2026 ZiPS Projections: San Francisco Giants

For the 22nd consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction, as well as MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the San Francisco Giants.

Batters

The 2025 season was an odd one for the Giants, as they lurched in and out of playoff contention at various points. A solid start kept San Francisco in the mix in the early months, lurking just a few games out in the NL West for a surprisingly long time. The team’s high water mark came in mid-June, when a victory over the Dodgers briefly got them into a first place tie, but just a few weeks later, they found themselves nine games out and falling to .500 faster than Bitcoin prices in 2014. It only took a week to trim that deficit down to four games, but a couple of significant losing streaks wiped out that work going into the trade deadline. The Giants traded Camilo Doval, Tyler Rogers, and Mike Yastrzemski at the deadline, and the team treaded water just enough to find themselves in the Wild Card race at the very end of the season thanks to the New York Mets really Metsing it.

After that kind of season, finishing at .500 feels like the universe getting the exact right result for a change. ZiPS does see a lot of sources of optimism in the offense, and thinks the Giants likely underperformed their actual talent level in 2025. Both Matt Chapman and Willy Adames finished the season with All-Star-caliber numbers, especially impressive for Adames considering how much he struggled in the early going. ZiPS actually thought both of them underperformed their peripheral statistics, a pretty decent divergence from Statcast, which wasn’t quite as optimistic. ZiPS has been high on Chapman and Adames in recent years anyway, and sees both as leading All-Star contenders next season.

Rafael Devers was a nice pickup, even if his profile isn’t ideally suited for Oracle Park, and his place in the depth chart graphic is a little misleading since the numbers are dragged down by sharing the spot with Bryce Eldridge and Jerar Encarnacion. ZiPS anticipates a bit of a recovery in Patrick Bailey’s bat in 2026, and really likes Jesus Rodriguez, acquired from the Yankees in the Doval trade. That gives the Giants four clearly above-average positions in the projections, and the computer is also content with Jung Hoo Lee in center field, and more surprisingly, the Casey Schmitt/Christian Koss/Tyler Fitzgerald chimera at second.

The only positions ZiPS is unhappy about are the outfield corners, though neither projects as a black hole sucking all the life out of the offense.

The computer also likes several players in the upper minors. The projections think Bo Davidson has a good chance to be more interesting than a lot of their current outfielders, and really likes a couple deeper cuts in the system: the quick, contact-oriented second baseman Nate Furman (acquired in the 2024 Alex Cobb trade), and the plucked-from-indy-ball Dayson Croes.

If ZiPS is correct, the Giants don’t need to put in a ton of work here.

Pitchers

ZiPS is pretty happy with the team’s offense, but it does see some real weaknesses on the pitching staff. Thankfully for the Giants, not having an ace isn’t one of their problems, and because of Chris Sale’s missed time in 2025, Logan Webb is currently projected as the active starter with the best chance to win 200 games (though it’s still worse than a coin flip). Webb’s about as dependable a starter as there is in baseball, even if he doesn’t have the flash that pitchers like Tarik Skubal or Garrett Crochet do. Though not really a huge strikeout guy, Webb’s K/9 rate ticked to just below 10 in 2025, so we’re not exactly talking about a glorified Kirk Rueter here. Robbie Ray was healthy after two years ruined by injury, and ZiPS sees Landen Roupp as a perfectly serviceable mid-rotation starter.

What ZiPS is less excited about is the back of the rotation. None of Kai-Wei Teng, Trevor McDonald, Hayden Birdsong, or Carson Whisenhunt get outright ugly projections, but there is an opportunity to upgrade here, at least at one of the slots, with some highly interesting starters like Framber Valdez and Ranger Suárez out there in free agency. If you agree with ZiPS that the offense doesn’t really need a ton of love — or even better, if you’re the Giants and agree with ZiPS — adding a pitcher would be a good opportunity to close the gap versus the Dodgers a bit.

ZiPS is generally more optimistic about the bullpen than Steamer is, with the biggest exception being Joel Peguero, who both projection systems are uneasy with. But ZiPS likes Ryan Walker, and is quite happy with José Buttó, Erik Miller, Matt Gage, and Sam Hentges, while being more ambivalent when it comes to the back end of the ‘pen. Adding some depth here would be nice, though I think there are more gains to be had with an additional starter.

At this moment, ZiPS has the Giants down for a win total in the mid-to-high 80s, which ain’t bad for a team that has spent the last four seasons shuffling right around the .500 mark, though it’s not likely to instill any existential fear in the Dodgers. And if you’re a Giants fan, I assume that’s one of the things you’d really like to see.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time. The final team projections may differ considerably from our Depth Chart playing time.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2026 due to injury, and players who were released in 2025. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Ambient Math-Rock Trip-Hop Yacht Metal band that only performs in abandoned malls, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.16.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR. It is important to remember that ZiPS is agnostic about playing time, and has no information about, for example, how quickly a team will call up a prospect or what veteran has fallen into disfavor.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by misinformation, a non-pragmatic reality, or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter or on BlueSky. This last is, however, not an actual requirement.