The Giants Have Defied Gravity by Remaining in the Wild Card Race

Because I was raised on Saturday morning cartoons of a certain vintage — some of which I’ve recently shared with my going-on-seven-year-old daughter — I have Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner zooming through my brain with alarming frequency. In nearly every episode, there’s a moment when the coyote runs off a cliff and then, improbably, hangs in midair for several seconds before plummeting several hundred feet to the desert ground. Welcome to the 2023 Giants.

At 65-60, the Giants entered Tuesday occupying the NL’s third Wild Card spot, half a game behind the Cubs (65-59) for the second spot, and half a game ahead of the Diamondbacks (65-61), a game ahead of the Reds (64-61), and a game and a half ahead of the Marlins (64-62). Somehow, they’ve hung on this long despite playing sub-.500 ball for nearly the last two months with an offense so comically inept you’d think it came out of an ACME crate.

Dial back to June 10, when the Giants were a middling 32-32, seven games out of first place in the NL West and a game and a half back in the Wild Card race, with an offense that had hit for a 101 wRC+ (.246/.321/.413) while averaging 4.52 runs per game to that point. Two days and two wins later, they moved into a tie for the third Wild Card spot with the Brewers, and save for a brief span from July 6–8, they’ve remained in the playoff picture ever since; as recently as August 8, they were 62-52 and had a claim on the top NL Wild Card spot.

Yet even given their spot in the standings, the Giants’ offense has completely fallen apart, a product of injuries and underperformance. Since June 10, the team is a respectable 33-28, and yet the offense has hit for an 84 wRC+ (.230/.307/.361), which ranks 28th in the majors in that span, as does their 4.10 runs per game. Since the end of June – admittedly, an arbitrary endpoint, but one chosen to reflect the nadir of the offense’s performance — the Giants are a less-respectable 19-24, hitting for an unfathomable 74 wRC+ (.215/.291/.341), the majors’ worst mark by three points, and scoring just 3.33 runs per game, last by 0.45 runs per game. Y-I-K-E-S.

What happened? Injuries have played a significant part in the story, and while it’s not like the Giants lost Aaron Judge (they did that this past winter, so to speak), their outfield depth has been thinned considerably, to the point that it’s managed just an 85 wRC+ and a net of 1.0 WAR for the entire season. Mitch Haniger, who’s managed just a 78 wRC+ in 40 games, suffered a fractured right forearm that required surgery after he was hit by a pitch on June 13. Mike Yastrzemski has made two trips to the injured list in that span (and three overall) for left hamstring strains. Luis González missed the first four and a half months of the season due to a herniated disc that required surgery, then was designated for assignment and outrighted to Triple-A Sacramento when his rehab assignment ended. AJ Pollock, who was acquired from the Mariners at the trade deadline, made just six plate appearances before landing on the IL with an oblique strain. Prospect Heliot Ramos missed two months due to an oblique strain. All but Ramos are still on the IL.

The middle infield has been destabilized by injuries as well. Thairo Estrada missed over a month due to a left hand fracture, and just this weekend had another scare when he was hit by a 95-mph fastball on his right hand, though x-rays revealed only a contusion, not a fracture. Brandon Crawford has made two trips to the IL in this span (and three overall), one for left knee inflammation, the other for a left forearm strain. He’s currently out, as are deadline acquisition Mark Matthias, who played in just five games before suffering a right shoulder strain, and prospect Marco Luciano, who filled in for Crawford between IL stints in late July before being sent back to Sacramento, where he’s been sidelined by a hamstring strain.

Those injuries have forced the Giants to dig deep into their farm system, and the results, by and large, have not been pretty. I’ll get to some specifics, but first the big picture:

Only three hitters have improved upon their showings through the end of June, two of them rookies who barely got their feet wet before the end of June, but let’s hear it for Flores, who’s been downright awesome at the plate even as the whole team has collapsed around him. Meanwhile, six veterans who have received substantial playing time on both sides of the divide — Pederson, Yastrzemski, Crawford, Davis, Wade, and Slater — have declined by at least 51 points of wRC+ since the start of July, and while injuries may have something to do with the collapses of Crawford and Yastrzemski, they don’t explain the entirety of this mess.

Some of the vets have hit the ball hard but have lagged behind their Statcast expectations. Pederson, for example, has produced an average exit velocity of 92.1 mph and a .464 xSLG since the start of July, 107 points ahead of his actual SLG. Slater has produced a 92.4 mph EV in that span but is 208 points below his .470 xSLG. Wade, the team’s second-best hitter overall this year behind Flores (.259/.383/.421, 125 wRC+), is 96 points below his .443 xSLG in that span. On the other hand, Davis has managed just a .341 xSLG while his strikeout rate has spiked from 27.1% to an untenable 34.4%. There’s more to be said about all of these guys — as the great baseball scribe Leo Tolstoy wrote, each unhappy hitter is unhappy in his own way — but you get the idea.

