With the Giants announcing deals for Alex Wood, Alex Cobb and Anthony DeSclafani, the starting rotation is starting to come together for next season. Farhan Zaidi explains the approach they’re taking on signing pitchers.
Farhan Zaidi hears the narrative out there about the Giants.
Despite San Francisco winning a franchise-record 107 games and the NL West crown last season, some pundits claim the Giants’ surprising success was unsustainable and won’t continue into 2022, according to San Francisco's president of baseball operations.
In an interview on MLB Network with Chris Russo on Friday, Zaidi said that in order for the Giants to maintain their success, it “comes down to belief.”
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“We hear the rhetoric out there, the narrative about the 2021 Giants that it’s unsustainable, that there’s regression, that guys aren’t going to be able to back it up this year,” Zaidi said. “Look, 107 wins is tough to back up.”
But Zaidi stressed that the Giants believe in players like Darin Ruf and LaMonte Wade Jr., who came out of nowhere last season to become major contributors to a playoff team.
Despite the season ending with a tough Game 5 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLDS, Zaidi believes Ruf, Wade and others can continue to perform at the standard they set for themselves in 2021.
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If there are whispers that the Giants are a fluke, Zaidi is having none of it.
“We saw them day-in, day-out,” Zaidi said. “And they have every opportunity to back it up and show it was for real, and we believe it was. So we understand the narrative and the talk out there and we’re really excited for these guys to have the opportunity to back up what they did last year and we really believe in them.”
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