The Failings of Farhan Zaidi
Examining what went wrong that put the Giants in their current situation
Hi! Welcome to the Tracklist, which is basically the now on hiatus Walk Up Pod in written form. First, let me start with thanking you for clicking on this! I miss talking baseball and talking with many different people about baseball. I have three separate unedited episodes that I haven’t published and the time passed me by to even have them be relevant, and the same could probably be said about this specific post. The goal of this blog is just to share ideas I have about Giants baseball, read others inputs and of course share a track that I think aligns with said ideas while getting to experience new music as well, such as the Pharcyde’s Passing Me By since relevancy has already done that. If this is your first ever interaction with me or the Walk Up Pod, thank you for taking the time to read this.)
In the days that have passed since Farhan Zaidi was relieved of his duties as President of Baseball Operations for the San Francisco Giants, I took a look at my twitter account to see what most of my tweets about Farhan Zaidi were. From September, there were a handful of uses of the word “fire” and its variations, even though I wasn’t a part of that section of Giants twitter, more often than not I would be wont to tweet “Farhan Knew”, but the one regret I have is not tweeting “By God, that’s Farhan Zaidi’s walk up music!” I mean for crying out loud I hosted a music and baseball podcast!
Now with Buster Posey coming in as President of Baseball Operations for the Giants, am I going to tweet “that sound you hear is ‘Hell On Wheels’ coming down the hallway” or “Hey Siri, play ‘What I Can’t Put Down’’’? If I could assign Buster Posey some entry music I’d give him “The Distance” by Cake because he’s racing and pacing and plotting the course in these early steps of the offseason while having to due it with speed and aiming for the Giants to go the distance as contenders (also Scott Boras did not return my calls for writing puns for Boras Corp). Alongside those terrible lyrical connections, Posey now has the job of bridging the distance to contention that Farhan Zaidi was unable to consistently do.
I present five items that Farhan Zaidi failed to do with the Giants that lead to his dismal and the Giants being a mostly middling .500 team. There was an almost widespread emphasis from the Giants beat of how Farhan Zaidi tried to distance himself from the even year bullshit magic World Series Champ teams, it’s fair to ask “Was this over before it ever began?”
Coming in at #5 is Zaidi’s failure to rise above circumstances:
Regardless of what side of the Farhan Wars you were in, an examination of the hand he was dealt does paint a situation of making chicken sandwich from chicken you know what
2019: Bochy farewell, cannot do a complete tear down, cannot spend, farm system in shambles
2020: Covid, Posey opts out of season, no MiLB season
2021: 107 Wins
2022: Cannot spend due to lack of ticket sales, Posey retirement, prospects tank
I would say Farhan had worse luck than Peter Parker during his tenure as but unlike the friendly neighborhood vigilante, Farhan Zaidi never seemed to rise above the circumstance. It was just executing the same “smart baseball move after another plan” but when you’re having to continually pivot to plan AA or plan ZZZ, you probably should have a certain point where you look outside your own ideas for how to improve the team. Farhan had a plan that sometimes paid off, and for the most part left us wanting more. I want to shout out our friend in the community discord Anthony for pointing out Tom Tolbert’s great description: With Farhan Zaidi it always felt like he got ingredients for ice cream, but never once did he deliver the ice cream.
We were waiting for the big moment from Zaidi but it never got to us, leaving us to question, “Are We the Waiting?”
At number 4 we highlight the failure to capitalize on anything
I think I have spent enough time talking, tweeting, filling entire notepads about the Giants not further helping themselves widen/keep open their window of opportunity in being a division contender with the botched 21-22 offseason. There’s the inescapable caveat the ownership didn’t want to spend due to the uncertainty of what the finances would be in a season with limited fans.
That was a costly mistake.
Any failures of an organization will always be 100% ownership, they get the blame for everything that goes wrong, that’s how it should work. but
Now looking back at the Giants reluctance to bring in fire power in 21-22 offseason it was an abysmal decision considering other teams had no issues doing such. One can examine the Texas Rangers doing the double of Seager and Semien and see the Giants could’ve done similar with Crawford and Semien or you can examine the Giants choosing Anthony DeSclafani and Alex Wood over Kevin Gausman. One of the final things Zaidi said, that we’ll examine in an upcoming point was maybe not giving opportunities for younger players, but Giants pitching was probably the best place they could have created said opportunities and they clogged them up with veteran pitchers who didn’t come close to producing to their big league contracts, save Rodon, Snell, and Manaea.
