At least it's over

In April, I wrote about how thrilled I was for baseball to be back. And I was thrilled! My Giants even got off to a hot start! And then, way before the trade deadline, they managed to trade for one of the very best hitter in all of baseball! It not only looked likely that they would make the playoffs, but that they had a legitimate shot at competing with the Dodgers for the NL West title.

And then absolutely everything fell apart.

The Giants began playing like absolute dogshit against the very worst teams in baseball. They scuffled against mediocre teams, and they looked completely outmatched against good teams. When they completely blew every game in the weeks leading up to the trade deadline, they had no choice but to trade away two of their three best relievers. They got great returns for them!

And then the Mets underwent a historic collapse, and free-fell in slow motion for the better part of two months as they dared someone – anyone – to come catch them for the third wild card spot. And the Giants just kept floundering, and kept floundering, and they pissed away numerous games due to not having enough bullpen depth. Whoops! And then their other good reliever had a season-ending injury. Double whoops!

In the end, the Giants fell just a few games short of overtaking the Mets, something that the Reds finally managed. For their reward, the Reds got to enjoy getting completely blown out by the Dodgers in a couple of embarrassing games and bounced unceremoniously from the postseason. Thanks for stopping by, Reds! If the Giants had won just a couple of games before the trade deadline, they would have held onto those relievers. If they'd held onto their relievers, they would have held on for a couple more victories. Four victories would have been the difference that meant it would have been the Giants getting their brains stomped out in Dodger Stadium instead of the Reds.

But it probably would have also meant that the Giants don't fire their manager, Bob Melvin, the day after the season ended. And although Melvin wasn't the reason that the Giants spent most of the season playing some of the absolute least inspiring, most unfun baseball it's ever been my misfortune to have to watch, let alone care about, his firing was necessary. Melvin spent two years playing exactly-average baseball, but the second of those two years featured the most talented Giants lineup since Barry Bonds' recliner was in the clubhouse. Gabe Kapler and his army of coaches experiences a 107-win season in 2021, where they took a fairly middling roster and somehow struck gold with every single button they pressed and lever they pulled. Melvin, with his retro cadre of feel-over-analytics coaches (not exactly accurate, but that's the perception), couldn't make a single thing happen with a roster crammed full of incredible talent. And that dog won't hunt, kids.

Melvin is going. His coaches are going, too. Hopefully next to go are ... well, absolutely everybody in the organization who predates Buster Posey's short tenure as head of baseball operations. The Giants have been a terribly run organization for years now, with a middling farm system, middling prospects, middling results, and a middling product on the field. The Dodgers have won 12 of the last 13 NL West titles. Since their last postseason appearance, the Giants have been lapped numerous times by the Dodgers, but have also been lapped in their own division by the Padres and even by the Diamondbacks, who made it to the World Series just a couple of years ago. Whatever the Giants have (or haven't) been doing since approximately 2016, it needs to be torn out by the roots.

So that's where we stand as 2025 wraps up: a team without a manager or an identity, staring up at three teams significantly better than them, with absolutely no sign that their situation will change at any time in the future, near or otherwise.

But hey, at least the 2025 season is over. Go Brewers, go Mariners, go lots of very fun teams worth rooting for. God knows the Giants were never one of them.