As we discussed midseason on The House that Steroids Built miniseries entry, this was a surprisingly weird year for the San Francisco Giants: now that the season is over, it’s time to see what the final analysis says for a team that went 80-82 this year with a Top 10 payroll. And it’s not pretty … although perhaps not in the way you’re thinking based on past precedent. The result was the firing of the team president. Ouchie, eh?

One thing that stands out to us is third baseman Matt Chapman and his 7.1 WAR season—his best value output season since 2019, and he’s now age 31 in his first year with San Francisco. It would be kind of fishy, except that his OPS was just .790 … which isn’t too far off the numbers he’s been putting up for the prior four seasons (all in the .700s range). He got more WAR out of that because the team around him sucked.

Exhibit A: Taylor Rogers

This is a carryover from the midseason analysis, as the age-33 reliever finished with a 2.40 ERA, his lowest since … ever … in a nine-year MLB career across four different organizations since 2016. How does that happen? Well, we do realize the volatility of reliever ERAs on a year to year basis, but this is the lefty guy who used to be used most often to face one batter. With the new rules, we’d expect rougher ERAs these days.

Nothing in his peripherals jumps out at us, though, in terms of a suspect K rate or anything. He just finished the second year of a three-year, $33M deal, though, and his ERA last year—3.83—was higher than his career mark, so all we can really surmise is that maybe he wanted to make sure he earned his money, in order to get another deal after this one. How he pitches in 2025 at age 34 with free agency impending … yeah.

Conclusion: Move along … nothing to see here!

And honestly, that’s about it. This roster was low in talent, performed about how it should have, and finished about where it should have. Manager Bob Melvin left a talent-rich roster in San Diego—which made the postseason easily, one year after missing it with him—to come skipper this mess of a team. We have a lot of respect for Melvin, although one reason he left the Padres was due to the pressure to win.

Well, now with the team president axed, the Giants have put their golden boy in charge: Buster Posey. They will never blame Posey for anything, no matter what happens, so now Melvin really will be on the hot spot in 2025. We will see how this impacts the players’ individual choices under duress, even though we feel strongly that Melvin is a stand-up guy. Posey’s own history is not so clean, of course, when one actually looks.

Next year will be an interesting one for a club that has just one postseason appearance since 2016, now with a restless fan base that has watched the hated Los Angeles Dodgers make 12 straight postseasons while winning 11 NL West Division titles in that span. Of course, the Giants have made consecutive playoffs just once since moving to S.F. in 1958, and the Dodgers make hand over fist financially, which the Giants do not.

It will be an interesting year in 2025 for The House that Steroids Built. With the organization drift back to the ways of old? Or will it maintain its trajectory downward, honestly? Only time will tell …