As the Giants won their franchise-record Shitload Of Games in 2021, the baseball world was baffled. How are they doing it? What’s their secret?
Well, some intrepid baseball fans figured it out:
Even as this year started, it kept going:
Some of that was a joke, yes, but some of it was also an earnest expression of this idea: I have no idea how the hell these guys are doing it. The Giants? The San Francisco Giants? Them? Are they funny?
It wasn’t fair that the Giants were getting incredible performances from players who weren’t that good. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t how baseball worked.
There had to be some explanation for it. Giants fans settled on “Farhan Zaidi is a genius and everything he touches turns to gold.” This year has, uh, put a small dent in that theory. Everyone else went with “The Giants found a way to cheat that nobody else found and it made them unbeatable,” which has only aged better if you think they forgot where they built the lab.
But all this obscures the central point: it’s not the natural order of things to see Darin Ruf and LaMonte Wade Jr hit huge homer after huge homer. It’s not fair that the Giants found the secret to maximizing what their guys can do. And it’s not right that they can just conjure productive players out of nothing.
But it’s fine that the Dodgers can.
Yes, the Dodgers have deep pockets and a great farm system and were able to trade for Mookie Betts and sign Freddie Freeman, and that’s great1 for them. But they also have the original cheating lab, the better cheating lab, the accept-no-substitutes GOAT of cheating labs.
You know all the greatest hits here, but let’s go through some anyway. Chris Taylor had a perfectly respectable 151 PAs with the Mariners in 2014, then an astoundingly terrible 102 PAs with them in 2015, then got traded to the Dodgers and was worth 8.4 wins between 2017 and 2018. Justin Turner was mediocre with the Mets, but as soon as he went to LA, he became a star who perennially got downballot MVP votes. Max Muncy was barely above average with the A’s in AAA, but when he put on a Dodgers uniform, he became a hitting machine. Even David Price, who is on the Dodgers solely because the Red Sox wanted to dump his and Betts’s salaries (Classic Red Sox! They should be contracted), has a 2.58 ERA out of the bullpen this year.
All that pales in comparison to what they’ve done this year, though. Yes, the 2022 Dodgers feature star after star after star, both in their lineup and rotation. So it’s not like they need more, right? They wouldn’t just happen to have taken a bunch more guys who’ve had underwhelming careers and just whelmed the hell out of them, would they?
Oh, friends, you understand the point of my rhetorical questions, so you know the answer is yes.
Trayce Thompson’s first go-round with the Dodgers wasn’t anything special. He hit .225/.302/.436 in 262 PAs in 2016, then just .122/.2018/.265 in 55 PAs in 2017. He bounced around the league after that, not impressing anyone, even in AAA, until he got to the Cubs last year, who saw him do well in Iowa and then rock a 1.114 OPS in 35 big league PAs and said, “Nah, we don’t need him.” He went to the Padres, where he was excellent in the minors but had 16 bad PAs in the majors, went to the Tigers, where he again raked in AAA, and then the Dodgers traded cash for him.
In 152 plate appearances with the Dodgers this year, Trayce Thompson is hitting .301/.388/.564. Baseball-Reference has him as the 9th best player on the team, which doesn’t sound that impressive, except it’s a team full of superstars and Thompson has only been there since late June. They don’t need more great hitters. They are already way, way over their allotment. Someone in Procurement is really fucking this up.
Evan Phillips came to the Dodgers with a career Major League ERA of 7.26 over 57 innings of relief. In August 2021, he got released by the Orioles, picked up by the Rays, put on waivers by the Rays, and then picked up by the Dodgers. He was just another bad pitcher who couldn’t figure it out.
Then the Dodgers used their cheating lab, which they have, to make him better. He was effective for them down the stretch, with a 3.48 ERA in 10.1 innings. This year, he has a 1.22 ERA over 51.2 innings. Evan Phillips simply had to come to the Dodgers to become, by any measurement, one of the 10 best relievers in the game.
Andrew Heaney has spent most of his career being nothing special. He spent 7 years with the Angels, throwing 569.1 innings of 95 ERA+ ball. He was basically a league average starter when he could stay healthy, which wasn’t very often. He went to the Yankees near the end of the season last year and pretty much shit the bed, seemingly indicating that there was no way he would have a 2.12 ERA over his first 10 starts of 2022.
Folks, you will never guys what Andrew Heaney’s ERA is over his first 10 starts of 2022.
Heaney has an eye popping strikeout rate of 13.5 per 9 innings. His walks are as low as they’ve been in any full season. He’s been spectacular as the team’s eighth or ninth option in the rotation. He is the reason
Tyler Anderson! We remember Tyler Anderson from the Giants, right? We don’t? That’s understandable, because there wasn’t much to remember. Anderson pitched for the Giants in 2020, posting a 4.37 ERA in the shortened season and earning himself a non-tender after the year was done. This was an uncontroversial move. He didn’t show anything. You move on.
The move remained uncontroversial in 2021, when, between the Pirates and Mariners, Anderson threw 167 innings with a 4.53 ERA. Sure, he was left-handed, but those numbers are a dime a dozen. Nothing special there.
This year, in 24 games (22 starts), Tyler Anderson has a 2.69 ERA in 140.2 innings and he was a fucking All-Star.
Is there any better symbol of who’s got the real cheating lab? The Giants tried their shit with Tyler Anderson, and, like the rest of the league’s shit, it didn’t work. The Dodgers tried their shit, and it couldn’t possibly have worked better. The Dodgers have magic or chemistry or biomechanics on their side. They have cracked the code.
Last year, because nobody saw the Giants coming, everybody was shocked at how they got players to overperform. This year, because everybody saw the Dodgers coming, nobody is shocked at how they’re getting players to overperform. Yes, they’ve been doing it for years, but it shouldn’t be this easy. The 2022 Giants have proven that it’s not this easy.
For the Dodgers, it is. And worse, everyone takes it for granted now. When the Giants get career years from journeymen, it’s a crime against baseball. When the Dodgers do, it’s Tuesday.
When you look at Thompson, Phillips, Heaney, and Anderson, you see more than a good name for a law firm. You see the living embodiment of a franchise that seems so far ahead of everyone else that they’re uncatchable. But they can’t be that much better, right? They can’t just take anyone and immediately make them good, can they?
NO. NO THEY CAN’T HAVE MORE. THE LINE MUST BE DRAWN HERE. THIS FAR, NO FARTHER.
…This will never end, will it?
At least they couldn’t fix Reyes Moronta.
Not great
Excellent closing line!
Came for the Giants content, stayed for the Star Trek: First Contact references