History doesn’t match up with the perception

An eternity in this “what have you done for lately?” culture.

But to be honest, that World Series run was the high-water mark for an organization that, for the most of the last 50 years, has been rather mid. Yet there is a certain segment of fans who believe the Giants have this inalienable right to be in the playoffs and when they don’t make it, it’s fire and brimstone. They should be used to be on the outside looking in because there have been a lot more swings and misses than home runs — Barry Bonds notwithstanding.

A historical look shows that the organization has been about where they are this season — a below .500 team trending toward a finish in the lower half of the National League West standings.

All of this was brought about by the Giants “meh” moves at Tuesday’s trade deadline, one that saw them ship out a pair of underachieving free-agent signings, ostensibly to clear the deck for a prospect who can only serve as a designated hitter at this point.

All of this on the heels of a four-game sweep of the Colorado Rockies, which had fans in Giants Land all hyped for a playoff run. But if this team has shown any consistency this season, is that it can’t consistently put a win streak together.

So was anyone really surprised when the A’s came in and thumped the Giants Tuesday night? Just like that, all the feel-good vibes from the weekend are suddenly back to square one of doom and gloom. But that has been the Giants’ legacy over the last 50 years — a middling team with spurts of success.

I crunched the numbers: Since 1970, the Giants have had 25 winning seasons, that includes strike-impacted seasons in 1981 and 1994-95, and the COVID season of 2020.

That’s a .500 record.

In the last 50 years, the Giants have won eight National League West titles — the first coming in 1987 and the most recent in 2021. That’s one division crown roughly every six years, which is less than 10% of the time.

The most winning seasons the Giants have had in a row is seven, from 1997 to 2004, making the playoffs three times, including an appearance in the 2002 World Series. They had five straight winning seasons from 1986 to 1990. But since 2010, the Giants have had three campaigns above .500.

All of this is a long way of saying that the 2024 Giants are the aggregate of the last 50 years. There has been one San Francisco regime in the last half century that caught lightning in the bottle and that was the Peter MacGowan-Brian Sabean-Bruce Bochy triumvirate. All others have failed. The latest group to try, the Johnson Family-Farhan Zaidi pairing, hasn’t worked and unless things change in a hurry, a new group will be brought in to try and lead the team back to the playoffs.

But the only thing that really matters is what Greg Johnson, the Giants’ chairman of the board, wants to do: is he willing to go all in on a complete revamp to win, or is he content to just sit around the .500 mark, sneak into the playoffs and then hope to get hot?

History shows that the latter is what has happened more often than not.

***

There was so much talk about “sell” or “buy” as the trade deadline approached. But the discussion is so much more nuanced than that.

What did it mean to sell? Just dumping salary? Was it to sell to restock the farm system? Sell to bring in a game-changing player?

But sometimes you have to sell to buy. Needing a legitimate bat in the middle of the lineup would require more than just a couple of scrub minor leaguers. The Giants would have had to give up quality to get quality and apparently weren’t willing to do that, either.

So Giants fans, you’re kind of stuck with whatcha got. Now the hope is that the starting rotation does live up to Zaidi’s claim of being one of the best rotation in baseball.

Logan Webb, Blake Snell, Robbie Ray, Kyle Harrison and Hayden Birdsong are capable of limiting any offense in baseball. I think the bigger concern is: can the Giants’ hitters scratch out more than two runs against pitchers with ERAs over 4.00?