Giants frustrated after wasting 2025 MLB season that once held so much promise originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO — The first vote of confidence came on Dec. 10.
As an organization, the Giants do not believe in rebuilding. But Buster Posey, a franchise legend who was hired to lead baseball operations after three consecutive disappointing years, could have talked ownership into a change of course if he felt it was right. Instead, Posey made an early strike in his first offseason, signing Willy Adames to the largest contract in franchise history.
The second vote of confidence came on June 15. Posey stunned the baseball world by trading for Rafael Devers, an all-in move for a team that was 11 games over .500 at the time.
The third came on July 1 when the Giants, losers of six of seven, picked up the 2026 option on manager Bob Melvin. It was a very clear signal to an embattled coaching staff, but also an underperforming roster.
The 2025 Giants, at every turn, thought they would make the postseason. On Tuesday, they were eliminated with four games to go in the regular season.
This is the eighth time in the last nine seasons that the Giants have missed the MLB playoffs, the lone exception being a magical 107-win campaign in Posey’s final year as a player. The front office, coaching staff and roster have undergone massive changes since that retirement ceremony, but there has been one constant. For four years, there has been a magnet constantly pulling the Giants back to .500.
This time, there is work to be done just to get to that mediocre mark. After a 9-8 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday, the Giants fell to 77-81.
The face of the franchise unfortunately has had to get used to losing seasons. After watching his 15th win disappear because of a late bullpen collapse, Logan Webb said this year is “probably the most frustrating” one yet.
“No offense to the teams we’ve had before, but this is the most talented team I’ve been on,” Webb said. “I think there were a lot of expectations and it sucks.”
Webb noted that the Giants briefly slid into first place with a win at Dodger Stadium in June. Two days later, they acquired Devers. Somehow, they’re 36-50 since the blockbuster.
“We were excited,” Webb said of that trade. “It’s kind of hard to pinpoint [what has happened]. When things go wrong it just unfortunately seems like we’ve let it stay wrong for a long time, and that’s not a very good recipe for success. Unfortunately it seems like it’s four straight years where it’s been like the exact same thing. Yeah, it just sucks.”
This year’s group initially had the look of one that would change all of that.
It is a close-knit and loose clubhouse and has been even in the down times, and for most of the season, the Giants have benefited from tremendous health compared to the teams around them in the standings. But the 2025 Giants also proved to be flawed in important ways.
They entered Tuesday ranked 18th in starting pitcher ERA, and after talking of their depth all spring, they ran out of options. Kyle Harrison was traded for Devers, Hayden Birdsong lost the strike zone and Landen Roupp’s breakout year ended with a knee injury. Jordan Hicks pitched his way out of the rotation and into a trade, and the anticipated depth in Triple-A never materialized.
If you had told Melvin in March that he would get All-Star seasons out of Webb and Robbie Ray and 28 starts out of Justin Verlander, he probably would feel like a lock for October. But it wasn’t enough, and Webb and Ray had their worst weekend of the year at a bad time, losing back-to-back games against the Dodgers earlier this month after the Giants briefly moved into a tie for the final wild-card spot.
The bullpen was the best in baseball for much of the first half, but fell apart in some big games down the stretch, including Tuesday, when Ryan Walker blew the save in the ninth. That part was at least somewhat understandable given the personnel losses.
As they look back at all of the bitter losses, the Giants likely will zero in on an 0-6 homestand against the New York Mets and Pittsburgh Pirates right before the MLB trade deadline. The front office hoped to add starting pitching; instead, Posey reacted by flipping Tyler Rogers and Camilo Doval for prospects. A few weeks later, Randy Rodriguez found out he needed Tommy John surgery, joining Erik Miller on the IL.
The Giants will spend most of this offseason rebuilding the back of their rotation and the leverage spots in their bullpen. The lineup should return just about fully intact, but that group will need to be much more consistent in 2026.
The overall numbers will look fine for most of the team’s highest-paid hitters, but with the exception of a brief run in late August and early September — after the Giants practically were eliminated — there never seemed to be more than one or two players going at the same time.
The Giants are in the bottom half of the league in runs, homers and wRC+. When the season slipped away right before and after the deadline, the lineup scored fewer than three runs in 12 of 16 games at Oracle Park. Not surprisingly, the Giants lost 15 of those games, a historically bad stretch.
When the going got tough on the mound and at the plate, there was nowhere else to turn for an edge. They have not been a good defensive team, particularly in the outfield. They’re last in the NL in stolen bases, an ongoing theme for the organization.
Webb wasn’t just blowing smoke. This is a talented roster on paper, one that saw a fourth player reach 20 homers on Tuesday night, with the hope that newcomer Bryce Eldridge dwarfs that number for years to come.
But Posey still has plenty of work to do, and it will start right away. Melvin might be under contract, but this second-half collapse will have to fall on somebody, and it’s not out of the question that the Giants embark on a second managerial search in three years. At the very least, the expectation for many within the organization is that there will be a few notable internal changes.
It was about a year ago that Posey decided he was ready to lead the organization. He has spent the last 12 months observing and listening. Now it’s time to find a way out of this loop that the Giants seem to be stuck in.
“If there’s one thing about Buster Posey, it’s that I don’t think he’s okay with losing, I don’t think he’s okay with even being .500,” Webb said. “He wants to win. I’m not going to play his job because that’s not my job, but I don’t think he’s okay with this. I don’t think there’s a lot of people okay with this in this clubhouse.”
