The Los Angeles Dodgers held their World Series parade yesterday, and while it’s healthier to ignore what’s going on with other teams, it’s easier said than done as a Giants fan. Despite what some really ignorant and angry people will tell you, the Dodgers winning the last two World Series won’t be the worst thing to happen to Major League Baseball. Not even their payroll or global talent resources will be as ruinous to the sport as many stubborn loudmouths need you to believe. No, the real problem
is that they are unrivaled and have been since Wilmer Flores was called out on a check swing to end the 2021 NLDS.
The San Francisco Giants were their natural rival, but not anymore. Which stinks and is bad for Baseball. But it’s even worse for the Giants. And, as a longtime fan who thinks this was a rivalry on par with Yankees & Red Sox or Coke & Pepsi, it’s beyond a bummer and simply infuriating.
Who is Batman without The Joker? Superman without Lex Luthor? Q without Captain Picard? The Giants were a reasonable check on a superpower, but they got so bad at maintaining their relative strengths that they’re not even to the level of competition the Dodgers walk all over year after year in the postseason.
Buster Posey shoved aside Dodger agent Farhan Zaidi to reclaim the organization and made the big splashes his predecessor couldn’t that finally put the Giants on par with their rival in terms of landing talent. And yet, the final pitch Clayton Kershaw ever threw in the regular season at Dodger Stadium was a strikeout of Rafael Devers, a moment that does a nice job of demonstrating the state of the rivalry, but which is best illustrated by this split:
1890-1939: Giants led, 558-437-15 (.552)
1940-Present: Dodgers lead, 854-732-2 (.538)
It all came to a head this past September:
via Sarah Langs on Bluesky:
The Dodgers now lead the Giants head-to-head all-time in the regular season, 1,288 wins to 1,287 wins (with 19 ties, h/t @EliasSports)
This is the first time the Dodgers lead the Giants all-time head-to-head since after a game on August 8, 1896, when hey led 49-48BASE
BALL
“In living memory” is not something you get to say a lot when it comes to professional sports and when it comes to Major League Baseball, it’s worth added attention. The Giants The Giants had not trailed the Dodgers in their head to head rivalry in living memory. 129 years!
I had been dreading this situation since last season after I looked for evidence to back up my feeling that the Dodgers had been better than the Giants for a long, long time and that the Giants’ three titles in five years masked a larger systemic issue. Since the two teams moved west, the Dodgers have won 346 more games, had 17 more playoff appearances, won 8 more pennants, and 5 more championships. It’s unreasonable to think that these two teams have been evenly matched throughout most of their history. There’s 47 years of recent history that says otherwise and 85 years of that not being the case.
What’s skewing the result here is what happened in the 1960s. The Giants were 108-83 in that decade. They won the tiebreaker in 1962 to knockout the Dodgers. The Marichal-Roseboro brawl happened. The Giants went 35-19 against the Dodgers over the final three years of the decade (1967-1969), too, which is probably why so many of the elder Giants fans who work in media tend to see the two teams as being equals up until very recently. But, the Dodgers also won 2 World Series in the 1960s despite the Giants’ record against them, and since 1970, the Giants have won just 15 season series out of 56 (with 9 ties): 1976, 1983, 1986, 1990, 1991, 1992, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2021 (though, you could argue this was a tie, too, if you factor in the NLDS).
To put it another way, the Dodgers are 517-436 (.543) against the Giants since the 1970s.
Right now, we live in the Dodgers’ reality where they can get anybody they want, design the game around whatever plan they think will work, and generally dominate the sport. That has happened throughout the history of the game, where certain teams have been touched by a divine power and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them. But these have been moments in time.
What is different here – and in the context of what I care about: the Dodgers-Giants rivalry – is that the Dodgers have been a good team for longer than the Giants have. And it is only by pluck, guile, and certainly luck that the Giants have managed to keep it competitive for a decent chunk of the last 60 or so years. It’s remarkable to look at that tiny list of season series wins and note that the Giants didn’t really dominate the Dodgers in the Bonds era, and yet Bonds certainly stuck his thumb in their eyes many times (the home run twirl, the home run record). And yet, for every Brian Johnson homer, Juan Uribe homer, Donny Two Times, or worst home loss in Dodgers history, the Dodgers countered with a 12-1 win on the final game of 1993, Steve Finley’s walk-off grand slam, Juan Uribe being a Dodger, the 2021 NLDS, and a 15-4 season series win in 2022. And these are just a few recent moments in a lengthy rivalry.
