The Amato Report - Giants
- Jim Santora
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
The Giants got bounced in the wildcard round and look to rebound in a season where they have more at bats from Acuna and a fully healthy Alcantara, but have weaker relief pitching, which I haven't said about them in years.
The Giants will have a typical Billy offseason: say to everyone you haven't looked at anything, do a couple small trades when pestered, and then unleash on relievers in the draft.
NOTABLE OFFSEASON TRANSACTIONS
Acquired: Pavin Smith
Departed: Lourdes Gurriel Jr
STRENGTHS
When you think of the Giants, you think of starting pitching. They're still good, but maybe not as deep as previous years when they had prime Wheeler, Burnes, Alcantara, and Webb. Most of the guys are back + a half year of Chris Sale, and still have good cards. Try beating this rotation in the playoffs...ugh. Even Martin Perez has a good card!
The offense is improved, led by a monster Juan Soto card. Acuna has about 67% of at bats and the card looks like his MVP card a few years ago. Seager and Trea put together another solid season, and there are a lot of complementary pieces in Ian Happ, Pavin Smith, and JT Realmuto. The players that are offensively challenged make up for it with their 1's at their position.
Also, shoutout to Daulton Varsho...has minimum at bats but that card vs rhp is sick and is a 1 in CF!
OPPORTUNITIES
As with a typical Billy offseason, most of his low inning relief guys from the year before never came back to the majors or were awful - that means YOU, Sean Reid-Foley (who????) - so the annual 'Billy loading up on relievers in the draft' will commence in 15 days.
I could see the Giants looking to improve on 1B and 3B and grabbing some CF depth to split time with Varsho. Seeing how they have the 10th pick overall and then nothing until the 6th, I doubt they'll use the 1st rounder on hitting when their biggest need is relief pitching. Just imagine if one of his main guys moved to 1B so he could fit all of them into the same lineup...that would be so gross.
Projected lineup (as of now vs RHP)
C - JT Realmuto
1B - Pavin Smith / Victor Caratini
2B - Andres Gimenez
3B - Ryan McMahon
SS - Corey Seager / Trea Turner
LF - Ian Happ
CF - Daulton Varsho (half at bats)
RF - Juan Soto / Ronald Acuna
DH - Trea Turner / Ronald Acuna
Projected rotation
Zack Wheeler
Logan Webb
Sandy Alcantara
Chris Sale
Martin Perez (yes, the card is good though it only has a few starts)
Keep an eye on these players in 2026 (in real life)
Zack Wheeler - had the blood clot and then had a rib removed...looks good in bullpen sessions so will be interesting to see how he comes back. Maybe he'll stare at his rib in the jar between starts for good luck.
Sandy Alcantara - one year removed from TJ, will he bounce back and look his normal self? Still had an okay 2025, but there's more there.
Ronald Acuna, Corey Seager, Daulton Varsho - can any of these bozos stay healthy for a year??? Same old story the last 2-3 years.
2026 projection based on Ed's power rankings: 4th place (8.29, .08 behind the Nats for 3rd place)
Billy will do his things: draft a million bullpen guys in the draft, be a top manager in the game, and then make no trades until he makes a massive deal with a team selling a day or two before the deadline. And he will get into the playoffs. I honestly can't target how far he'll go but seeing that his main need is bullpen pieces that you can get plenty of in the draft, I think the Giants - come opening day - will run out another top team.
