2023 MLB Season Review: San Francisco Giants
Check out my 2023 Season Preview Article for the Giants here.
Image: Jeff Chiu – Associated Press
2023 Record: 79-83 (.488 win%, 4th in Division)
2023 Payroll: 127,398,165 (13th)
2023 Lineup:
1. 1B Lamonte Wade Jr., .253 AVG/.373 OBP/.417 SLG, 2.1 fWAR
2. 2B Thairo Estrada, .271 AVG/.315 OBP/.416 SLG, 3.9 fWAR
3. 3B JD Davis, .248 AVG/.325 OBP/.413 SLG, 2.2 fWAR
4. DH Joc Pederson, .235 AVG/.328 OBP/.416 SLG, 0.6 fWAR
5. LF Mitch Haniger, .209 AVG/.266 OBP/.365 SLG, -0.2 fWAR
6. RF Michael Conforto, .239 AVG/.334 OBP/.384 SLG, 1.1 fWAR
7. CF Mike Yastrzemski, .233 AVG/.330 OBP/.445 SLG, 1.8 fWAR
8. C Patrick Bailey, .233 AVG/.258 OBP/.359 SLG, 2.8 fWAR
9. SS Brandon Crawford, .194 AVG/.273 OBP/.314 SLG, 0.4 fWAR
10. Wilmer Flores, .284 AVG/.355 OBP/.509 SLG, 2.5 fWAR
2023 Rotation:
1. Logan Webb, 216.0 IP/3.25 ERA/1.07 WHIP, 4.9 fWAR
2. Alex Cobb, 151.1 IP/3.87 ERA/1.32 WHIP, 1.8 fWAR
3. Sean Manaea, 117.2 IP/4.44 ERA/1.24 WHIP, 1.1 fWAR
4. Anthony DeSclafani, 99.2 IP/4.88 ERA/1.25 WHIP, 1.0 fWAR
5. Alex Wood, 97.2 IP/4.33 ERA/1.43 WHIP, 0.2 fWAR
2023 Top 4 Relievers:
1. Camilo Doval, 67.2 IP/2.93 ERA/1.14 WHIP, 1.9 fWAR
2. Tyler Rogers, 74.0 IP/3.04 ERA/1.15 WHIP, 0.6 fWAR
3. Taylor Rogers, 51.2 IP/3.83 ERA/1.24 WHIP, 0.2 fWAR
4. Ryan Walker, 61.1 IP/3.23 ERA/1.39 WHIP, 0.6 fWAR
Regular Season Recap:
Bay Area sports teams have made a habit of ambitious two-timeline schemes over the past five years. The Warriors drafted young, raw and inexperienced James Wiseman to pair with their championship core. That didn’t work out. The 49ers traded up at great cost to draft Trey Lance, a similarly young and inexperienced QB talent. That didn’t work out. And the Giants have ostensibly kept competing each year, while the organizational ethos remains mostly focused on player development and future flexibility. Has that worked out?
This year proved to be the starkest frustration of that weird middle ground. With significant money spent in the offseason, expectations of a non-overwhelming, but still solid team that could compete for a wild card spot, with the potential for exciting young talent to make some cameos seemed reasonable. Looking at the season from a macro perspective, the Giants met those expectations, competing for a wild card spot late into September and debuting 12 rookies.
But somehow it still became the most infuriating Giants season in recent memory. As The Athletic’s Grant Brisbee put it, “Giants fans should be mad. But why are they absolutely livid?”
There were the usual frustrations and questioning of in-game decisions, player acquisition (or lack thereof), questionable treatment of rookies versus prioritization of a waiver wire pickup. Each season has grievances like these.
The profound anger instead stems from the organization’s, and specifically now fired manager Gabe Kapler’s failure to rationalize these decisions as anything more than an analytical outcome. Kapler’s very robotic, often formulaic feeling press appearances did little to dispel the myth that the Giants only care about analytics. In fact, he furnished that myth.
I believe in the ownership group and front office’s inherent baseball appreciation. I don’t think they’re a purely emotionless group. And I believe in Gabe Kapler’s love for baseball, and I don’t think he’s an unfeeling robot.
But in the end, he came across as just that. And that is why a seemingly reasonable season from the macro perspective was so frustrating day to day.
Outside of the feelings, there is lots to glean from actual results:
Patrick Bailey firmly announced himself as the Giants unquestioned starting catcher for years to come. Jeff Passan dubbed him “already the best defensive player in baseball,” he set Statcast pop time records, and drew comparisons to Buster Posey in his poise and presence behind the plate. And, he can hit a little too! The switch hitting Bailey mashed from the right towards an .829 OPS, but struggled on the left. A combined OPS over .900 in May and June and an encouraging 10.0% barrel rate suggest that his sagging final numbers can be improved upon next year.