Benjamin Franklin, upon exiting the Constitutional Convention that formed the United States, was asked what sort of government he and the delegates had created. He answered, “A republic, if you can keep it.” This is the task at hand for the Giants — they have to want a rivalry and work to maintain one. They coasted on that championship era, rung it totally dry for all the nostalgia points, and in doing so, let this matchup atrophy; meanwhile, the Dodgers aimed all their resources at winning it and did — spectacularly.
I’d argue that the Giants’ success is what motivated the Dodgers to become this juggernaut. LA was in a post-Tommy Lasorda, post-embarrassment of the McCourt era period where they were searching for an identity, grabbing for Joe Torre, adding Manny Ramirez — they were playing to the Hollywood notion of team building. Eventually, they landed on simply being great in every facet of the game.
Andrew Friedman became the Dodgers’ President of Baseball Operations to start the 2015 season and since that time he has experienced just two hiccups against the Giants: in 2016, when the Giants beat the Dodgers to secure the final Wild Card spot, and in 2021, when Mike Tauchman robbed Albert Pujols of a game-winning home run. The Dodgers have spent $2.6 billion on their roster during his tenure, and have made the postseason all 11 seasons, winning 3 championships and leading the sport in wins, 1,036-645 (.616).
The Giants’ $1.8 billion outlay over this same period brought back a record of 842-838, with four different managers, three lead execs, and just two postseason appearances to go with the worst September in franchise history, the worst homestand in franchise history, and the only two 81-81 seasons in franchise history.
The small humiliations have only continued. Not only did the Zaidi hiring/firing feel like a sabotage — which, to be clear, wasn’t, it only feels like it was — the Giants’ self-sabotage bit them in the butt in this year’s postseason:
You know, it might be worth keeping a guy to keep him from a rival — if you’re serious about being good and a rivalry!
And then there’s this chart, which bothers me because if there’s one thing bloggers like me have been droning on and on about to a fault, it’s that the Giants need to vastly improve on drafting and development if they’re going to have any shot at being a good team again. The Dodgers have sort of spent there way beyond what is a basic truth for every other team:
If you don’t want to click that link to X to open the full post, (1) I don’t blame you and (2) here it is:
@fuzzyfromyt Fangraphs made a “homegrown”leaderboard, and the Dodgers are technically the most homegrown of any team left in the playoffs ::two cry-laughing emoji::
That’s 9 homegrown Giants to the Dodgers’ 8 and well, frankly, I don’t care for this.
The Dodgers won the rivalry because they set out to become the best baseball team. The Giants have been trying to manage to the margins and be good in a way that helps them finance Mission Rock. The Dodgers’ success and intention has increased their revenue resources — they’ve basically swallowed the Japanese market. The Giants shoved out the A’s thinking that capturing an entire region might work out about the same, revenue-wise.
Without commenting on the particulars of their small thinking and limited imagination or ranting about it, the Dodgers have simply set the standard for what it will take to be a good baseball team in the 21st century. The Giants will never be as smart as or as well-financed as the Dodgers — and if Andrew Friedman had the Giants resources, he would not be as successful as he’s been — but in order to improve I think they’ve got to shift their focus towards beating the Dodgers. That one idea could raise the entire organization.
This rivalry was special, and special is very hard to come by in professional sports. At the end of the day, it’s entertainment, but sports are an outlet for our aggressions, our conceits, our prejudices. Am I a better person than a Dodgers fan? Probably. I don’t root for the Dodgers. You know, thinking like that. Totally unhealthy in every context outside of a Giants-Dodgers game (and one that has led to violence and tragedy). But it’s also special in the competitive sense of getting the best of a better or an equal. It’s just that the Dodgers have been so much better that it’s now a joke to say that the Giants are a baseball team, too. The best Giant would be the 27th-best player on the Dodgers and the Giants couldn’t afford any Dodger or develop any of their players into what they are for LA. Andrew Friedman would retire from baseball if he woke up tomorrow in charge of the Giants.
This series has to get back to special; but, in order to do that, it needs to be an intention.
Does that mean I want to expend my blogging capital to compel Tony Vitello to make the Dodgers the team’s villain in the clubhouse? Not necessarily. The priority should be on improving the team overall. What I do think is important is to shrug off how the Dodgers are not only 100 million times better than the Giants, but that they won the rivalry once and for all — not because that’s all hyperbole (it’s the stone cold truth), but because now that it’s over, the next thing or era or phase can begin. The Dodgers are designed to annihilate the Giants, and when they don’t, that’s a win. The Giants have made themselves to be sitting targets, ripe for annihilation. Let’s expect Tony Vitello to give the next generation of Giants a little more gumption in this lost cause of a rivalry.
It’s the only option now.