To add some depth — if only by adding one more struggling veteran to the mix — the team signed Paul DeJong, who had recently been released by the Blue Jays after being traded from the Cardinals on August 1. As he’s hit just .211/.269/.365 (74 wRC+) this year, and went 3-for-44 with 18 strikeouts and zero walks in his short stay in Canada, the 30-year-old probably isn’t a game-changer, to say the least.

As for those prospects, the 24-year-old Bailey (a 50-FV prospect who ranked third on the team’s list, coincidentally published on June 30) spent just two weeks apiece at Double- and Triple-A before arriving on May 19 to fill in for the injured (and disappointing) Bart and Roberto Pérez behind the plate. He started hot thanks to an unsustainably high BABIP (.410 through June) and asserted himself as the team’s catcher of the present, but has fallen on hard times via a .283 BABIP and a complete lack of power since the start of July. Even so, he’s a vast improvement on Bart, and his 2.8 WAR is second among the position players behind Estrada’s 2.9.

Matos, a 55-FV prospect who topped the team’s list, arrived when Haniger went down, having played just 58 games at Double- and Triple-A before being promoted. Though the 21-year-old center fielder started slowly (as reflected above), he heated up just before the All-Star break. But he’s produced just a 79 wRC+ in the second half, and it’s not like he’s winning games with his glove given his -7 DRS and -3 RAA (small sample caveats noted). Briefly optioned to Sacramento last week, he returned on Sunday and hit his second major league homer, though in general he’s rarely hit the ball hard. Meckler, a 45-FV prospect who was taken in the eigth round of last year’s draft out of Oregon State and began the year at High-A, arrived when Matos was demoted. He’s struck out in 13 of his 23 PA thus far, so don’t expect him to stick around.

The 21-year-old Luciano, 24-year-old Schmitt, and 24-year-old Wisely have all taken their turns trying to patch the infield, albeit without much sustained success. Luciano, a 50-FV prospect who was fourth on the team’s list, is the best of the bunch but has gotten the least playing time due to his poorly-timed injury. Schmitt, a 45-FV prospect who is an exceptional defender, has split his time between second base, shortstop, and third base. He’s been utterly overwhelmed by major league pitching; his 45 wRC+ is tied for the majors’ fifth-lowest among players with at least 200 PA. Wisely, a 40-FV prospect, filled in at second base but was even weaker offensively; his 36 wRC+ is the seventh-lowest among players with at least 120 PA.

Given so many injuries and green prospects with comparatively little upper-level experience, the Giants haven’t been able to optimize their lineups in the manner that helped them win 107 games just two years ago. While they’ve actually had the left-right platoon advantage in a higher percentage of plate appearances relative to then (61.6% vs. 58.1%), that was hardly the only way they determined matchups in the best of times, and now the bottom line is that too many plate appearances have gone to lower-caliber hitters.

They’ve somehow stuck around the NL Wild Card race not only despite their poor offense but also unexceptional run prevention. Since the start of July, they’ve allowed 4.28 runs per game, nearly a full run per game more than they’re scoring. Logan Webb, the only constant in the rotation in that span, has been very good since the start of July and overall, and Ross Stripling, Ryan Walker, and Jakob Junis — the last two of whom have generally served as openers — have been good-to-great in limited duty; that quartet has combined for 24 of the team’s 43 starts since the start of July, delivering a 2.88 ERA and 2.87 FIP, not to mention a 10-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. The other five pitchers who have started at least one game, led by Alex Cobb (eight starts) and Scott Alexander (six starts, but only five innings while serving as an opener), have combined for a 6.34 ERA and 5.81 FIP. Overall, that’s a 4.11 ERA and 4.05 FIP for the unit. The bullpen — where Alex Wood, Sean Manaea and Stripling have often served as bulk guys — has been a bit better than the starters, though with the opener/bulk arrangements, the distinction is admittedly somewhat blurred. Anyway, they’ve combined for a 3.95 ERA and 3.88 FIP.

Overall the Giants’ Pythagenpat winning percentage for the period since the start of July is .387, 55 points lower than their actual winning percentage. The other five NL teams in playoff position have played pretty good baseball over that quarter(ish)-season, but not them:

Thanks to their track records, the Giants still rate as having a 54.9% chance of claiming a Wild Card spot according to our Playoff Odds, behind the Phillies (85%) but ahead of the Diamondbacks (43.1%), Cubs (34.9%), Marlins (29.8%), and Reds (14.5%). Still, given the way they’ve played and the traffic that surrounds them, it would hardly be a surprise if they soon slip out of a postseason spot. Eventually, Wile E. Coyote hits the ground.