I spent the week going over what I felt were the five most important stories of the season. On Monday, I wrote about the pitching and all of the ways that part of the team foiled it. On Tuesday, I tied Bryce Eldridge’s outstanding age-21 season to the team’s overall player development success. Wednesday was all about praising Rafael Devers for sticking it to his haters. Thursday was about saying goodbye to Mike Krukow. And yesterday, I declared that Buster Posey had tainted his legacy with his handling
of the anti-Pride Night protest. Here are some others I considered spotlighting this past week.
Tony Vitello
Yes, it was a big deal how much the Giants spent on the manager’s position and the guy they went with to follow in the footsteps of Bruce Bochy, Gabe Kapler, and Bob Melvin. It was a big gamble with a lot of obvious downside and that’s where the play wound up going. It is possible that his “rookie” status caused a lot of the problems he and the team experienced. This is why it didn’t grab Top 5 status for me: we might still be in the prologue. He did not make a positive impression, that much is clear. If it had worked out as intended (the Giants make the playoffs), I might’ve also folded it into the Buster Posey aspect of this season.
The hitting group
For a minute there, the offense was pretty good. You can see the Giants trying to become this year’s Brewers or last year’s Blue Jays. But the injury pileup really does make it difficult to attempt a clean analysis.
But, obviously, Casey Schmitt broke out. Drew Gilbert showed why he has been a prospect able to stay in a team’s plans. Bryce Eldridge stepped into a version of the guy he’s projected to be. Victor Bericoto seems like he might be something — at worst, an immediate replacement for Heliot Ramos. Daniel Susac might be a perfectly fine replacement for Patrick Bailey specifically because of how well his bat plays.
Logan Webb’s partial decline
I’ve said it too many times recently, but it really does seem like Logan Webb has hit the 1,000 MLB innings wall. This is the point when the injuries begin to pileup. Or, he could start to separate himself from his peers and continue pitching on a Hall of Fame-esque track. He wound up having a pretty good season despite the knee injury that caused him to miss around 6 starts and despite the frequency with which he was shelled. From 2023-2025, he was a 4.5-5 fWAR pitcher. This year, his 3.1 fWAR in 27 starts had him on track to being around 3.8 fWAR… or a 4-WAR pitcher. That’s a step down anyway you want to look at it, but there’s always the chance that he does not go the way of Lincecum, Bumgarner and Cain, who all fizzled out at this point in their careers.
The trades
Along the same line as the farm system, I thought it was worth looking at the trades the team has made the past two years which have worked out in this narrow window of around 12 months. Their deadline pickups from this season have also offered flashes of quality that stokes similar hope for the future as the draft component of player development has done. In other words, Anthony Molina looks like a useful major leaguer already. The Giants were able to turn Patrick Bailey into Matt Wilkinson and Carson Bolemon. Henry Lalane, Miguel Mendez, Ramon Marquez, Kaeden Kent, and Marcelo Mayer? All very solid pickups.
Attendance
We heard about attendance for a good chunk of the season as it looked like the franchise was on course to break last year’s mark (2,925,823), but the team’s poor performance likely contributed to the team coming up short (2,856,810). Anecdata-wise, it sure did seem like most nights featured a loud contingent of fans for the visiting team; and, of course, Oracle Park is basically Dodger Stadium North now that the rivalry is dead.
But the team was strutting and the beat writers were dutifully pointing that out wile the team was being picked apart for being so bad. It especially came up when the topic of trading Jung Hoo Lee appeared in conversation, the implication being that the attendance totals are being bolstered by tourists there to see the Grandson of the Wind. But it seems like hanging an attendance figure on a platoon outfielder who can only flirt with being league average is probably not the way to go in the future.
The franchise’s valuation
The San Diego Padres were sold for $3.9 billion and the Los Angeles Angeles sold for $4 billion, but both of those transactions occurred at least a quarter after the Giants had announced an influx of capital thanks to two new investors: private equity firm Thrive and St. Louis Business leader Richard Chaifetz. There’s no official valuation of the Giants floating around out there. Forbes does an estimate each season and had the Giants at $4.05 billion for 2026, but the investors will have had their own figure when buying in. Also, a valuation doesn’t necessarily equal a sale price.
This isn’t to suggest that the Giants are on the verge of being sold, but as team valuations to continue to skyrocket and leadership’s land holdings expand it’s probably worth a thought exercise about a potential sale at some point. But from a story of 2026 standpoint, it’s a simple fact that this money helped the Giants cover a slightly expanded payroll and the other financial commitments the team had made (paying Bob Melvin’s contract and Tony Vitello’s buyout among the line items). The Giants have a large ownership group now.
I didn’t go with any of these for a single story mainly because of the strong injury component of the season — yes, I did consider the injuries as a single story, but I didn’t want to help build a narrative that they were a meaningful part of the season’s overall failure (at the major league level). Plus, I feel like these were all more like the first act of bigger stories that will be expanded upon in 2027 (whenever that season gets underway).
But, what do you think? Were any of these a bigger deal than one (or all) of the five offered over the course of the week? What might you have included in the 5 or on this quasi-Honorable Mention list?
