These are the keys for SF Giants to compete in the NL West in 2025

The San Francisco Giants enter their first season under Buster Posey and Zack Minasian’s leadership fresh off back-to-back fourth-place finishes in the NL West. To have any chance of playing October baseball, they’ll need a lot to fall in their favor.

Consider that this winter:

— The Diamondbacks took a hit by losing first baseman Christian Walker but responded by landing Corbin Burnes and acquiring first baseman Josh Naylor from the Guardians.

— The Padres didn’t make any impact additions and are in a bit of disarray — the widow of the late Peter Seidler is suing her brother-in-laws — but return a talented nucleus.

— As for the defending World Series champion Dodgers? They won the sweepstakes for star Japanese phenom pitcher Roki Sasaki; signed former Giants Michael Conforto and Blake Snell; added super utility man Hyeseong Kim; and re-signed Teoscar Hernández and Blake Treinen. There’s also the matter of MVP Shohei Ohtani, who will return to the mound fresh off the first 50-50 season in league history.

How do the Giants compete and return to the playoffs for the first time since 2021? Here are five keys to the 2025 season:

Verlander in, Snell out

The Giants missed out on opportunities to land Burnes and Sasaki but added future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander.  San Francisco’s rotation will open the season with Verlander, Logan Webb, Robbie Ray, Jordan Hicks and Hayden Birdsong, Waiting in the wings are Kyle Harrison, Landen Roupp, Mason Black and Keaton Winn.

Webb produced another quality season and received Cy Young votes, but the rest of the rotation is difficult to project.

Verlander, who will be 42 on Opening Day, is coming off the worst season of his career, posting a 5.48 ERA over 90 1/3 innings. That said, Verlander’s stuff still grades out well and he made offseason adjustments to help with the shoulder and neck injuries that ailed him last year.

Ray, 33, has thrown 34 innings in the last two seasons after undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2023, though he did perform well upon returning last year. Excluding his blowup against Atlanta on Aug. 14, Ray had a 3.30 ERA with 41 strikeouts over 30 innings last season.

Hicks, 28, started strong in his first season as a full-time starter, but his effectiveness faded as the innings added up. By late July, Hicks was back in the bullpen to manage his workload.

Harrison and Birdsong are both 23 years old with 47 combined major-league starts under their belts. The former experienced a velocity dip, partially the product of a career-high 124 1/3 innings. The latter boasted impressive strikeout totals (11.00 K/9) but stacked up the walks, too (5.38 BB/9).

This rotation unquestionably has the potential to be solid. Whether that potential is realized remains to be seen.

Welcome to The City, Willy

Verlander is the biggest name they brought in, but the biggest bucks went to Willy Adames, who signed a franchise-record seven-year, $182 million deal. Alongside Matt Chapman, San Francisco has assembled one of the best left sides of an infield in baseball.

Adames, 29, has quietly been one of baseball’s best shortstops over the last half-decade. Since 2019, the year he became a full-time starter, Adames ranks ninth among all primary shortstops in WAR, according to FanGraphs.

Over his career, Adames owns a career .248 batting average and .766 OPS with 150 homers and 472 RBIs while being an above-average defender at a premium position. In 2024, Adames posted career highs in homers (32), RBIs (112) and steals (21).

The biggest question with Adames is defense. From 2019-23, Adames was worth 28 defensive runs saved (DRS). Last season, by contrast, Adames was worth -16 DRS, the fewest of any shortstop.

The return of JHL

Jung Hoo Lee’s first season in San Francisco lasted all of seven-ish weeks before he suffered a season-ending left shoulder injury. Still, Lee has plenty of time to live up to the six-year, $113 million deal he signed in December 2023.

Over 37 games, Lee had a .262 batting average and .641 OPS with two homers and two steals while playing fine defense. The sample size is too small to definitively project how Lee will perform, but Lee did provide a glimpse of how his game translates from KBO to MLB.

For one, Lee’s bat-to-ball skills are already elite. If Lee qualified, his contact rate of 91.5% would’ve ranked third in all of baseball, behind only Luis Arraez (94.1%) and Steven Kwan (92.9%). Additionally, Lee’s strikeout rate of 8.2% would’ve ranked behind only Arraez (4.3%) if he qualified.

Lee will also represent a defensive upgrade after San Francisco’s center fielders combined ranked dead last in DRS (-24) last season.

Doval’s second act

Camilo Doval entered last season as the Giants’ unquestioned closer but ended last season with an uncertain future. Not only did he finish with a career-worst 4.88 ERA over 59 innings, but lost the closer role when he was demoted to Triple-A Sacramento in August. Upon returning to the majors, Ryan Walker filled the closer vacancy.

Posey and manager Bob Melvin both gave Doval a vote of confidence at the Winter Meetings, and as bad as last season went, there’s still reason to believe Doval can be a great high-leverage reliever.

Doval, 27, maintains elite fastball velocity (96th percentile) paired with a wipeout slider. Opponents had a career-high .235 batting average against Doval, but Doval had a career-best expected batting average of .187 (96th percentile). Doval posted a career-high groundball rate of 60.0% last season, and Adames can help ensure those grounders become outs.

Sophomore surge or sophomore slump?

Amidst everything that went wrong last season, Tyler Fitzgerald unexpectedly emerged as a bright spot, hitting 15 homers and stealing 17 bases with an .831 OPS over 96 games.

As well as Fitzgerald played, his underlying data paints a bleaker picture. Fitzgerald excelled at elevating the baseball, but his batted-ball data (average exit velocity, hard-hit rate, expected batting average) was below average. If he played enough games to qualify, his strikeout rate of 31.7% would’ve been the second-worst in all of baseball.

With Adames captaining the infield, Fitzgerald will slide over to second base. Time will tell if Fitzgerald can hold down the starting role for the entire season.