Kurtenbach: Expectations must become reality for the 2024 SF Giants

The mandate for the San Francisco Giants in 2024 is crystal clear:

This big-market, big-money team cannot miss the postseason for a third straight year.

It doesn’t matter how they reach the playoffs. They can magically and inexplicably win 107 games again (the super fun route) or sneak in with a barely .500 record (the got-it-done option). They can do it by leaning on old players, young players, or a whole bunch of players in between. They can buy or sell at the trade deadline or do a bit of both.

For the Giants, the ends will justify the means, so long as the end is October baseball.

(Though I’m sure ownership would prefer if they could do that and “somewhat break even.”)

And here’s the good news: it’s an absolutely reasonable goal for the Giants to make the playoffs.

It took a while to come together, but the Giants had a blockbuster offseason. Outside of the Dodgers, no one spent more on outside-the-organization talent.

In adding a top-of-the-order, everyday center fielder (Jung Hoo Lee), one of the best all-around third basemen of this generation (Matt Chapman), a former 48-home-run strongman to bat cleanup (Jorge Soler), and the reigning National League Cy Young winner (Blake Snell), it’s clear the Giants’ front office received the fanbase’s demands.

That heat emanating from their seats spurred action. The Giants acted like a team intent on making the Dodgers’ life hell in 2024 and perhaps making some waves of their own.

And outside of being the Dodgers (an impossible standard to match), I’m not sure what more anyone could ask for heading into this campaign.

After all, if the Giants that were already on the roster were fine, adding these new guys should make this year’s team pretty good.

This year, pretty good will be good enough.

And better yet, this team makes sense — at least on paper.

A team that plays 81 games a season at Oracle Park should be focused on run suppression. If the Giants have any positives in the talent pipeline, it’s pitching. They have a glut of young, impressive arms.

So by improving the team’s defense (outside of left field, there’s no clear weakness — and perhaps three Gold Glove winners on the infield) and doubling down on that impressive pitching depth by signing Snell and trading for another former Cy Young winner Robbie Ray (who will return mid-season), San Francisco should win games.

The offense should improve, too. The Giants’ 2023 season was torpedoed by anemic hitting in the second half. Before the All-Star break, the Giants had scored the 11th most runs in baseball. After that, they scored the fewest runs per game in the majors. Even the A’s were better.

Get this: the Giants’ plan to game the system and amalgamate a bunch of part-time guys in the hopes of receiving quality full-time production didn’t stand up to the scrutiny of six months and 162 games.

This year, we’ll avoid the daily mystery of who is in the lineup. There won’t be a clandestine operation to hide the day’s starting pitcher, either. Sure, there will still be some platooning—first base and right field will be split, at least to start the season — but we’re past the eras of openers, piggybacks, and general lineup tomfoolery.

The man tasked with putting together that standard, downright repeatable lineup this season was also an offseason addition.

And he might prove to be the biggest addition when the 2024 season comes to an end.

No manager in baseball has consistently gotten more from less than Bob Melvin. He won 53 percent of his games in Oakland and had the same winning percentage the last two years in San Diego, where he was hired to fix the incredible clubhouse mess former manager Jayce Tingler created in only 222 games.

And what’s most impressive about Melvin’s time, specifically in Oakland, is that he didn’t micromanage, making him a sharp departure from his predecessor in San Francisco, Gabe Kapler.

After all, that sort of thing was always beneath the Giants. Let the small-market, low-budget teams sweat the small stuff and play between the margins. The Giants play in the richest region in America. It was about time they acted like it.

Now they have.

This isn’t to say that progression from last season’s 79-83 campaign is guaranteed. Far from it.

The Giants might be projected to win the third-most games in the National League this upcoming season after the March additions of Snell and Chapman, but it still puts them well behind the Dodgers and Braves — baseball’s two best. Furthermore, there are between eight and 10 other teams in the league that are projected (depending on what system you use) to be within four games of .500 this season.

Thanks to the expanded playoffs and the sport’s relatively new luxury tax thresholds, nearly every team that’s trying is playing for the middle.

Call it parity if you want — I’ll call it mediocrity. It pays in Commissioner Rob Manfred’s game.

The Giants could be part of that glob of “meh,” or they could be a step above it this season.

Either way, there won’t be much margin for error this season.

The work of the offseason was excellent and has the fan base feeling a sense of optimism that hasn’t been approached in nearly a decade. Give the Giants’ front office plaudits for that.

But now the real work begins.

Would it be nice if the 2024 Giants were fun to watch? Absolutely. We’d all like to enjoy six months of engaging, interesting, entertaining baseball.

While I think the Giants will, in fact, provide that this upcoming season, the only thing they need to deliver is a playoff berth.

This team has lofty, serious expectations this season.

They have to become reality by the fall.