Couple that with the fact that under Farhan Zaidi, the Giants failed to turn top prospects into major league contributors either via promotion or trade. With examining FanGraphs explanation of starting caliber fWAR at 2.0 and above, here are the the Giants prospects who produced at that level for the team since 2020
Patrick Bailey in 2023 (2.7)
Patrick Bailey in 2024 (4.2)
Heliot Ramos in 2024 (2.4)
Tyler Fitzgerald in 2024 (3.2)
If we look at players Farhan acquired who hadn’t reached veteran status (500 games played or 5 years of service time)
Mike Yastrezmski (2021)
Yaz could be here for 2020 at 1.9 in a 60 game season
Thairo Estrada (2022 & 2023)
And on the pitching side it’s pretty easy, it’s Logan Webb from 2021-2024.
Now yes there are some wins, Harrison & Birdsong sure have the potential that has shined in games, Eldridge could be the star the Giants have desperately wanted. Tyler Rogers, Camilo Doval, and Sean Hjelle are solid bullpen pieces.
There are far more disappointments. The inability to properly develop talent on the 40 man roster or promoting others to the 40 man roster lead to a lot of shuffling, a lot of held onto assets and those depreciated in value. The disappointing returns on both the Bart and Dubon trades, the failure to pull the trigger on the Sean Murphy/Marco Luciano trade (which hey, I was against, and still have some semblance of fools hope for Luciano to become a good Giant) and the inability to move on from veterans when their value was its highest just showed an inability to adapt from being rigidly conformed to his own system, which left the organisation with many Placeholders.
Coming in at number 3 is the failure to embrace being a Giant:
There’s a delicate line here that I want to examine in an upcoming post, but Zaidi placing a distance from the most successful era of SF Giants baseball still is hard to digest. Make no mistake about it, The Giants could not get stuck in the old ways of how things were. Even with Bochy using analytics on the sly, the Giants had to adapt to modern baseball, and Zaidi brought in some much needed revamps to the Giants. Zaidi made accurate yet difficult optics decisions with Giants like Joe Panik and Brandon Crawford,yet it almost was like watching an alternate version of Parks and Recreation where Ben Wyatt never develops relationships with the key cast and falls in love with Leslie Knope.
I would say the biggest question is how do you be in a place for 6 years and not have a sense of pride and identity in the product on the field? Or as John Shea reported how does the PBO start making self preservation moves rather than the actual smart baseball moves that would benefit the Giants. I have no doubt in my mind Farhan has one of the best baseball minds in MLB right now, but you can’t just be about the team when it has Buster Posey in the lineup and then be about yourself when there is a leadership void.
The one thing we know about Buster Posey is he loves the Giants and we’ll never have to question that. For Farhan Zaidi, I at least wish him the best and hope he finds a situation better tailored for him.
At number 2 was the constant communications issues that plagued the Giants under Zaidi.
It started with a sudden Connor Joe and Michael Reed opening day outfielder. It continued with guys going on the IL without them understanding, which I am still surprised that Zaidi never got a grievance filled against him for it. For you to be an executive at the MLB level and have so many of your subordinates going “wtf is going on” is a brutal look and embarrassing for a fanbase. I was really taken aback by this, I thought Zaidi often would do well in interviews and press scrums. (There was the occasional moment where I would question that look, and he always had Greg Johnson near by to say something even more stupid which would take the ire out of it).
Communication issues clearly took place between the front office and coaching staff throughout this season. In what was supposed to be a blend of both worlds, which I would still argue is what the Giants need, the fans were left with a product that was dominated by a doomed party with the good things from 2021 being left in the past.
The final issue that doomed Farhan’s tenure I would title the Dodger way.
Let me make it clear, I am not saying Farhan was a Dodger Spy. If you believe that, you are an idiot, seek help. But there was an article written by Daniel Brown of the Athletic that I have always tucked away and read to examine how the Giants were meeting the goals of Farhan Zaidi. The three things Zaidi highlighted:
Giants cannot match, nor should match, how the Dodgers acquired veterans
The Dodgers would rather the Giants try and acquire veterans rather than give opportunities to young guys
If the Giants continued on in the methods they did, the should expect to finish behind the Dodgers in drastic measures
Farhan specifically highlighted that from 2017-2019 the Giants finished a combined 87.5 games behind the Giants.
