How Buster Posey Built the Giants’ Worst Start in Franchise History

The Giants have been playing baseball for 144 seasons, and they have never had a worse start to a campaign.

On Sunday, when an extra-innings loss to the Rays dropped them to 13-21, they matched the worst start in franchise history that spans back to 1883, when the New York Gothams debuted in Major League Baseball. San Francisco split two games with the Padres and now sits at 14-22, already eight games back in the National League West.

With a payroll of almost $200 million and franchise icon Buster Posey in charge of the front office, this wasn’t supposed to be what happened to the Giants in 2026. A series of bad decisions has brought the franchise to this spot, and it was all avoidable.

The problems begin with the guy Posey bet the franchise on.

Rafael Devers has disintegrated

When the Giants landed Devers in a deal with the Red Sox last June, he was expected to be the franchise’s next great slugger. He was a three-time All-Star who had won two Silver Sluggers and a World Series, was still in the middle of his prime and locked up through 2033. Fans could dream on his power. He was San Francisco's missing piece, a lefty thumper who would hit majestic blasts into McCovey Cove with regularity. In reality, the deal has been a nightmare.

After acquiring Devers, the Giants’ offense completely collapsed before a muted comeback at the end of the year. While his production was alarmingly bad for most of 2025, his numbers in 2026 in no way resemble the guy who was a cornerstone of Boston’s lineup for years.

Through 36 games, Devers is hitting .219 with a .571 OPS. He has two home runs, 14 RBIs and 44 strikeouts against only nine walks. He has a wRC+ of 59, which ranks 165th out of 179 qualified hitters, while his wOBA of .263 ranks 172nd. The 29-year-old’s strikeout rate of 29.9% is a career worst, and his walk rate has plummeted to 6.3% from 15.4% last year.

Devers’s average exit velocity is 89.3 mph so far in 2026, which ranks in the 50th percentile. It was 93.5 mph last season, which was in the 97th percentile. His hard-hit rate has fallen to 42.4% from 56.1%, and his xSLG is a woeful .345, down from .487 in 2025. Even more alarming is how he's failing against fastballs. Devers's xSLG against four-seamers was .528 in 2025, and it has plummeted to .353 this year. Unfortunately for the Giants, Devers has shown little interest in fixing things.

Maybe it should have been a bigger red flag when Devers left Boston on the worst possible terms.

The team’s offense is the worst in baseball

Willy Adames — Adames is slashing just .199/.236/.340 this season. | Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images

The Giants sit at the bottom of the league in almost every major offensive category. As a team, they are dead last in runs (114), home runs (22), on-base percentage (.286) and walk rate (5.7%). That’s not all. They’re 29th in wRC+, fWAR (0.8), and OPS (.645), and 28th in slugging (.359). Yeah, it’s really bad.

San Francisco’s lineup is full of guys who aren’t pulling their weight. Devers isn’t the only culprit.

Willy Adames looks lost at the plate despite being in the middle of a seven-year, $182 million contract. He’s played in 35 games and is slashing .199/.236/.340, with a massive strikeout rate of 31.1%, and a wRC+ of 60. Matt Chapman’s wRC+ is currently a career-worst 85, and he’s posting an OPS of .636. He's in the second season of a six-year, $151 million extension Posey was involved in negotiating before he took over baseball operations.

The Giants anointed Patrick Bailey the franchise catcher three years ago, and he hasn't improved at all offensively. In fact, the 26-year-old is getting worse. Bailey has generated -7.9 offensive runs above average. That’s even worse than Devers (-7.8). His wRC+ of 20 is second-worst among catchers with at least 80 plate appearances.

Among players with more than 30 plate appearances, only Casey Schmitt, Luis Arráez and Jung Hoo Lee are over the 100 wRC+ mark. For his part, Schmitt has been a bright spot. His six home runs are nearly half the team’s entire total.

All you need to know is that the Giants have been shut out an MLB-leading seven times this season. That’s almost once every five games.

Offseason additions have flopped

The Giants entered last offseason with several holes and addressed them in the laziest way possible. San Francisco needed to add offensive punch, add starting pitching and find a closer. They did none of that.

Arráez and Harrison Bader were the two players brought in to improve the offense. One has been solid, the other awful. Bader is currently sidelined by a hamstring injury, but before hitting the IL, he slashed .115/.145/.192, with a comical wRC+ of -10. He produced -0.6 fWAR in only 15 games, which is, frankly, an impressive level of futility.

To address their rotation, the Giants signed Tyler Mahle and Adrian Houser. Both moves look like mistakes. Houser is currently 0-3 with a 7.12 ERA, a 1.71 WHIP, and has allowed 42 hits and 10 walks in 30 1/3 innings. Mahle hasn’t been much better. He’s 1-4 with a 5.00 ERA and a 1.53 WHIP through 36 innings. He has already allowed six home runs, which is more than he surrendered in 16 starts last season.

Logan Webb’s brutal start to the season has made Mahle and Houser's failures more dire. The team’s No. 1 starter is 2-4 and has a 5.06 ERA and a 1.40 WHIP in 48 innings. The 29-year-old is coming off a five-year run in which his ERA never topped 3.47.

The closer spot remains unaddressed as four different players have picked up saves, but there is still no go-to guy in the bullpen.

Buster Posey’s big gambles

Posey is a legend in San Francisco, but it is quickly becoming apparent that he may not be good at this job. Since being hired as the Giants’ president of baseball operations on September 30, 2024, he has made a series of moves that might get him fired.

Just over two months after getting the job, Posey gave Adames the biggest contract in Giants history. That seven-year, $182 million contract included a full no-trade clause and will be nearly impossible to get out of.

Adames hit .251, with 32 home runs, 112 RBIs, a 120 wRC+ and 4.8 fWAR. He had the best season of his career just before hitting free agency. It’s always dangerous to buy high on guys who explode in a walk year. Since arriving in San Francisco, he’s slashing .220/.304/.406, with a wRC+ of 99. He’s been horrible in 2026, and isn't improving. He has produced -0.5 fWAR.

Posey’s biggest move since taking over has been landing Devers from the Red Sox for lefty Kyle Harrison, outfielder James Tibbs III, reliever Jordan Hicks and righty Jose Bello. At the time, it looked like a genius move. In hindsight, it was an awful deal. Harrison, now with the Brewers, has looked good as a starter, while Tibbs is tearing up Triple A for the rival Dodgers. San Francisco could use both of those guys. Instead, they have Devers, a moody star who isn’t playing like it.

Perhaps Posey’s craziest move was hiring Tennessee's Tony Vitello as his team’s manager. Vitello had success at the college level and led the Volunteers to an NCAA title in 2024, but no college coach had ever jumped to immediately take over an MLB team. We're only a month into the experiment, but things have not gone well.

Being bold isn't always a good thing. When you get the idea to do something no one has ever done before, you’ll either wind up looking like a genius or a cautionary tale. Unfortunately for Posey, the Vitello hire is looking like the latter.

Buster Posey is one of the greatest players in the long history of the Giants. He also built the team that authored the worst start in franchise history.

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