Dodgers 2019 NL West Outlook: San Francisco Giants
Over the next few weeks leading up to Spring Training (which is less than 40 days away), I will be going through each team in the NL West and recapping their 2018 (overall and against the Dodgers), analyzing their off-season thus far, and “Dodger Killers” on their rosters.
For the first installment in this series, I decided to talk about the San Francisco Giants, because the Giants are the least likely team in the NL West to make a ground-shaking move this offseason and of course because they are indeed the Dodgers’ fiercest rival.
The Giants had a terrible 2018. Almost everything that could go wrong for the Gigantes did go wrong. Injuries demolished the starting rotation and many of the veteran bats did not show up consistently, and this combination led to what was a 73-win season. However, their 2018 finish was in fact better than their finish in 2017, when they finished in last place with just 64 wins (but Bumgarner did hit two Opening Day home runs that year).
Due to an aging core and a lack of prospect depth at any level within their minor league system, the Giants have yet to declare what term they would like to use to describe their rebuild, but they did hire former-Dodger GM Farhan Zaidi to be their President of Baseball Operations early on in the off-season.
2018 Results
In 2018 the Giants, as I mentioned earlier, were bit by the injury bug. Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto, and Jeff Samardzija, three of their most expensive players from last year, all spent significant time on the DL and Cueto will miss the majority of 2019 due to Tommy John surgery. In the bullpen, Hunter Strickland and Mark Melancon, two of the men trusted to get saves for the Giants, spent time on the DL as well.
Position players weren’t immune either. Only eight hitters played more than 100 games in 2018 for the Giants, and only one, Brandon Crawford, played in more than 150 games (151). Last season, in the Dodgers vs. Giants head-to-head matchups, the Dodgers won 10 of 19, not the best record for a division champion against a bottom feeder, but a winning record nonetheless.
In the upcoming section, we’ll look into the “Dodger Killers,” or players who helped keep the Dodgers from more thoroughly defeating their biggest rivals.
Dodger Killers
Joe Panik: Few could forget the first two games of the 2018 season. Both ended with mighty blasts from Panik against Kenley Jansen to beat the Dodgers 1-0 two nights in a row at Chavez Ravine. These losses set the stage for what would be a rough March/April for the Dodgers, and hid what would begin to become an ugly season in San Francisco.
Tony Watson: In Los Angeles for a World Series run just a year prior, Tony Watson held his former team to no runs on six hits in his 30 ABs against the Dodgers. He struck out ten while only walking two and did not allow an extra-base hit against. As a left-hander, he embodies one of the Dodgers’ weaknesses: hitting against good lefty relievers late in games, but with a full season of David Freese and Corey Seager (who hits lefties very well) hopefully the Dodgers can do better in 2019.
Ty Blach: The Opening Day starter for the Bumgarner-less Giants in 2018, Blach shut out the Dodgers over five innings to get the win. He ended the year with two wins against the Dodgers, allowing just 5 runs and 16 hits in all of his appearances against the team. In his 75 ABs against Los Angeles, Blach struck out 15 Dodgers. Another lefty (a noteworthy trend) Blach was less than dominant when pitching against the rest of the league, but in 2018, he had the Dodgers’ number.
2019 Outlook
The Giants really should not win very many games in 2019 and for the third straight season they should miss the playoffs. However, the played the Dodgers tough last season (see the aforementioned 9 wins they stole against LA last year), and their pitching will only improve, as they will see full seasons from rookies Dereck Rodriguez and Andrew Suarez and from veterans Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzija.
Beyond their pitching improvements, the Giants will need much more out of their franchise’s face, Buster Posey. Posey led them to the World Series in his rookie year, and is going into a contract year in 2019. Against the Dodgers last season, Posey hit just one home run and went 10/50, striking out nine times while walking just five.
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If he can perform like he had in the seasons previous to 2018, the Giants should win a few more games than they did last season. His 0.98 ISO last season marked the first time Posey failed to pass the .100 mark in any major league season, and if this decline continues, Posey’s future in San Francisco could be in jeopardy.
Fangraphs projects the Giants to go 77-85, a four-win increase from a year ago.
While this projection seems reasonable, I feel like the Giants could win more like 80-85 games if the Giants’ starters outperform their projections. Bumgarner is only projected to be worth 2.1 WAR in 2019, and the entire Giant rotation is expected to be worth just 7.4 WAR next season. Even though they are likely to be without Johnny Cueto for most of the season (Tommy John Surgery), Bumgarner should be good for more than a 3.92 ERA with a modest 8.1 K/9 as Fangraphs projects.
All in all, no matter how well Bumgarner pitches and Posey hits next season, the Giants are my overwhelming favorite to finish at the bottom of the NL West in 2019.