Lamonte Wade Jr. combined fantastic bat and plate control with average contact metrics to put in a solid season atop of the Giants lineup. A low .252 XWOBA against offspeed and .100 OPS swing between platoon splits stands out, but his vaulty 14.6% walk rate and solid 9.1% barrel rate suggest solid, above average offensive seasons can continue to be expected.
Thairo Estrada continues to be an everyday presence on the Giants infield, something rare to come by in recent years. Measly metrics, a lowly 85.9 MPH average exit velocity and putrid 4.2% walk rate among them, question his hitting value, but the 2023 Willie Mac Award winner consistently outperforms those indicators, while bringing elite defense at 2B and leading the Giants with 23 stolen bases. That consistent performance, along with his growing soft-spoken leadership in a rudderless clubhouse should ensure his presence at Oracle Park for the coming years.
JD Davis improved on previously poor defensive performance at 3B, but struggled to keep up his high percentile batted ball metrics over the year, slumping to a .649 second half OPS. He successfully lowered his strikeouts below 30% but still couldn’t quite convince anyone that he is the true everyday impact player he performs like for stretches at a time. That pattern characterizes his career to this point; his standout 2019 with the Mets built up excitement, but a couple up and down seasons led the Mets to eventually ship him to San Francisco for the quick to be DFAed Darin Ruf. He’s in a similar position now. After roughly 200 games with the Giants, we still don’t know if he can be a true fixture in the franchise, or just another year to year cog in the system. Given the pessimism surrounding the 2023 Giants, the latter feels more likely.
Following an offseason of dismissive treatment from Giants brass surrounding the Carlos Correa drama, a limp on field performance firmly colored Brandon Crawford’s likely last year as a Giant a disappointing hue. A midseason pinch hitting of the irrelevant Mark Mathias for Crawford against Aroldis Chapman in a close, late inning situation crystalized the frustrations of this year. The sagging swan song of the Giants 7th all time leader in career games marks the the final reaches of the early 2010’s championship run.
In another year of an ever changing outfield committee, Michael Conforto manned the green most consistently. Though far from the middle of the order force he once was, Conforto brings reasonable all around value. His overall stats rely a little too much on shielding from lefty pitchers, but he mostly exists just being decent at everything, a little slower, a little less rangy, and a little less powerful than he used to be. On some teams, he could be a valuable role player, ceding the spotlight to attention seeking stars. But on the Giants he’s just another fairly bland turn in the transaction wheel, capturing no one’s heart for a year or two before drifting off somewhere else.
Mitch Haniger disappointed in his homecoming season, limping to a 73 OPS+ in just 63 games. Strong average exit velocity and hard hit rates, both higher than his All-star 2018, suggest there’s still something left in the tank, but there are few silver linings to draw from a putrid .266 OBP. A full season could help Haniger see the ball better and break out of his 2023 slump, but a long injury history (and two different soft tissue injuries this year) suggest that full season might not be all that likely.
Mike Yastrzemski played the best of any Giants outfielder, albeit in only 106 games. He kept roughly similar metrics to his last two years with the Giants, added the benefit of banned shifts to his above average pull tendencies, and raised his walk rate all towards his best offensive season since an 8th place MVP showing in 2020. A dreadful .126 wOBA against sliders stands out as a glaring hole, and he too relied on platoon opportunities, sagging to just a .592 OPS against lefties, but he remains a valuable player, combining reliable hitting with above average outfield defense. As the Giants strive to get younger and more athletic, Yaz might struggle to keep his spot.
Therein lies the problem of the Giants; there are plenty of solid but not clear everyday players, like Yasztremski, and lots of exciting but still unknown young guys. With everyone roughly on the same level, no star veterans and no unquestioned rookies, picking who stays vs. who goes, who plays vs who sits feels a bit like choosing between a left and right Twix.
Joc Pederson is another one of those players. He consistently hits the ball hard and draws a solid 13.4 BB%, but remains a miserable defensive outfielder, has lost most of the speed of his earlier years, and relies heavily on platoons. If the front office commits at all to their creed of becoming more athletic (they said that last year too to no effect), then Joc should be an easy first to go.
Elsewhere in the outfield, Luis Matos shot to the majors after OPSing just .619 last year in A+ ball. The scouting report then was that Matos was as talented as anyone in baseball, but was not quite strong enough and hitting a lot of harmless fly balls. Well, after flying through AA and AAA in a couple months, Matos reached the majors and mostly fit that scouting report. He had a lot of impressive at bats, with rarely anything to show for it. A 13.0 K% and 7.9 BB% is no small feat for a 21 year old rookie, but he just couldn’t hit the ball all that hard. Giants brass showed him a lot of trust this season, and his potential remains sky high as he fills out his body.
