Let's put a stop to all this negativity
If we're going to be negative, it'll be when we've good and earned it with a sufficient sample size
Imagine a team that is the opposite of the 2023 Giants. They are fun. They are exciting. They are dynamic. They have a bunch of players who you like and are performing well. You have a multitude of reasons to watch them every game.
They hit well. They pitch well. You have confidence in their decisions both front office and managerial. Their bullpen is solid. These Giants are 6-11, so let’s make that team 11-6. Actually, you know what? No. Let’s go crazy. 12-5. They have a homegrown ace with an ERA in the 2s. They signed a free agent starter with an ERA in the 1s. It’s working. Everything is working. Wouldn’t you want to watch that team?
Well, you shouldn’t! You shouldn’t feel that way at all, you big dumb idiot! Because that team is the 2022 Giants, who started 12-5 with a run differential of +39, on their way to a stunningly mediocre 81-81 season.
This team has looked bad through its first 17 games. That team looked fantastic. This team is a walking disaster, ready to blow any early lead, no matter how many runs they have to not score over the rest of the game to do it. That team had grit, heart, and/or panache. They were going places.
And then the switch flipped. They went from Healthy Enough to Not Healthy Enough, got mediocre, got worse, and then, in September, were good enough to pull themselves up to mediocre for the year. It wasn’t a great season, but there were moments, and anyway, the important thing is that it’s over now.
I don’t bring this up to make you regret your past life choices in addition to your present ones, but to make the simple point that a season is more than its first 10%. Last year, that was a bad thing, but it doesn’t have to be. Instead of collapsing after a great first 17 games, a team can instead rebound after a bad first 17 games.
We all remember last year’s bullpen, which mostly consisted of Camilo And The Band of Stooges, but check out what they were doing at the beginning of the year:
That team, which was rolling, got stopped. A team that is lost, like for example maybe the 2023 Giants as a theoretical possibility, is perfectly capable of finding itself. The Giants have been bad, but also unlucky. Their Pythagorean record is 2 or 3 games better than their actual record. They’re 0-3 in one-run games. Their bullpen has been unsustainably bad. Remember how bad they were last year? Their ERA and FIP are way worse this year, and their xFIP is the exact same. Most bullpens are still allowing homers on 10-11% of their fly balls, and the Giants are at 19%. These things are bad luck and they won’t continue.
Plus, by comparison with the 2022 team, which started out in good health that faded over the course of the year, the 2023 squad started out in terrible health which is unlikely to last the full season. Austin Slater will come back and hit against lefties. Joc Pederson will come back. Mitch Haniger might well play several games in a Giants uniform. Michael Conforto will eventually heal enough to start again, probably.
There will come a point when the lineup has fewer holes than it does now, especially against left-handers. The Giants will not carry around enormous blinking neon signs saying “Please don’t put a left-handed pitcher in the game!” Every manager in baseball will not be able to just tap his left arm without even checking who’s warming up in the bullpen. That will honestly, truly get better.
Right now the Giants are a game and a half back of the Padres, whose run differential is two runs worse. Even though they’ve been equally bad, no one is giving up on the Padres. You don’t have to give up on the Giants. 17 boring, dispiriting, annoying games are not enough to know that a team is doomed.
Now that I’ve gotten all my optimism out of the way, I guess I should acknowledge that none of this means that the Giants will definitely get good this year. There are too many variables, too many maybes to really trust that everything will definitely turn around.
But my point is this: we’re still really early in the season. We’re too early to give up on it. Other than the 2021 Giants, every Giants team has looked like garbage for a stretch. They all go through it. Some pull out, and some don’t, and we don’t know which of those labels will apply to this team. So let’s watch, enjoy, and root on because it can get better.
It’s entirely plausible.
Undeniably within the realm of possibility.
Totally on the table.
God, I hope they don’t play like shit tonight.
Nice comparison - I didn’t remember last year starting so well. I’m not giving up on this year at this point, but then I only expected a .500 team in 2023 anyway. I’m intrigued to see how Haniger’s presence in the lineup will affect the overall hitting.