The 2024 MLB season has been a disappointing for the Giants, to say the least.
San Francisco spent big in the offseason, signing stars like left-handed pitcher Blake Snell, third baseman Matt Chapman, center fielder Jung Hoo Lee and designated hitter Jorge Soler while acquiring former Cy Young Award winner Robbie Ray in a trade with the Seattle Mariners.
The Giants' roster overhaul put them in position to make a playoff run this season, but the success they envisioned never materialized. With San Francisco now 8.5 games out from the third and final NL Wild Card spot with 15 games to play entering Friday's slate of games, it's all but certain the 2024 season will go down as another failure for president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and the front office.
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Zaidi joined KNBR 680's "Tolbert & Copes" on Thursday night and shared with Adam Copeland and guest host Ray Ratto the lessons he learned from the Giants' underwhelming season.
"I think there's a couple things that stand out to me," Zaidi said. "One is, there are a handful of teams in our position that have playoff aspirations that were maybe projected to make the playoffs that have kind of not reached that standard, kind of around .500, around the periphery of the race.
"The story a lot of the times is the same, it's a combination of injuries and underperformance and places you were hoping you'd have production from you didn't quite get it from. I think the thing we've got to ask ourselves as we build out this team is do we need more veteran depth?"
Zaidi explains that while the Giants are eager to give opportunities to young players any chance they can, they might have been too over-reliant on young players throughout the season where proven, veteran depth might have better helped the team stay afloat during rocky stretches.
San Francisco Giants
"Because one of the things we like to do is, when we have injuries, call up young players, give them a chance and really some of our successes this year in terms of [Heliot] Ramos and [Tyler] Fitzgerald were opportunities created by injuries and spots on the roster where we had openings," Zaidi adds. "Those guys have taken those opportunities and run with them.
"But there are other cases, particularly on the pitching side earlier in the year where we went with younger options and really struggled. So did we go into this year with enough high-floor-type depth that can get you through rashes of injuries without being overly reliant on young players picking up the slack? I think that's, when we look back at where we got some overperformance, some underperformance and some injuries, the question of whether we had depth to kind of fill in and keep things going."
The Giants, on paper, had the talent to make a playoff run but it never came together at the right time -- or consistently enough -- for San Francisco to firmly plant its flag as a legitimate playoff contender. And now they are on the outside looking in as the season winds down.
"When we look at the season, we never really got on that roll where everything was firing on all cylinders," Zaidi concludes. "Even at the trade deadline, we talked about how we needed to get on a run somewhere. We had a couple hints of it, but it never really happened for us. So I think that's going to be the question, just having a deep enough roster to get through the season, making sure we're breaking in young players but also go to veterans when we think that's the right move."
It remains to be seen where the Giants go from here and if Zaidi will remain with the team past this season as calls for a change in leadership only have intensified, but if he does remain with the organization, he certainly will be busy this winter attempting to construct a roster that better positions the team for success in 2025.
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