Gliding above this quagmire of role playing cogs, the Giants unassuming offensive star of 2023 sits. He doesn’t hit the ball very hard, nor present as an imposing player, but Wilmer Flores gets results. Great bathead control, a 15.8 Whiff% among the lowest in the league, keeps his strikeouts to just 13.9%, and allows his skyscraping 22 degree average launch angle, 10 degrees above league average, to bely his stunningly low 86.4 average exit velocity. 2023 was the best offensive season of his career, and though it amounted to just 2.5 fWAR, he was the only bat keeping the Giants going through the summer. In absence of any true offensive force, Wilmer was a godsend. And, he has a personality! What a rarity!
The nature of the Giants committee heavy approach creates roles for many players. As such, there are important players I left out of the paragraphs above.
On to the pitching staff:
In my season preview, I wrote that “Cemented as the best pitcher on the Giants, it’s now Logan Webb’s job to cement himself as one the best pitchers in baseball.” He did just that. Webb rode the third lowest BB% and highest ground ball rate in all of baseball to an MLB leading 216 innings of 3.25 ERA ball. Central to that production lies his ultra valuable changeup, good for the second highest run value in baseball. In throwing that changeup 41.6% of the time, he doesn’t build up huge whiff or strikeout numbers, and gives up some hard contact, but keeps the ball on the ground so effectively that neither of those matter.
Alex Cobb finds success in a very similar way to Webb. He consistently throws strikes with his sinker-split combo, getting loads of ground balls and keeping his walk rate to just 5.7%. But also similar to Webb are the hard contact ramifications of a heavy strike throwing approach. Cobb has a curveball that acts as a putaway pitch, getting whiffs at a nice 32%, but it also gives up hard contact at a bloated 51.2%, the highest of any of his pitches. If he can mitigate some of that damage enough to use the curve more often, he could transition from good to great.
Taylor Rogers mowed through lefties with his power sweeper-sinker arsenal, but struggled with righties. He remains a fine piece in a bullpen, but was not trusted with enough high leverage opportunities to currently justify the $33 million the Giants invested in him.
On the other hand, Tyler Rogers turned in another outstanding season. Any batted ball metric will show the submariner’s elite ability to prevent hard contact through below the hitting speed velocity, and a unique rising slider tunneling with a diving sinker. With two more arbitration years, he’ll continue to be crucial to the Giants armbarn.
With the ability to both sink and cut fastballs to complement his wipeout slider, Camilo Doval dominated hitters this year. A cutter averaging 100 MPH, an improved walk rate, and an ultra calm demeanor helped Doval save 39 games on the way to his first All Star game. With his repertoire, he should be back for more.
Between those two good starters and a solid back end of the bullpen, innings were taken by an ever changing mix of relievers, starters, relievers starting and starters relieving. I’ll give a brief summary of all those.
Despite a dreadful first couple months that got him demoted to a bulk relief role, Sean Manaea ended the season with decent numbers. A fastball with increased velocity and a weak contact inducing changeup gave him a good avenue towards outs, but the breaking ball needed to turn passive out-getting to true aggressive pitching was not effective for him. Interestingly, Baseball Savant distinguishes a very effective, yet more sparsely used sweeper from a much less effective, but more frequently used slider. If he opts into the second year of his contract, I’ll be excited to see if he can turn that sweeper into bigger production.
After just 19 innings last year, Anthony DeSclafani turned in another 99 disappointing innings. A 4.8 BB% only goes so far when the only pitch with an opposition SLG% below .429 is a rarely used curveball. He has another year on his contract, but any production he can offer will be found money.
Alex Wood filled another murky starter-reliever role with reasonable production. On the dark side, he struggled to miss any bats. On the bright side, those bats usually didn’t hit the ball too hard. Even so, he’ll need to improve his GB% and BB% or find a way to get more swing and miss in order to improve his overall numbers.
Elsewhere, Jakob Junis rode his high volume slider to an under the radar 86 innings of 3.87 ERA ball, with the ERA indicators to back it up.
Nothing went well for Ross Stripling who was on and off the injured list, and pitched terribly when he was active.
Keaton Winn, Tristan Beck, Ryan Walker, and Kyle Harrison all had intriguing rookie seasons.
Winn pairs a really strong splitter with a high velocity 4 seam/sinker combo, a very similar arsenal to former Giants pitching rehabilitation success Kevin Gausman. He’ll have a great chance to start next season in the rotation.
Tristan Beck leads with a fastball that opponents slugged just .189 against, and adds a full starter’s cupboard of breaking and offspeed pitches, though none particularly effective. He’ll need to find a better second pitch to really take off, but either way will be part of the Giants future plans.
