By all accounts, the San Francisco Giants and their much-maligned front office were clear winners after the dust had settled on the trade deadline. They did what they had to do and traded away expiring contracts and guys who didn’t fit into their long-term plans. They got back several prospects, some more interesting than others, in hopes of replenishing a system that had taken some significant steps forward this year.
It was a good day. Maybe the best day of what’s been a completely miserable season. Buster Posey and his staff were rightly praised for it.
And yet, that we ended up here at all is the most damning indictment of Posey and the Giants this season.
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A single day of successful moves cannot overshadow how much this season has been a spectacular failure at every conceivable turn. It’s especially painful for this to all happen this season, when it was obvious that Giants put a lot on the line in their hopes of contending. In my season preview this past March, I wrote the following:
“Is the roster good enough to contend this year and reward the fans’ loyalty? Did the Giants do enough over the winter to even earn that loyalty? We’ll find out soon enough, but the team had better hope the answer to all of the above is ‘yes.’ Anything else is disastrous.”
I think we can safely say they’ve squarely landed on “disastrous.” Posey and his lieutenants fundamentally misevaluated their roster heading into the season, mistakenly believing that they had enough pitching to supplement a solid lineup and make a run at the playoffs. It’s hard to figure how they came to that conclusion after spending the absolute bare minimum on rotation and bullpen additions last winter, but they certainly didn’t expect to be holding a (partial) fire sale in early August.
Starting pitcher Landen Roupp of the San Francisco Giants reacts before being removed during the third inning of the MLB game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field on June 30, 2026, in Phoenix.
Christian Petersen/Getty Images
Now, the Giants find themselves in an odd position. Most of this roster’s core is still here, still expensive, still aging and still geared toward competing for a playoff spot over the next three years. It’s not entirely crazy to say that with a better overall pitching staff, the 2026 iteration of the Giants might have been buyers at the deadline.
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But with the moves the Giants made yesterday their timeline for contention seems to be around 2030, when most of their young prospects should be ready to make an impact at the MLB level. How, exactly, does that square with the rest of this roster?
The big contracts seem immovable unless the team eats significant money, and they don’t appear eager to do so. (After all, there was a USA Today report that the team considered Jung Hoo Lee’s popularity within the fan base as a reason why they didn’t trade him despite interest from teams.) They’re still built to contend for a wild card spot, at least offensively. Will they build the roster over the winter with that goal in mind, or will they do the bare minimum since the big prospects won’t be ready for years?
It’s certainly not hard to imagine the Giants’ ownership justifying light spending because of the strength of their system. They’ve talked a good game about wanting to be competitive, but the urge to “somewhat break even” forever looms. What’s to stop them from giving in to those desires when they have a tailor-made excuse now? And, to riff off of an infamous line from 49ers owner Jed York almost a decade ago, you can’t trade this ownership group away at the deadline.
As for Posey, his ability to identify young talent seems to be his best trait, as he’s had two impressive drafts and trade deadlines in his time as president of baseball operations. He’s a fine, fine deadline executive. Whether or not he’s good at anything else is still up for debate.
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Buster Posey, president of baseball operations for the San Francisco Giants, looks on as players warm up before a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies on Friday, May 29, 2026, in Denver.
David Zalubowski/AP Photo/David Zalubowski
What else has he done to prove that he’s worthy of his position? His major free agent acquisition, trade addition and extension signing have all disappointed to the point where the fan base has been clamoring for the Giants to trade every one of them. He made a minimal investment in the pitching staff this past winter, and the results have been what one would have expected. He hired a college head coach with zero pro experience to manage a veteran-heavy roster, and it hasn’t gone well.
Now, Posey still is telling reporters the Giants believe they can be competitive next year, but they will try to do so with all of those big contracts, more holes to fill in the rotation, bullpen and outfield, and massive questions about the leadership from the group that’s in place.
Does anyone trust that the guy who built the roster that’s performing this badly, and apparently didn’t see any of the bullpen issues coming at all, is the right man to try to fix that problem again this offseason? Maybe Posey’s learned a lot from this season, though he hasn’t outwardly indicated as such yet.
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The Giants entered this season in a weird purgatory, with four seasons in a row sniffing contention but ending up back at or just below .500. Going back to my season preview, I said another .500 season would be a terrible result and the Giants would be better off losing 90 so they’d at least have a clear direction.
Logan Webb of the San Francisco Giants on the mound at Oracle Park on July 24, 2026, in San Francisco.
Godofredo Vásquez/San Francisco Giants/Getty Images
Now, that loss number seems inevitable. But instead of a clear direction, the Giants have instead become the laughingstock of baseball, with players openly questioning the manager, forgetting the very basics of the game and allegedly closing down bars before plowing into firetrucks at 2 a.m. And that’s not even touching on the off-field issues that have left the organization scrambling throughout the year.
The Giants are clearly building for the future, yes, but they also haven’t given up on the soon-to-be-present. They won’t do what it takes to completely bottom out, but they also won’t spend what it takes to field a real contender. They appear destined to continue to try and compete for a Wild Card, doing just enough to sell hope and tickets with a watchful eye on 2030.
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The deadline, fun for what it was, has only clouded the picture more. Sure, there’s more to get excited about in the system. But the Giants already have more than $140 million committed to next season to this same core that struggled to this point. It’s going to take a lot of spending to bolster the rotation and bullpen, plus offer some help in the outfield, to get this team in the mix for the playoffs next year. Do we honestly expect the Giants to do that for next season? (If there even is a next season …)
Right now, the only sure thing about the Giants organization right now is an exciting system filled with potential. As for the big league club, well … maybe there’s another theater the Giants can spend their money on this winter.