Why New San Francisco Giants Superstar May Bounce Back This Season

The San Francisco Giants made two major additions this offseason in free agency and both moves have garnered some underwhelming reactions.

To address their need at shortstop, the team signed Willy Adames to a seven-year, $182 million deal, the largest in franchise history. He will be a huge upgrade for the team offensively and gives them one of the best left sides of the infield in baseball.

But, there are some concerns about how long he will be able to stick at shortstop.

On the mound, they made a splash by signing veteran Justin Verlander away from the Houston Astros.

There was a clear need in the rotation with Blake Snell departing and agreeing to a deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers and it is hard to imagine Verlander filling that void on his own at this stage of his career.

Entering his age-42 campaign, which is cause for concern enough, he is also coming off the worst season of his career in 2024.

Verlander made only 17 starts, going 5-6 with an unsightly 5.48 ERA across 90.1 innings with only 74 strikeouts. However, when taking a deeper look into his performance, it is easy to see where things went awry.

Before his neck injury, his performance was in line with what he provided down the stretch in 2023. However, things went off the rails after the neck injury and while he was trying to make a return for a playoff run.

If the future Hall of Famer can stay healthy, the Giants are going to receive some solid contributions from him because the worries of his pitching ability no longer being serviceable have been blown out of proportions.

Staying healthy is a challenge for any professional player, let alone someone with the wear and tear that Verlander has, preparing for Year 20 in the MLB.

But, there was another thing that hurt him last year that was outside of his control at times; bad luck.

As shared by Grant Brisbee of The Athletic, a lot of his numbers stuff-wise didn’t experience a drastic enough dip to hint that he won’t be able to pitch at an at least average level in 2025.

His expected ERA in 2023 was 3.63 and 3.88 in 2024. The expected slash line was .229/.284/.392 and .234/.337/.389 in 2023 and 2024 respectively as well.

Where the biggest gap existed was in batting average on balls in play.

In 2023, his BABIP was .265, which is well below the MLB average of .297. In 2024, that number jumped to .303; not too high above the league average but a massive jump compared to his previous number.

There was some bad luck involved in his career-worst season, as he remains elite in limiting hard-hit balls against him.

A solid defensive effort from the San Francisco position players would go a long way to helping improve that statistic. Some better luck would also aid in his numbers returning closer to the levels we have become accustomed to seeing him produce at even late in his career.