If you’re a dumb idiot like me who thinks the San Francisco Giants having one of their worst seasons ever is a bad thing, then I have just the post to help you really stick it to whiners like me. The Giants aren’t bad. The process wasn’t flawed. The learning curves for Buster Posey, Zack Minasian, or Tony Vitello and his coaching staff were small, if they even existed. There’s a simple, irrefutable fact: the Giants just had so many injuries this season.
That’s it. That’s the epitaph.
When we get into
the offseason and see sites and platforms trash the Giants for what happened to them in 2026 and project their future records negatively as result, the real ball knowers will be able to point and laugh at them for ignoring the most obvious thing in the world. The Giants had more injuries than any team could stand and that’s why they performed below projections and below their franchise norms.
And that won’t be the case in 2027, snooty internet writer, because
Buster Posey has no doubt been meeting with the ownership group all season and will again before they lockout the players this winter, and when they ask him what went wrong — and maybe even before that when he gives a defensive and probably vacuous end of the season presser — he’ll be able to say “Bruh, check out that IL. No team can survive that.” Buster is the biggest believer that the team has gotten better throughout the season —
“I know it is easy to look at the record and say good things aren’t happening,” Posey said. “But our guys are working hard every day, and that’s a reflection on Tony and his work ethic. The effort is there, and that is important. There is improvement.”
So, I should think it’s no problem and far from unfair to predict what he’ll say very soon. And, guess what, he’d be right! At least, for the ball knowers. For the geeks, freaks, and losers like me, we’ll be stuck on results. I won’t be able to come to grips with the team’s first-ever 5-year stretch of no winning seasons. Or the decade of futility (sorry, 2021 — though, that team did lose to the Dodgers in the playoffs). But I should, because that’s what good and smart fans and media people and the team itself will do. They will point to the record and say, Minasianly, “Yeah, but there were so many injuries. That’s probably a 90-win team if it’d stayed healthy.”
Matt Chapman’sfrustrating and brief season? Injury. Willy Adames in his flop era? Nah. He got hurt. Jung Hoo Lee being an average-at-best hitter and below average defender? Uhh… injury, maybe? Logan Webb? Not cooked! Just injured! Rafael Devers’ ugly and then beautiful season? Injury.
A quick note on Devers since I definitely look silly having written what I wrote back in June — he almost immediately turned around his season after I hit PUBLISH. I’ll wear the thesis, but the underlying stuff still holds up: 46th percentile bat speed, 46th percentile chase rate, 25th percentile Whiff rate, 23rd percentile K% — but he did up his zone contact rate (77.7%) and as someone who does damage when making contact, this noticeable uptick (+3.8%) surely made most of the difference — chalk that up to him not liking little dorks like me writing negatively about him or maybe it was simply getting comfortable once and for all on a team that likes and wants him on it. But then he got hurt — or… he was hurt all season. In any case, Buster won the trade, the Giants will be great next year because Devers was great this year, and if the rest of the team had stayed healthy all year — and Devers — we’d be looking ahead to the playoffs in a couple of weeks.
Right?
There’s still the matter of the pitching staff. Tyler Mahle was hurt, but then he got better, and then really good once he was traded away. Is that a sign that Atlanta is better or evidence that Mahle is less hurt? Since we have to defend Buster Posey as the face of the franchise, it’s certainly the latter. Remember, the Giants fixed Adrian Houser in-season… and then he got hurt.
Injury explains everything. The projected bullpen that the other Brian Murphy of KNBR criticized Buster for earlier in the season was hurt by all of those injuries. That’s the only explanation. Keaton Winn is an ace reliever if he doesn’t get hurt. Now, should his injury history have been taken into consideration when projecting his season? I would say yes under any other circumstance, but maybe I’m not giving Buster Posey & co. a fair shake. The tidal wave of Matt Gage, Sam Hentges, JT Brubaker, Joel Peguero, Jose Butto, Trevor McDonald and Carson Whisenhunt disrupted the team’s plans and shook up the bullpen roles before they could settle.
The Giants have not been able to really get on a roll because of all the injuries, and as Tony Vitello surmised this week, the belief that this team could really be something didn’t take hold in the clubhouse this season. From his Q&A with Andrew Baggarly:
Did the team’s rough start keep you from being the kind of person you want to be in this job?
I think a little bit. I think it’s been easier for me to be myself the deeper the season’s gotten. I assume people predicted (the Giants would be a) contender on paper; we added some guys, it’s Rafi’s (Rafael Devers) first full year, new vibe, and spring training was so good. I think everyone deep down felt we’re gonna take the world by storm, and when we didn’t right out of the chute, it put everybody on their heels, and I’d be guilty of that too. So that ultimately, I think, answers the question.
You know what doesn’t help people get off their heels over the course of a long season? Injuries!
Now, I don’t really like this excuse or explanation, but I think it’s the one that will find purchase. There’s data to back it up. It’ll be one of the rare times when data is used by the non-data crowd, sure, but I can’t refute that the Giants have had a lot of injuries and basically all of their key players have been hurt for huge chunks of the season. There are still people who are — rightfully — burned by the non-injury stuff the Giants have presented to fans this season and that isn’t going away, but for the crowd who insists that “real life” not intrude on their “escape,” INJURIES can be the battle cry.
Look, I’m doing this because if I seem to be running interference or making excuses for Buster Posey, then maybe fewer people will think it’s a good idea this offseason. That’s right. I’m tainting this take. To the takes-havers out there… you don’t want to sound like Bryan Murphy from McCovey Chronicles, do you?
Think about it. Buster Posey doesn’t have to answer any tough questions because he has an easy answer. Every question involving specificity can be returned with a “That’s definitely something we would’ve liked to have seen during the course of the season if we’d managed to stay healthier.” And, look, leading the fan base’s disappointment into a cul-de-sac of player health is just smart management. Now, Buster gets to shift things to Dave Groeschner and his staff. They get to talk about looking into things to see if they can figure out to what led to so many players having these big injuries. But also, they have a couple of carry overs to help explain away the 17 players on the 60-day IL.
- They signed Rowan Wick knowing this would be a rehab year.
- Randy Rodriguez is a young arm and that happened last season.
And then where some of the blame can be shifted onto the players.
- Harrison Bader isn’t on the 60-day IL for any other reason than his own behavior.
- Was Matt Chapman totally open about his pain from the very beginning or is he like most gamers and simply wants to play and will obfuscate to keep playing?
- Maybe some of the guys — Houser, Whisenhunt, Gage — were trying to do more than they had to in order to stay on the radar.
I’m not saying this is what will happen, only that the “The injuries explain everything” gives the team a nice big space to vent some of the heat they could face once the 2026 season’s death rattle concludes. Buster Posey and Zack Minasian didn’t have a bad season. After all, they finally fixed the offense. If you take out April, August, and September, their team wRC+ of 107 was 7th-best in the sport. They scored nearly as many runs as the Phillies and more than the Yankees!
A season lost to injury gets to avoid the label of “bad” or “failure,” because injuries are beyond a team’s control and even the most conservative projections — ah, forget it. Simpsons reference:
Well, Buster Posey had nine misfortunes, so this season is a mulligan! Just bad luck. Buster wins again!
