These days, it often feels like San Francisco sits at the threshold of a karmic portal: How much longer can we take the congestion, the dirty streets, the unaffordability? Add the Giants to that list. The team is at the end of its own cycle as well. An era has ended.
The Frisc doesn’t cover sports regularly, but the Giants, more than any other pro franchise, are woven into the city’s life and lore and landscape.
Local indie rockers, digging into the city’s soul across the decades, write songs about Willie Mays to get at the zeitgeist of the 1960s. They don’t write about Joe Montana in the 1980s. What better way to get at the soul of San Francisco, 2019-style, than to talk about glory days fading quickly and disorienting roster change?
Only three players with all three World Series rings — 2010, 2012, and 2014 — remain. Two of them, Paul Bunyanesque ace pitcher Madison Bumgarner and Pablo Sandoval, the diminished Panda, could be gone this year, leaving only Buster Posey.
There’s also turnover, or the threat of it, at every level of team management. On the field, the grizzled grumbly manager Bruce Bochy said last month that he would retire at season’s end, marking 25 years at a major-league helm and near-certain entrée into the Hall of Fame.
In the high-roller suites, the fate of CEO Larry Baer is also up in the air. Baer, who owns a stake in the team, has grown into an ever-more powerful figure in baseball and beyond. He’s helping the Giants branch out into real estate with their Mission Rock venture, where 40 percent of the housing units are slated to be affordable. He even pushed to bring the 2024 Olympics to the Bay Area. (It didn’t happen, thank goodness.)
A few weeks ago, Baer made another ill-considered push. Someone recorded him wresting a phone from his wife in public, causing her to fall and scream for help. His wife’s attorney later told the SF Chronicle that the incident was not a crime, just an argument over a cell phone. He’s currently on leave of absence, and the news is not in his favor. On Friday, a group of 12 local advocates wrote a letter asking Major League Baseball to punish Baer with “significant and meaningful consequences.” On Monday, Mayor London Breed issued a statement, calling his actions “serious and wrong.”
Until now, Baer has had no drama as the face of the Giants. If he’s ousted, the team will have to find someone else to step up to the mic. It almost certainly won’t be Charles Johnson, the Republican billionaire who nearly brought a boycott down on the Giants for his political donations last fall.
Above Bochy and below Baer, a new baseball brain trust is in charge. Farhan Zaidi, once one of Billy Beane’s acolytes across the bay, is now in charge of all baseball decisions. Zaidi’s arrival marks even less responsibility for Brian Sabean, once the spiritual leader, gravelly voice, and attitude of the Giants’ strategic ship.
Taking over in the winter of 1996 — another moment of gravity for the team — Sabean immediately traded the beloved third baseman Matt Williams, got roasted for it, and declared “I am not an idiot.”
He wasn’t. Under Sabean, who was scorned by the rising tide of statistical-minded writers, the Giants played remarkably few unimportant games. Other than the Sargasso Sea years of 2005 to 2008, they were mainly contenders. And the ballpark on the waterfront was full. A guy named Barry Lamar Bonds had something to do with this, but not entirely. Young pitchers like Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, and Sergio Romo were the bridge from the Bonds teams to the Bochy World Series years.
This is the cruelty of professional sports. Cain and Lincecum are still young men, not even close to 40. And they’re gone, retired or released. Long gone.
It’s not just that it’s time for a new shift or fresh blood. It’s time to stop pretending. The Giants seemed poised in 2016 to continue their decade of dominance, posting baseball’s best record in the first half. They collapsed in the second half, barely making the playoffs, nonetheless, then fell apart again. (Or at least the bullpen did.)
In 2017 they disintegrated, nearly losing 100 games. The brass, led by longtime Sabean deputy Bobby Evans, thought a few moves could return them to relevance, and they reloaded instead of rebuilding.
Judging by the final 2018 record — 73 wins, 89 losses — you could say they were off the mark. To be fair, the team was in contention on July 1, five games above .500 and only two and a half games out of first place. Striking distance — most teams would be thrilled to be there. But bad luck, injuries, and a screamingly obvious lack of depth torpedoed their chances.
Under the new regime over this winter, the Giants are again refusing to rebuild. Indeed, they even pursued Bryce Harper, one of the two super-duperstar free agents, with a commitment north of $300 million. Harper signed a 13-year, $330 million contract with Philadelphia, the richest in baseball history. (UPDATE: Probably not anymore.)
But trades of young players for proven veterans, as previous administrations loved to do, are now unlikely. Compared with rivals, the Giants don’t have many talented young players to trade anyway. Those on board — like last year’s breakout rookie pitcher Derek Rodriguez, flamethrowing relievers Ray Black and Reyes Moronta, or fleet center fielder Steven Duggar — might outplay the skeptics, just as the underrated Brandon Crawford and Joe Panik have often surpassed the conventional (statistical) wisdom.
They’ll have to. Missing the ticket-selling sizzle of Harper or a splashy trade, the Giants have to sink or swim this year with a motley mix: underrated youngsters, injury bounce-back candidates like Drew Pomeranz (whom the Giants hope will be this year’s version of Derek Holland, another recycled pitcher who did solid work for the team last year), and several veterans, many at age 30 and above when renaissance from poor performance, injury, or both becomes ever more unlikely.
We told you this was cruel.
If the Giants surprise everyone and contend into the summer, it’ll be without a young flashy superstar. They’ll need all the players making $10 million, $15 million, or more a year to earn it. $15 million is actually what a solid-not-spectacular major-league season is worth these days. (Bryce Harper at $30 million a year? Some pundits think that’s a bargain.)
More likely, the Giants will be paying what seems like a ton, and not getting a ton of value in return. It’s just one more way that this team is perfect for San Francisco here and now.
Alex Lash is editor in chief of The Frisc and once pitched at Candlestick Park.
