In 2021, the San Francisco Giants authored one of the most remarkable seasons in recent baseball history, cobbling together a 107-win juggernaut from a roster of journeymen and unheralded veterans. To start the 2023 season, the Giants are simply a roster of journeymen and unheralded veterans.
With Brandon Crawford the last tie to the Giants' former glory years, this is perhaps baseball's most anonymous, mediocre team, a wasteland of mediocre veterans like Michael Conforto and Sean Manaea. At 27-25, they're pretty much exactly average on offense and defense. Outside of Crawford and ace Logan Webb, the Giants are essentially a faceless, formless entity, custom-designed to win exactly 85 games. As such, here are the three Giants that San Franciscans are already fed up with.
3. Brandon Crawford
Not even two years ago, Brandon Crawford finished fourth in National League MVP voting, clubbing 24 home runs and pairing a .895 OPS with Gold Glove-caliber defense at shortstop. Now, he's bad. Arguably, he's the worst everyday player in the Majors—that is, if he's even an everyday player anymore. Through 29 games (he missed a lot of time in May with a strained calf), he has hit .172 with a .575 OPS, which would be the fourth-worst mark in the league if he had enough at-bats to qualify. Worse, this doesn't really feel like a fluke—it feels like Crawford's new reality. While Crawford has admittedly been hampered by injuries, he's also 36 years old and squarely past his prime.
Most tellingly, Crawford is striking out at by far the highest rate of his career. This season, Crawford has struck out on 33 percent of his plate appearances; his previous high (or low, I guess) was 24.4 percent in 2020. Similarly, Crawford is also having his worst fielding season. Although 29 games isn't a big enough sample size to truly gauge a player's fielding ability, it's clear that Crawford has lost a step at shortstop. Never the fastest or most mobile player, Crawford fashioned himself into an elite defender because of his strong arm and expert positioning. But with the shift banned, Crawford's limited range has been on full display. Since Baseball Savant introduced Outs Above Average in 2017, Crawford has been one of Major League Baseball's most consistently elite defenders, never ranking below the 88th percentile from 2017 through 2022. Now, he's in the 24th percentile.
To be sure, Brandon Crawford has banked too much goodwill for Giants fans to be calling for his head this early in the season; he's a four-time All-Star who played major roles on two World Series champion teams. Still, if Crawford continues to struggle, it's only a matter of time that good memories can hold off the fans from wishing him good riddance.
2. Michael Conforto
After whiffing on Aaron Judge in free agency and reneging on their agreement with Carlos Correa, the Giants' plans for a massive, splashy offseason addition to their roster fizzled. Rather than lure a big-money All-Star to the Bay Area, the Giants settled on Michael Conforto, inking the injury-prone outfielder to a two-year, $36 million contract in the hopes that he could recapture the form that saw him hit 88 home runs with a .856 OPS from 2017-2019 with the New York Mets.
In his first season with the Giants, Conforto has been fine; his .236 batting average is a skosh below what the Giants hoped for, but his 11 home runs are the most on the roster and his 116 OPS+ reflects that he's a slightly above average hitter. Still, his production isn't commensurate with his status as the second-highest-paid player on the team and is a far cry from what Aaron Judge (the Giants' real target) is doing with the New York Yankees.
What's more, Conforto is a dreadful defender. Limited to right field, Conforto has neither the speed nor instincts to make a positive impact in the outfield; he ranks in the 29th percentile for sprint speed and the 37th percentile in outfielder jump, putting him in the 19th percentile overall for Outs Above Average, according to Baseball Savant.
1. Sean Manaea
Exclusively a starting pitcher for the first seven years of his career, Sean Manaea has been subjected to the ultimate indignity with the Giants: a demotion to the bullpen. During his previous stops in Oakland and San Diego, Manaea was never exactly an ace, but he was the kind of reliable, innings-eating starter that every good team needs. In San Francisco, his command has been so scattershot and his production has been so blah that he's been converted into an overpaid, overqualified middle reliever. Manaea's overall stats (2-2, 6.61 ERA) are bad, but his performance as a starter has been especially galling. Across his six starts, Manaea has a 7.54 ERA and opposing batters have a .971 OPS against him; for reference, Sean Murphy has a .970 OPS, which is sixth best in baseball. Luckily, Manaea has thrived in his last few appearances out of the pen, offering hope that he can turn his season around.
Like Michael Conforto, Manaea was one of the Giants' marquee offseason moves, signing a two-year, $25 million contract with the Giants. And like Conforto, Manaea hasn't been worth the investment.
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