Posey starts the winter with the bullpen, and the rotation lost more
The Giants finished 65-97 and have said where the repair work begins. Seventy of their 162 starts in 2026 were made by pitchers who have since been traded or are not expected back before late 2027 at the earliest.
Buster Posey opened the Giants' season-end news conference at Oracle Park on September 29 by setting the order of the winter's work. The bullpen comes first. "The bullpen struggled this year and I'll take the blame for that," he said, according to NBC Sports Bay Area's Alex Pavlovic, and on NBC's Giants Talk podcast afterward he put the rotation "right behind it."
The order fits the season the club just played. Whether it fits the roster the club takes into 2027 is a separate question, and the paperwork answers the two differently.
San Francisco finished 65-97. Only Colorado, the Angels and the Athletics were worse, and in the National League only Colorado. The Giants were outscored 760 to 669, did not finish a single calendar month above .500, and went 18-32 from August 3, the day of the last deadline trades, to the end. The 97 losses are the most since the 2017 club lost 98, and 2021 is the only winning season in the last ten.
Why the bullpen is first in line#
The case for Posey's order is concentrated in the late innings. The Giants went 16-29 in one-run games. Twelve different pitchers recorded a save and only one, Caleb Kilian, recorded more than five, and Kilian was traded to Philadelphia on August 3. MLB Trade Rumors had the relief corps' strikeout-minus-walk rate ahead of only Kansas City and Colorado as of mid-September.
By earned run average the bullpen looks less singular. Giants relievers allowed 4.14 runs per nine over 595 2/3 innings, 19th of 30 clubs. The rotation allowed 4.48 over 834 1/3 innings, 24th. A blown lead in the ninth costs the same one game as a starter who is gone in the third, but the reliever's loss is the one a club remembers by October.
The bullpen also has help coming from inside the building. The club's injury report, last updated September 29, has Randy Rodríguez pitching in the Arizona Fall League this month after Tommy John surgery, with an expected return in 2027. Pavlovic reports the club does not intend to make him the closer again because of the operation. Camilo Doval, claimed back off waivers from Pittsburgh on September 24, is arbitration eligible, and Posey was noncommittal about him.
Where the 162 starts went#
The rotation has no equivalent help coming. The club used fourteen starting pitchers in 2026, and sorting their starts by who will be available next spring shows how much of the year's work has already left.
| Group | Pitchers (starts) | Starts | Status for 2027 |
|---|---|---|---|
| On the active roster | Landen Roupp (29), Logan Webb (27) | 56 | Available |
| On the 60-day list, expected back | Adrian Houser (16) | 16 | Club expects him ready by spring training after a right flexor strain |
| Traded at the deadline | Robbie Ray (21), Tyler Mahle (18) | 39 | Gone |
| Elbow surgery | Trevor McDonald (14), Blade Tidwell (9), Carson Whisenhunt (8) | 31 | Expected return late 2027 or 2028 (McDonald), 2028 (Tidwell, Whisenhunt) |
| Spot and September starters | Matt Wilkinson (6), Anthony Molina (5), Cesar Perdomo (4), Yunior Marte (3), JT Brubaker (1), Carson Seymour (1) | 20 | On the active roster |
| Total | 14 pitchers | 162 |
Seventy of the 162 starts belong to the two groups that will not be on a mound for the Giants for most or all of 2027. Ray made his 21 starts with a 3.08 ERA over 122 2/3 innings before San Francisco traded him to San Diego, the lowest ERA of the fourteen. Tidwell is the newest of the three surgeries: the club's injury report says he will have his ulnar collateral ligament repaired by Dr. Keith Meister in mid-October.
The one starter expected back from elbow surgery in 2027 is Hayden Birdsong, who had Tommy John surgery on March 25, made no starts this year, and began a throwing program in late September, according to the same report. Webb and Roupp, the two men who made a third of the club's starts, finished with ERAs of 4.31 over 160 2/3 innings and 4.01 over 155.
Posey has said himself why this is the harder half of the job. "It's hard to trade for pitching," he said on the podcast. "It's extremely valuable, and it's hard to get people to give up pitching." That is a statement about the trade market. It leaves free agency, which he named in the same answer, as the place a rotation gets rebuilt.
The lineup the plan leaves alone#
Posey's diagnosis of the season had two halves. "We walked too many guys when we were pitching," he said, "and then we weren't drawing enough walks when we were hitting." The second half is the more extreme one. Giants hitters drew 449 walks in 6,061 plate appearances, the fewest in the majors. Giants pitchers issued 596, the sixth-most.
The position-player plan announced on September 29 did not change much. Willy Adames stays at shortstop, Posey said, with a healed back expected to help him in the field.
The four infielders the club is building around had very different seasons.
- Rafael Devers hit .258/.340/.525 with 37 home runs in 633 plate appearances, then had core muscle surgery in September. The club expects him fully ready by spring training.
- Bryce Eldridge hit .269/.364/.461 in 448 plate appearances. He turns 22 on October 20.
- Willy Adames hit .230/.289/.424 in 505 plate appearances.
- Matt Chapman hit .235/.324/.368 in 352 plate appearances before core muscle surgery ended his season. He turned 33 in April.
Three of those four carry the contracts that shape every other decision. According to MLB Trade Rumors, Chapman is owed $100 million from 2027 through 2030, Adames $140 million from 2027 through 2031, and Devers $211 million from 2027 through 2033, with $7.5 million of his salary deferred each year. That is $451 million from 2027 on. Chapman and Adames have full no-trade protection; Devers has none. Pavlovic reports that rival executives consider it "just about impossible" for the Giants to move any of the three before a lockout.
The other clock#
The same week the major league club lost its 97th game, MLB Pipeline named San Francisco its Farm System of the Year. The citation, as reported by NBC Sports Bay Area, credits a climb from 19th in Pipeline's preseason organizational rankings to fifth at midseason, the largest of any club, along with five prospects on the Top 100 and the best organizational winning percentage in baseball. Two of those five, Josuar Gonzalez at No. 15 and Luis Hernández at No. 25, are teenagers who finished the year at Single-A.
The honor measures a pipeline, and pipelines run on a different clock from a 40-man roster. The roster currently carries 40 active players and 17 more on the 60-day injured list, which removes a player from the 40-man count only temporarily. Eleven of the 17 are pitchers. When they come back onto the count, the club holds 57 men for 40 places, and the winter's first set of decisions is which of them to keep before anyone is added.
Posey has one year left on his own contract, a subject that came up at the news conference. Tony Vitello, whom Posey hired and confirmed as the manager for 2027, is under contract for two more seasons, according to Pavlovic. The front office has said where it will start. The 70 starts are the measure of how much the rotation needs, and Posey's own account of the trade market is the reason that need is harder to fill than the bullpen's. Whether the first pitcher San Francisco adds this winter is a reliever or a starter will say which of those two problems the club believes it can solve before a lockout.
Sources: MLB Stats API (2026 standings, all 162 Giants regular-season results, team hitting and pitching totals for all 30 clubs, starter and reliever splits, per-pitcher games started for team 137, player season lines, the 40-man roster and the club's transaction log; Giants records 2016 to 2025); MLB.com (Giants injuries and roster moves, updated September 29); NBC Sports Bay Area (Alex Pavlovic, September 29 and October 1; Farm System of the Year, September 29); MLB Trade Rumors (Darragh McDonald, August 21 and September 17; Charlie Wright, September 27); MLB.com glossary (60-day injured list).
