San Francisco Giants progress may not be seen in 2021 record

The San Francisco Giants may be moving in the right direction, but that may not be obvious with their 2021 record.

Spring training is a time when a fan’s mood can swing back and forth between boundless hope and deep despair. The following is a debate between the optimistic me and the pessimistic me regarding the 2021 San Francisco Giants.

Opti-me: The Giants are moving in the right direction. The 2020 season was the third straight with an improved winning percentage. And that was with Buster Posey taking a Covid opt-out. Posey’s back now and his return alone makes the Giants a post-season contender.

Granted, team president Farhad Zaidi didn’t do a lot over the winter, but that’s because not much needed to be done. Bringing Posey back fortifies an offense that was fifth in the NL in runs per game in 2020, fourth in average, and fifth in OPS.

Posey’s year off should also have been a good restorative from the natural beating a catcher’s body takes. We’ll see something like the 2017 Posey who hit .320 with a .861 OPS. I know everybody expects the Dodgers and Padres to run away with the West, but Posey’s return alone is a good reason to expect the Giants to push those teams.

Pessi-me: Posey was beginning to age before 2020. In 2019 he lost 27 points of batting average and 53 points of OPS. So that restorative your waxing poetically over sounds more like patent medicine to me.

Beyond that, your team is getting old. The average age of your projected starting eight this season will be 32, which in baseball terms is geezer-level. You’re only going to put one regular on the field who’s under 30. As far as those offensive numbers go, that means regression is a better bet than improvement.

Opti-me: We may be old chronologically, but we’re still growing in baseball experience, and that keeps us young. Mike Yastrzemski may be 30, but he’s only entering his third season at the major league level. He’s still learning, and fast. Give him a full season and he’ll produce a 30-homer, 100 RBI season with a .300 average.

Our second baseman, Donovan Solano, is a similar case. He made a breakthrough when the San Francisco Giants picked him up in 2019. Since then he’s become a reliable .330 stick with high on base numbers. In short, he’s a 33-year-old kid.

Don’t overlook Mauricio Dubon starting in center. He’ll be 26 this year, and he’s shown the game to make an all-around contribution.

And really don’t overlook Heliot Ramos. Sure, he’s not even on the 40-man yet, but he’s tearing up spring camp, he’s just 21, he’s hitting .385 with power and it wouldn’t surprise anybody if he goes north with the team.

Pessi-me: Even if your offense does develop – which I doubt – it will have to move pretty fast to offset the damage that will be done by that pitching staff. It’s like watching the 2016 All Stars reunite.

Your ace is Johnny Cueto, who’s 14-15 since 2017. At least Cueto’s not especially harmful since he’s injured so often; he’s average just 70 innings since 2017. Then you’re going with Kevin Gausman. Same story: Eight seasons, none with a winning record, and a 4.94 ERA in his last 162 innings.

Beyond them, you have Anthony DeSclafani: No winning seasons since 2016 and a 4.70 ERA since 2018. Then you have Alex Wood, who was really good for the Dodgers four seasons ago. Since then he’s 10-11. But don’t worry about Wood hurting the team because he’s only been on the mound for 48 innings since 2018.

Your fifth starter is Logan Webb: Two seasons in the majors, a 5-7 record, a 5.36 ERA, a total of 94 innings of work. Let me sum it up: Your pitchers don’t win and don’t work much because they don’t stay healthy.

Opti-me: Let’s all stay on planet Earth. We owe Cueto $21 million this year and another $22 million next year, so one way or another he’s pitching. For the most part, the others have actually all looked good so far this spring, although admittedly that’s in limited action.

Wood’s the only real question at this point, since his back is acting up. But that stuff happens in the spring…nothing to worry about.

Pessi-me: You haven’t said anything about the bullpen, and I know why. You don’t have one. Your projected closer on the three-deep is TBD. Take a guess, why don’t you.

Actually, I know why: there are no good choices. The total number of career saves in your projected bullpen is five, and three of them belong to a guy named Tyler Rogers. By the way, those three equal the number of saves he blew last year.

You said earlier that Zaidi didn’t do anything because nothing needed to be done. But the pen was and still is an obvious hole. He just ignored it.

Opti-me: There is no more fluid performer in baseball than a reliever. Throwing money at that position is the definition of a waste. Zaidi understands that.

Pessi-me: Granted, but it still leaves the San Francisco Giants pining for .500 and third place as the best possible outcome. You better hope the D-Backs or Rockies somehow don’t catch lightning. As old and stratified as the Giants are, they’re not capable of making a run for anything higher than mid-pack.

Opti-me: We finished well ahead of Colorado and Arizona, and neither improved themselves over the winter, so they’re not a problem. Obviously, it would be difficult to catch that team down in LA. As for the Padres, they haven’t shown us anything yet.

Look for Yaz, Dubon, Dickerson, and Solano to have big seasons, Posey to come back strong, and Heliot Ramos to be a Rookie of the Year candidate. When that happens, a post-season spot, while difficult, is decidedly possible.