The San Francisco Giants offseason does not look as though it went as well as most of us had hoped. While the Giants are well known for not wanting to spend money in the offseason, we saw a different outcome this season with the signings of Jorge Soler, Jung Hoo Lee, Matt Chapman and Blake Snell. The offseason signings of Allstar starter caliber players, has still not made a difference record wise. They currently sit at 4th in their division and at this time 3 games outside of the wildcard. Personally, I am hoping the newly signed players will be able to help us pull off a miracle the rest of the season.

  The signing of Jorge Soler made sense, with him having a pretty good season the year before with  the Miami Marlins. Jorge, batted .250, had 36 homeruns, 75 RBI’s and126 hits. On top of those stats, it would also give the Giants a player who has World Series experience, with Jorge winning the World Series MVP, in 2021 with the Atlanta Braves. This season Jorge has had a rough start, batting only .202, with 5 homeruns, 8 RBI’s and 24 hits. Unfortunately, Jorge is also only projected to have 23 homeruns, 36 RBI’s and 108 hits… which is a huge downgrade from last season. In his last 5 games with the Giants, he has been ice cold, going 2/17. As of today, Soler is more of a negative for the Giants this season (so far), but at least he’s been performing about the same as Joc Pederson was for the last few years, who Soler replaced.

Jung Hoo Lee, on the other hand, has been best signing from the offseason, so far. With Lee coming off a very successful career in the Korean Baseball Organization selected as a MVP in 2022 and has been solid this year, so far, being a very dependable and patient hitter. He is batting .252 with 7 rbis, 10 walks, 2 homeruns, 34 hits and is projected for 9 homeruns, 153 hits, 32 rbis, which is about what we expected from his stats in the KBO.  Lee has also been ice cold recently in his last five games batting 6/27. Even though he has been struggling at the plate, he continues to be a great defensive gem in the outfield for the Giants. Overall, Jung Hoo Lee has been a great rookie and one of the best players on the team and a positive replacement for center fielder, Luis Matos.

The addition of Matt Chapman appeared like a good choice, since the Giants were desperately needing to upgrade their defense at 3rd base. Historically, Matt Chapman has been one of the best defensive players at his position, having won 4 Gold Gloves and 2 Platinum Gloves. But his offense has never been amazing. However, this season we currently have him batting .278 with 2 homeruns, 5 hits and 6 RBIs in the first 4 games. But since then, it seemed like he could barely get a hit and is now batting .207 with 4 homeruns, 14 RBIs and 29 hits. He is now projected to have 18 homeruns, 131 hits and 63 RBIs. In addition to that, his defense has not been as great this season as Chapman is tied for second in errors, with six in 36 games. Overall, it’s looking like this might have not have been the best signing… but, again, is a bit better than his replacement, JD Davis. 

The signing of Blake Snell sounded amazing knowing that the Giants biggest problem last year was their pitching. So, to bring in a pitcher who won 2 Cy Youngs in the past 3 years sounded like it could fix that problem. So far this season though, he has played horribly, pitching no where near as well as he played last season with the San Diego Padres. Blake has 0 wins and 3 losses with a 11.39 ERA while giving up 18 hits, 15 earned runs and only 12 strikeouts in 3 games. Unfortunately, I believe he has been, by far, the worst offseason signing so far after 36 games.

The Giants offseason additions have struggled in the first 36 games of season. The Giants are currently holding about the same record as they were at this point last season, 15-18 last year and 15-21 this year. We all have to hope the Giants are just going through a slump and we didn’t just waste our offseason signings.