65-97 and Nobody's Fired: Inside the Giants' Gamble That Continuity Can Fix a Franchise-Worst Season

The final number is 97. That's how many games the San Francisco Giants lost in 2026, against 65 wins — a .401 winning percentage, a minus-91 run differential (669 scored, 760 allowed), and, by the accounting of the team's own beat writers, the worst season in franchise history. The campaign that began March 25 with vague Wild Card hopes ended with Tony Vitello ejected for an MLB-leading seventh time in the finale against the Dodgers.

Here's the part that has made this the most compelling story of the week: almost nobody is paying for it.

The Non-Decision

Reporting around the club's post-mortem press conference indicates the Giants are not likely to make major changes to either the coaching staff or the front office. Vitello, whose first season produced a step backward, returns. President of baseball operations Buster Posey — who publicly took the blame for the bullpen — enters 2027 in the final year of a three-year deal with, by his own account, no extension discussions underway. That's a lame-duck executive presiding over a roster that just lost 97 games, and it's a defensible reading that the organization has chosen stability over a reset.

Whether that's naivety or sanity depends entirely on what the front office does between now and spring.

How It Fell Apart

The injury ledger explains a lot, even if the front office shouldn't be allowed to hide behind it. Seventeen players finished the year on the 60-day injured list, a group that includes Matt Chapman, Rafael Devers, Harrison Bader, Casey Schmitt, Hayden Birdsong, Keaton Winn and Blade Tidwell, who exited his final start with elbow discomfort.

Chapman's year is the clearest illustration: 84 games, a .235 average and a .692 OPS for a player the lineup was built around. Logan Webb, the rotation's anchor, finished 8-9 with a 4.31 ERA over 160.2 innings — volume without the usual dominance. The club used 27 pitchers.

The bullpen was the true crater. A 4.55 ERA and 1.502 WHIP across the relief corps, with only 15 saves recorded by relievers, is the profile of a unit that couldn't hold leads or games. The staff's 23rd-place overall ERA ranking reflects it.

What Actually Matters for 2027

Three things now define the Giants' offseason, and all three are pitching-adjacent: rotation depth, bullpen reconstruction, and a right-handed outfield bat. The complication is that nine players are arbitration-eligible, many of them relievers — meaning the same arb decisions that shape the payroll also telegraph how aggressively the front office intends to rebuild the pen from outside.

There is a real foundation. Bryce Eldridge, in 107 games, hit .269 with a .364 on-base percentage, 17 homers and an .825 OPS. Jung Hoo Lee posted a .276 average in 143 games. Devers, before the IL stint, slugged 37 homers with 98 RBI and an .865 OPS. Heliot Ramos was moved to the Yankees in August and barely played in October, but the return matters more than the departure.

The question the Giants have effectively answered — with no firings, no staff overhaul, and a lame-duck executive — is that they believe the 2026 disaster was an injury-driven outlier rather than a structural failure. Posey has said he thinks this club can compete for a playoff spot next season. The rotation needs multiple arms, the bullpen needs a rebuild, and the lineup needs balance to make that more than a press-conference aspiration.

Ninety-seven losses bought this front office one more year of patience. It will not buy a second.