It’s that time of year again, where the San Francisco Giants are lining up for another mediocre season—projected at about 80 wins by expert Neil Paine. But what was more interesting to us (beyond the projection of fourth place in the National League West for the Giants, of course) was some of the language Paine used to describe what the Giants do and have been doing for awhile now: nothing that makes sense.

The highlights from his March 6 Substack post on the S.F. organization’s 2024 outlook:

  • “they are a perennially confusing franchise”
  • “Their 2010s dynasty didn’t make a whole lot of sense”
  • ” their 107-win renaissance in 2021 didn’t make a whole lot of sense”
  • “San Francisco is currently predicted to win only 80.3 games — which ranks a very distant fourth in the NL West and 18th in MLB overall”
  • “As always, we must caveat that the projections just have zero idea what the Giants are going to do most years”
  • “If they win, it will fly in the face of the projections — what else is new?”

The Giants currently rank 13th in MLB payroll at around $155M. That doesn’t suggest they’ll be making October waves, in light of our ongoing analyses. But you never know, of course, as we keep in mind our understandings of what creates a situation for cheating: does the San Francisco franchise fit these parameters in 2024? Let’s check the list of conditions and see how many fit the Giants right now:

  • Time Lapsed Since Last Championship
    • It’s been a decade since the team won its last World Series, and in a space like San Francisco now, that seems like a long time. The San Francisco 49ers have lost 3 Super Bowls in the last dozen seasons, and overall, it’s been almost 30 years since that team last cheated to win a title. The Golden State Warriors are just 2 seasons removed from their last title, and the fans already are getting restless. This is a market that demands winners now, thanks to the Giants and the Warriors. Therefore, 10 years does seem like a long time, especially with just 2 playoff berths since then (2016, 2021), both ending in the NL Division Series.
  • Money To Be Made from a Desperate/Large Fan Base in a Huge TV Market
    • Definitely. The Giants claimed 2.5M fans last season, although we’re skeptical that is honest with a 79-win team not drawing a lot of love from the bandwagon locals. But compare that to the pre-Covid numbers of also-ran squads from 2017-2019—those seasons averaged over 3M fans at the turnstiles. The more distant the last championship, the more desperate the fans … and the lower the attendance until a team actually starts winning again. So, yeah, we’d say S.F. fans are begging.
  • Sudden Shift in Fortune Defying Logic, Usually Labeled as “Miraculous!”
    • This is yet to be seen, of course, but think of 2021 when the team somehow won 107 games, a franchise record. The organization had not had a winning season in 5 years at that point, and it remains the only winning season the Giants have had since making the postseason in 2016. So, count the years now (7) since the team was “consistently” good, and if the club somehow starts exceeding expectations drastically—remember, Paine predicted 80.3 wins using advanced mathematics and sabermetric projections—then we know something may be amiss in Fog City.

So, the situation is ripe, and now? Back to Paine’s March 6 Substack comments. The first one is easy: “they are a perennially confusing franchise” because, as we have pointed out in our House that Steroids Built series, the Giants probably have been cheating for the better part of 25 years, since Barry Bonds started hanging out at BALCO. That makes sabermetric projections semi-worthless, because there is meddling.

The second comment—”Their 2010s dynasty didn’t make a whole lot of sense”—is something we have discussed before looking at the managerial record of the stained Bruce Bochy. Dynasties usually make the postseason in consecutive seasons, but the 2011 and 2013 Giants missed the playoffs, as did the 2015 Giants. In fact, the 2013 team finished with just 76 victories. The silly “Even Year Magic” mantra was just that: silly.

The 2021 season was so far out of the realm of realistic probability that we started that aforementioned series examining all the years of cheating in San Francisco. So when Paine writes, “their 107-win renaissance in 2021 didn’t make a whole lot of sense”?! We were right there with him, of course, analyzing the heck out of all those improbable performances: looking at you, Brandon Crawford, Buster Posey, et al.

Overall, this a team with just 5 postseason appearances in the last 20 seasons, too, so Paine’s comment that, “As always, we must caveat that the projections just have zero idea what the Giants are going to do most years,” is very true since many experts have made the similar observations as we documented in THTSB series. So, “If they win, it will fly in the face of the projections — what else is new?” Indeed, even in 2024.

The requisite conditions are present, and the pattern is well established at this point. Only time will tell what is what with the upcoming season, in terms of honesty, integrity, and legitimacy. But if these Giants make a playoff push come September, it will be defying all expectations, logic, and math—as par for the course in the House that Steroids Built by the San Francisco Bay. And we will be watching very closely …