San Francisco Giants Will Have Golden Opportunity To Climb NL West Standings

Two National League West teams having underwhelming offseasons has opened the door for the San Francisco Giants to move up the standings.

Jul 27, 2024; San Francisco, California, USA; San Francisco Giants catcher Patrick Bailey (14) slides safely into second base with a double ahead of a diving tag attempt by Colorado Rockies second baseman Brendan Rodgers (7) during the seventh inning at Oracle Park. Umpire is Laz Diaz. | D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images

Opinions of the San Francisco Giants and how they have handled their offseason have been wide-ranging.

There has been some good, headlined by their early signing of shortstop Willy Adames. The former Milwaukee Brewers star agreed to a seven-year, $182 million contract, the largest in franchise history.

After that, the team was very quiet outside of landing future Hall of Fame starting pitcher Justin Verlander. He left the Houston Astros, agreeing to a one-year, $15 million deal.

It is fair to question whether or not the team did enough this offseason to climb out of the mediocrity they are mired in.

In the last three campaigns, they have won 80, 79 and 81 games.

Painfully average, the Giants are just a move or two away from being able to make some real noise in the playoff race. If a few things break their way in 2025, such as better injury luck, they will be in the mix right to the end.

While they may not have addressed all of the needs they had, one positive for San Francisco is that they saw two of their National League rivals take steps back this winter, opening the door for them to move up the standings.

The San Diego Padres and Colorado Rockies both made the list put together by Ryan Phillips of Sports Illustrated for teams who had the most demoralizing offseasons heading into the 2025 campaign.

In the 2024 MLB Playoffs, the Padres were one game away from eliminating the Los Angeles Dodgers, who went on to win the World Series.

Replicating that success will be difficult as they lost several key contributors, including closer Tanner Scott joining the Dodgers. The gap has certainly been widened by Los Angeles and could have been closed by the Giants.

After going 6-7 against San Diego in 2024, flipping that to 7-6 or going 8-5 could make a major difference in the standings.

Last year, San Francisco went 10-3 against the Rockies. It is certainly possible they replicate that performance, at the very least, as Colorado did nothing to improve their roster this offseason.

After losing the most games in the NL in 2024, they will be in the running for that distinction again in 2025 and has a good chance of being the worst team overall.

The only moves made in free agency were signing veteran infielders Kyle Farmer and Thairo Estrada. Neither player is a needle-mover as teams are going to love seeing the Rockies on their schedule.

If the Giants are going to make a push for the postseason, they need to continue their dominance over Colorado and take advantage of the Padres loss of talent to pick up a few more games there.