Were the 2021 San Francisco Giants a Fluke?
By Dylan Adelman
In 2021, the San Francisco Giants achieved an accolade more rare than a perfect game, a four-home run game, or even a triple crown: a 107-win season. Since then, the giants have had a 160-164 record, being stuck in mediocrity ever since. What happened to this Giants roster, and how did a team with an offense led by the aging core of Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford, and Donovan Solano achieve this accolade?
Buster Posey had a career year in 2021, winning an NL silver slugger award and was a finalist for the gold glove award. Sadly, Posey decided to end his career on a high note and retire after the historic 2021 season, which was the only significant loss for the Giants going into the 2022 season. Replacing Posey with below-average catchers in Joey Bart, Curt Casali, and Austin Wynn. In fact, the Giants bolstered their bullpen by replacing Jake McGee with Camilo Doval as their full-time closer and adding Cy Young finalist Carlos Rodon in free agency to replace Kevin Gausman, along with Alex Cobb for an aging Cueto. These offseason moves gave the Giants high expectations going into the 2022 season, but the early momentum they had quickly dwindled. With a poor July and August revealing the obvious cracks the 2021 season had, one of which being the newly improved bullpen that was previously heralded as nearly impenetrable. Looking back on said bullpen, every major arm they had that year had an average difference of 1.02 in their ERA and FIP. The most surprising being Dominic Leone, who held a 1.51 ERA through 53 IP and ranked 5th in ERA among qualified relievers. This bullpen led the Giants to an improbable one-run game record of 31 and 17 in 2021. Astronomically better record than the other two 100-win teams, with the Dodgers finishing 24-24 and the Rays finishing 20-25 in games that were separated by one run.
2021 was a fluke. Plain and simple. Some could argue that it’s “just baseball” and the stars align for a team every once in a while, but hindsight is 20-20, and this team was never meant to make a legitimate playoff run. Led by its bullpen that was broken apart after the 2021 season, releasing pitchers like Dominic Leone, Jarlin Garcia, Jose Alverez, and Jake McGee to be retired, abandoned free agents, or have a 7+ era post-2022. Along with an aging core of vets in Belt, Crawford, and Posey that fell off (or retired) the very next year, effectively hurting the Giants’ future as a franchise, by giving the owners more trust in Farhan, and allowing him to use Gabe Kapler as a scapegoat after the team he built crumbled in a matter of months. The 2021 season was one of a kind, and although I’d love to say the Giants are poised for a comeback this year and surprise everyone in the playoffs, we won’t; because Farhan builds a baseball team like a Wilmer Flores season ending check swing. Always good enough to be in the conversation, but never good enough to swing all the way through.
