Preseason optimism is such a fun feeling. The front office has gone out and gotten a bunch of new players, or they’ve built on strong finishes from the guys who were already around, and the possibilities are endless. You let yourself get carried away dreaming about how everything can go right, and the team can be so good, and they can really surprise some people, and they’ll have all these fun surprises.
Then the real surprises start, and they’re not so fun.
First, there’s the guy who ended up being as close to a marquee free agent as your team was able to sign over the offseason:
There’s a way in which this wasn’t unexpected, which is: This is Mitch Haniger, who is known for his injury history. So, uh, yes, in that way, it was expected. But the start of Spring Training is a time for optimism, and the end of Spring Training is a time for realism, and the abrupt transition from one to the other is jarring. Yes, any rational analysis would include some allowance for injury, but why is it suddenly time for rational analysis? It didn’t have to happen like this!
But, fine, okay, Mitch Haniger is hurt and may or may not be healthy on Opening Day (For the record, the team said they expected him to be ready by then, but I will never trust a balky oblique and you shouldn’t either). We can live with that, though. We’ll just, uh, throw a backup catcher out there and maybe play JD Davis a little bit more and just kinda get through it until Haniger comes back. No big deal. We’re set up to handle this kind of thing.
Then you lose the franchise icon, the last remnant of the glory years, the most popular player on the team, and easily the best shortstop since the team moved to San Francisco:
“At least a week” is not an optimistic phrase, is it? The team has backup options: Thairo Estrada would be the obvious starter, and Brett Wisely and Isan Diaz have both played shortstop in the minors, though I don’t know how excited you’d be about either of them starting. Still, just having them at second base would be enough coverage to-
NO NO ABSOLUTELY NOT NO.
(Sorry, this isn’t a bigger deal than Crawford’s injury, but I have a bit and I’ll be damned if I don’t live up to it)
The Giants can find a way to cover the middle infield. I don’t know if they want to start Casey Schmitt’s service time clock ticking (and also put him on the 40-man) just yet, but he’s a phenomenal third baseman and should be at least a major league quality shortstop. They also have Ford Proctor, if they want to use a stopgap. David Villar is at least physically capable of playing second base. They have options, is the point.
But man, it sucks to be thinking about options right now.
There will be things that suck about this baseball season. There will be things that are great too, but someone’s gonna get a glass of cold water splashed in his face. Luis Gonzalez will go 1-13 in the majors with two pickoffs and get DFA’d, or Austin Slater will have some lingering injury that keeps him from looking right at the plate for months, or LaMonte Wade Jr just won’t find his swing, or Camilo Doval will lose the strike zone for weeks at a time. I’m not predicting any of those things specifically (though the Gonzalez one is eerily plausible), but I am saying: something like that will happen.
Before it happens, though, it’s nice to pretend it won’t. That this’ll be the year that everything clicks, like it did in 2021. That the good times won’t be tempered by the bad ones. That the summer will be filled with nothing but frivolity, and absolutely zero tweeting WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, the context of which will be totally forgotten a week later.
That’s not going to happen. Even if Haniger and Crawford come out of these injuries fine, and dispel any doubts about their health over the first week of the regular season, the seal is still broken. The evils of the world are still in the ether. With two weeks left in Arizona, we have to start confronting the season as it is and not how we’d like it to be.
The Giants took back their Carlos Correa offer in large part to avoid situations like this for years on end. It was an understandable decision, and we can see that clearly now, even if Carlos Correa would do an awful lot to solve the team’s current problems. But avoiding what’s likely a bad decision doesn’t make the team better, and with Crawford out, they’ll be scrambling, and they’ll be worse, and we’re just going to have to live with it.
Although on the It Could Be Worse side, if some fans had had their way, the Giants would be dealing with one more injury this year:
Get well soon, Carlos! Your fastball is fun.
Excellent commitment to the bit, Doug! And yes, I’d prefer to postpone reality for at least 2 more weeks. Where’s Brian Bocock when you need him? (jk)