Just a few weeks into the season and the Giants are what we thought they would be, mostly: a streaky, injury-prone team that needs a lot to go right to be competitive. And, well, not a lot has gone right — they haven’t looked at all like a contender yet, and, while it’s early, there are some troubling signs.
For every offensive explosion, there are games where the lineup goes completely cold. The rotation has mostly been solid but unspectacular. Logan Webb, who the Giants signed to a very reasonable extension last week, has struggled. The bullpen hasn’t impressed. Most of their major additions this winter — and hilariously, most of the players named in Larry Baer’s now-infamous lightbulb quote — are either hurt or struggling.
Frankly, the Giants just aren’t very fun to watch right now. One might even call them boring. And cracks are starting to show more and more in what was once a rock-solid fan base.
Attendance isn’t the end-all, be-all indicator of fan engagement, but the crowds the Giants have drawn this year have to trouble them somewhat. Aside from the home opener, the first homestand of the season produced no sellouts. And that included a series against the Dodgers, who don’t return to San Francisco until the last series of the season. One of the Dodgers games barely drew more than 30,000 fans, even.
Yes, a good number of teams would kill to draw 30,000 fans for a weeknight game. But the Giants aren’t like most teams, not after selling out their ballpark every night for 530 straight games. Last season saw their per-game attendance at the lowest level in the history of the ballpark — not counting the 2020-21 pandemic seasons with various restrictions — and that was coming off of a 107-win unicorn season. After the offseason that shall not be mentioned, it should have been clear that fan excitement was going to suffer even more this year.
The drop isn’t completely the result of the team’s play. The effects of the pandemic are still being felt, particularly in downtown San Francisco where the in-person workforce is nowhere near the level it once was, depriving the Giants of a large number of walk-up customers. The local economy is sputtering, people have less disposable income, and tickets aren’t particularly cheap. And parking around the ballpark is limited, especially since most of Lot A is under construction.
All of those factors are legitimate, yes. But it’s hard to shake the idea that if the Giants offered their ticket-buying fans a more compelling product, they’d be turning out more frequently. A midweek night game against the Dodgers is one thing, but are 30,000 people showing up when the visitors are the Nationals or Pirates?
A more vibes-based assessment: There’s a growing unease with the team the Giants are currently fielding. Constant roster churn is a byproduct of the team’s matchup-heavy philosophy, but it’s resulted in a disconnect, which is logical. It’s hard to latch on to a particular player if there’s no guarantee he’s going to get regular playing time, let alone be on the roster in a few days.
And when that roster is filled with players on short-term deals, it’s even harder for fans to feel much of a connection. What’s the point of emotionally investing in someone if he’s not even going to be on the team in a year? For every Brandon Crawford and Webb, there’s a Kevin Gausman or Carlos Rodon, guys who’d be easy fan favorites if not for the fact that they were only here for a year or two. There’s an old Jerry Seinfeld bit that when boiled down, sports fandom is really just rooting for clothes. The current Giants have taken that proposition to the max.
It’s not an easy thing to fix, either. An influx of young talent would be welcome, especially some of the prospects we’ve heard so much about for what seems like years now. After a slow start to his career, Joey Bart seems to be blossoming into an everyday contributor. Heliot Ramos is still young enough to turn his career around. David Villar is fun. Casey Schmitt and Kyle Harrison are waiting in the wings in Sacramento. It would have been nice for the farm system to have started paying off by now, five years into Farhan Zaidi’s tenure as GM, but patience is a virtue, I guess.
Signing an impact free agent or two would also help, as has been discussed once or twice, but that didn’t happen last winter for a variety of reasons we don’t need to rehash. They’ll have another chance this winter, but that doesn’t matter in the here and now.
And in that here and now, all that matters is that watching Giants games has become a slog. This is not an exciting team. This is not a “fun” team. This is not a team you set time aside in your day to watch. Attendance is just one indicator, but fans seem to be shifting more into show-me mode before spending their money on tickets. It’s a problem, and the Giants need to fix it.
Or maybe that lag effect Baer likes to mention is a real thing, and a few more lightbulbs need to go off. I guess we’ll have to see.
Dave Tobener (@gggiants on Twitter) is a lifelong Giants fan whose family has had season tickets for over 30 years. He’s been lucky enough to never miss a World Series game in The City in his lifetime, still isn’t completely over 2002, and lives and dies with the Giants every year.
