The SF Giants 2024 season is nearing the finish line. We have had five months to reflect on this team and they are still missing a key ingredient: An identify on offense.
The key ingredient the SF Giants are missing in 2024 and how to fix for next season
The Giants spent a ton of money during the 2023-2024 off-season. So much so that expectations were raised entering the 2024 MLB season. However, the lack of offensive identity was obvious from the beginning.
The acquisition of high contact rate, speedy center fielder Jung Hoo Lee directly contradicted the three-year contract for DH only, heavy swing and miss, big power Jorge Soler. The lack of direction was an obvious flaw early in the season that failed to take into account the Giants’ home ballpark, the quality of their pitching rotation, and how the San Francisco Giants have won and will win.
During this 2024 season, the Giants are second to last in stolen bases, have the 12th-highest strikeout rate, 16th in batting average, 15th in on-base percentage, and 16th in slugging percentage. The key for 2025 is assessing the current roster and the ballpark tendencies to formulate an offensive identity that compliments the pitching staff and maximizes the players on the roster.
Similar to the Giants, the Cleveland Guardians, have an extremely pitcher-friendly home stadium. They too have built a formidable rotation, are revered for their ability to produce pitchers, and have one of the most dominant bullpens in baseball. In 2024, the Guardians wRC+ on offense is 99, one less than the Giants at 100.
However, the Guardians are 75-57, one game above the Royals leading the American League Central. They did that by tailoring their offense to their ballpark. The Guardians’ home stadium is an awful place to hit, with the only positive offense number coming on doubles. Therefore, the Guardians leaned into having to create offense with speed and high contact rates while counting power as a bonus.
This led to the Guardians being seventh in stolen bases and fourth lowest in K%. While the offense isn’t very good in a vacuum, it fits their roster and ballpark leading to their success. In 2025, the Giants must make similar steps in that direction.
The first step towards solving the offense for 2025 is to assess Oracle Park. The SF Giants home stadium has a 96 overall park factor according to Baseball Savant, placing it as the second most pitcher-friendly home stadium in MLB.
This fact will only help the pitching staff for the Giants which has become a strong suit. However, there are numbers that we follow that can give a direction for the offense. Oracle Park is a terrible place to hit home runs but sits in the top six for triples, top ten for singles, and is average for doubles. The solution is tailoring the offense to success within these confines. On offense, the Giants should be focused on high contact rates to maximize their singles and doubles outputs and elite speed to maximize their triples output.
On defense, the Giants should be focusing on taking away those things and since defending a long ball is up to the pitching staff, the defense has to be elite to minimize the effect of singles and triples. Luckily, the Giants roster already has some guys who fit within these molds.
Matt Chapman, who is discussing an extension with the Giants, provides elite defense, plus speed, and a strikeout rate that should go down with more emphasis on contact. Tyler Fitzgerald is providing above-average defense at shortstop and has 99th-percentile sprint speed, but he does swing and miss a ton.
Something that the Giants would have to mitigate. Heliot Ramos is similar to Fitzgerald in that he swings and misses too much but has 66th-percentile speed and gives quality defense in the corner outfield spots. In his short time before his injury, Jung Hoo Lee was the perfect fit for this roster with a strikeout rate below 9, an 80th percentile sprint speed, and should provide plus defensive center field.
Finally, a healthy Thairo Estrada fits perfectly with a strikeout rate below 20, a 70th-percentile sprint speed, and an elite glove at second base. The Giants need to continue to tailor their roster to a contact-heavy, plus speed, plus defense approach heading into 2025 but more importantly, the mentality has to shift.
The Giants are 29th in stolen base attempts per game this season. They have begun to build a roster predicated on speed and contact which means they should be attempting at least two stolen bases a game with anyone and everyone from now until the end of 2024, the hit-and-run should be used much more frequently, and bunt attempts need to rise.
This strategy is not the way baseball is expected to be played in the modern day but the Giants have to be willing to pull a Guardians and do things a little differently or the era of mediocrity will continue well past this season.