In examining the goals we can start with the Giants winning percentage and combined games they have finished behind the Dodgers. From 2017-2019 the Giants went 214-272 which is good for a .440 winning percentage. The 2020-2024 Giants improved to 376-332 good for a .531 winning percentage. Obviously there’s the 107 W season in there to help buoy that record but the Dodgers maintained that pace and fell 1 game behind the Giants in 2021. The Giants have shortened the distance of the fall but still have finished a combined 74 games behind the Dodgers. So certainly we see an improvement from where the Giants were, but it’s not enough to compare to where you were and now are, you have to continually be striving to be the division leader rather than hoping your floor will be enough to sneak into the wildcard.
Then you look at the comment that the Dodgers would rather watch the Giants roll with young guys and start to build something. The Giants have had 69 (lol nice) players take at least 150 PAs since 2020. Of those 69 players 16 have been 26 or younger. Those 16 player lines have accumulated 20.7 fWAR, which sounds like a really good start. When you examine a little closer:
Patrick Bailey and Thairo Estrada account for 14.7 of that.
Tyler Fitzgerald accounts for 3.2 of that.
Ramos who accrued 2.4 fWAR in 2024, accounts for 1.8 of that.
Thats 4 players at 19.7 fWARwhich means of those under 26 year olds Joey Bart, Luis Gonzalez, Casey Schmitt, Mauricio Dubon, Blake Sabol, Luis Matos, Jung Hoo Lee and Brett Wisely have all accounted for a combined 1.0 fWAR.
Giants have been trying but it just hasn’t been there. And I’m sure with each examination of the Giants prospects we can see maybe rushed development, injuries, coaching/management patience wearing thin and lack of talent. The good news is that a trio of Bailey, Ramos, Fitzgerald should be valuable pieces in 2025 (I want to highlight Casey Schmitt as someone who seemed to have a bounce back type of year with almost 1.0 fWAR improvement) but getting this trio happened in year 6 of Farhan Zaidi’s tenure, and Estrada is no longer a part of the plans, so they’re still searching and trying to build sustainably.
In examining the next piece of veteran chasing, The Dodgers have had 59 players accumulate 150 ABs from 2020-2024. 13 of them had not achieved veteran status (meaning either becoming arbitration eligible or yet to play 500 games) thats 78% of their ABs coming from veteran players. We can see Farhan had the principle in place, but proportionately you have the Giants at 16/69 and the Dodhers at 13/59. With the Giants in the building the plane as we’re trying to fly it strategy, Zaidi has needed to find production from veterans, and he’s limited himself to veterans of his liking.
There were some deals the Giants never should have pursued and didn’t which is good (see Javier Baez, enemy of pitching Ninja) but the Giants have greatly miscalculated which veterans to pursue. Grant Brisbee shared an excel sheet highlight free agent spending. Giants signed 3 more players than the Dodgers (22 to 19), Giants accumulated 33.4 WAR while the Dodgers received 58.6 WAR. If we break that down by WAR per signing, the Giants signed bench level production at 1.5 WAR per signing compared to the Dodgers signing a solid starter at 3.1 WAR per signing. This probably sheds more light on Farhan’s comments on KNBR saying they tried to do too much in FA rather than give young guys the opportunity at the big league level.
In summary, the gap closed one year and only at one game, the prospects didn’t produce until Zaidi’s final season, and the Giants played an arms race with the Dodgers only to look poorly equipped for the fight they were embarking on. A sensible plan that initially could be bought wasn’t, able to be bottled up as poor timing and execution would leave Farhan unable to build a Giants way and unable to continue as a copy cat.
Here is the tracklist playlist for today’s post, which you can listen to on Spotify here:
The Pharcyde - Passing Me By
Cake - The Distance
Anberlin - The Feel Good Drag
Green Day - Are We The Waiting
Nickel Creek - Somebody More Like You
Stevie Wonder - Superstition
Sara Bareilles - Bottle It Up