The hype for Kyle Harrison’s big league debut was as much as anyone since before the championship era. He was perfectly decent; his high octane stuff didn’t dominate but also his well chronicled walk problem wasn’t much of an issue. If he can let loose with his stuff while keeping his BB% in check, he’ll be a fantastic big league starter.
Ryan Walker came from prospect obscurity to big league success rocking an exclusive sinker-slider combo. Elite Hard Hit% and K%, 26.4 and 29.7 respectively, show his 3.23 ERA over 61 innings was no fluke.
M-SABR Predicted Record (87-75) vs. Actual (79-83):
Up until the All-Star break, the Giants were well on their way to a high 80s win total. Then, the offense started sputtering. The pitching, with just two traditional starters, somehow kept the team afloat through July and August, but the constantly careening car ride eventually crashed in September, where a 9-18 record saw them go from a likely Wild Card team to a downtrodden, managerless group limping through game 162.
87 wins was reachable with peak performance from their patched roster, but aggregate production eventually falters with an ever changing roster creating a lax clubhouse culture with a “lack of accountability.”
Ultimately, that clubhouse culture is the manager’s responsibility. Gabe Kapler’s open, communicative, and hands off managerial style worked well in 2021, with Buster Posey and other key veterans able to set the tone. However, this 2023 roster lacked the internal leadership to make that work. A communal steering of the ship works well, but sometimes the captain needs to step in and guide with both hands on the wheel. Kapler was not able to do that, and the Giants playoff hopes suffered for it.
Surprise of the Season:
Lots of rookies were expected this season, but the sheer number of notable debuts still surprised. I mentioned Patrick Bailey, Luis Matos, Ryan Walker and young starters Kyle Harrison, Keaton Winn and Tristan Beck above, but that doesn’t include the numerous other first time big leaguers.
Rule 5 draftee Blake Sabol and minor league Gold Glover Casey Schmitt both featured prominently, Sabol OPSing .695 as a backup C/LF and Schmitt swinging to a poor .580 OPS while splitting his time between 2B, SS and his native 3B.
Top prospect Marco Luciano got into 14 games at SS. Brett Wisely, Wade Meckler, Tyler Fitzgerald, all of various prospect pedigrees, got some run. Elsewhere, formally notables like Joey Bart, David Villar, and Heliot Ramos struggled to gain any traction.
These are the names that Giants fans have been fawning over for years, imagining a new era on the shores of McCovey Cove. That it all came in the course of a couple months shocked fans from future facing hope into very immediate attention.
Players We Watched:
- Logan Webb
Webb’s performance speaks for itself, and his clubhouse interviews as the last couple weeks unraveled speaks for his increasing role in the clubhouse. He’s done everything and more to justify his early season contract extension.
- Kyle Harrison
Harrison continued his pattern of huge strikeout and walk rates through 21 AAA starts, before finally debuting at Oracle Park with an electric, passionate 7 innings. While the rest of his big league innings were more pedestrian, that first start showed both how dominant he can be on the field, and how enlivening he can be for a fanbase.
- Vaun Brown
Brown seemed a likely candidate to shoot through the final levels of the minors, but ended up getting passed by many others while he languished in AA, hampered by injuries, a massive 37.5 K% and a measly 6.3 BB%. His status as a prospect to watch hangs in the air.
Offseason Outlook:
Will this be the year Farhan Zaidi finally nets the star the team, the franchise and the city need so badly? The Giants will certainly check in on Cody Bellinger and have registered interest in the NPB’s Yoshinobu Yamamoto and KBO’s Jung Hoo Lee, but Shohei Ohtani might be the only true star available.
If they can’t get a star, is it worth it to go through another cycle of mid level contracts? Should the Giants allow more room for rookies to work things out without the pressure of a playoff race? Would they trade notable prospects for a more proven big leaguer? What is the vision of the roster?
I’m structuring this section as filled with questions because that reflects the trouble of being a Giants fan in this age. There’s very little to count on, and one learns to not expect anything from the front office.
I’m approaching this offseason, one with so many viable options and directions, with open and pessimistic arms.
Something to Watch:
Is the whole entire ethos and identity of the organization something enough to watch? The manager search is a particular manifestation of this inflection point, but the conflict of nostalgic Giants baseball history with a distinctly unemotional product has been brewing since Farhan Zaidi’s hiring.
The two timeline plan has struggled the past two seasons without enough veteran carryover to establish a strong winning culture, and not enough youth to bring energy and excitement. The Giants are at risk of abandoning that plan just as their Bay Area counterparts have.
As such, the new manager hire will hugely reflect the direction of the team, the direction of the franchise, and ultimately will determine Farhan Zaidi’s job. No pressure.
Categories: 2023 Season Review, Articles, Season Analysis
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