a variety of ways.  One is getting on base.  That makes the pitcher have to leave their comfort zone and throw without a windup.  

Another thing he has emphasized is getting walks.  This creates added pressure for the pitcher because, not only is there a base runner, but he likely forced the pitcher to throw 6-10 pitches, which tires him out faster.  Hopefully lead to the pitcher needing to be careful.  Moreover, a patient contact hitter will force the pitcher to throw more pitches, which means that he leaves the game that much sooner, especially in today’s world of limiting.  It also means wearing out the other team’s bullpen, by forcing them to use more relievers.

Also important is increasing productive outs.  By definition, contact hitters strike out less. This results, as noted above, in more hits overall, but also results in less non-productive outs (in other words, less strikeouts) and more productive outs, which leads to scoring more runs.   

All to improve the offense so that it can be more consistent in producing runs.  Relying only on homers makes the offense work intermittently. More contract means more base runners. More walks as well. More hits while more runners, means more runs. 

Posey Knows His Own Identity

Lastly, I should note that Posey himself was a good contact hitter.  So it seems kind of presumptuous of Dieter to suggest that Posey stumbled onto contact hitting as an identity he should embrace. He was always a contact hitter, not known for a ton of power.  He was a college SS who got moved to catcher and made himself a great hitter and defender.  And he never struck out too much, over 85% contact rate in his career, which is the level the best contact hitters reach or beat.