San Francisco Giants Have Shown Biggest Year-Over-Year Improvement in Baseball

The San Francisco Giants have been the most pleasant surprise in baseball in the first few weeks of the 2025 MLB season.

Not much was expected out of the team, which was once again projected to be right around the .500 mark. Painfully mediocre was a good way to describe the team since Buster Posey announced his retirement following the 2021 season.

Now that he is back with the franchise in an official capacity as the president of baseball operations, however, things have already taken off.

The Giants are 15-8, doing everything in their power to keep pace with the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West. They are both 16-7 and San Francisco is holding off the Arizona Diamondbacks, who are 13-9.

Easily the best division in baseball, those NL West teams are going to test each other throughout the year. Their great starts are putting a ton of pressure on other NL contenders, such as the Atlanta Braves, who started slow and are now in a huge hole.

For the Giants, the improvement they have made in just one calendar year is truly remarkable.

At this point last season, they were already in the bottom third of the MLB power rankings shared by The Athletic (subscription required). They had a few solid stretches during the season but were never real threats for a playoff spot, ending the year at 80-82.

This year, they are cementing themselves as one of the better teams in baseball. The MLB writers who handled rankings, going with a year in review theme, have them as most improved team in the league.

Last year at this point, San Francisco was No. 21 in the rankings. This time around, they are No. 5; only the Dodgers, Padres, New York Mets and New York Yankees are ahead of them.

“The Giants are one of the biggest movers in this exercise, and their ability to look competent in the face of expected doom is yet another reason why,” wrote Grant Brisbee.

Coming into the year, the biggest question mark about the team was their ability to score runs. Thus far they have succeeded in that area, averaging 5.05 per game, which is the sixth-most in MLB entering play on Tuesday.

Barely league average in most offensive statistics, the offense is being carried right now by breakout star Jung Hoo Lee, who owns a .329/.383/.600 slash line with an MLB-leading 10 doubles.

Third baseman Matt Chapman leads the MLB with 22 walks drawn, while designated hitter Wilmer Flores has seven home runs and 24 RBI.

Veteran outfielder Mike Yastrzemski has an OPS+ of 170, which is second behind Lee’s 182 through 22 games. Tyler Fitzgerald and Chapman are the only other players with an above-average OPS+, while outfielder Heliot Ramos is right on the average at 100.

The most encouraging thing about the offensive performance is that this isn’t close to their peak, with star shortstop Willy Adames yet to get going and first baseman LaMonte Wade Jr. producing a .103/.232/.241 slash line.

When they find their groove, this offense can be taken to another level, which will help them keep pace with the other NL contenders in support of what has been a great pitching staff.

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