A year ago at this time, little was expected of the Giants. Since making the playoffs as a wild-card team in 2016, the club had turned in four straight losing seasons without finishing better than third place in the National League West. The typically ineffable baseball minds at SI predicted a similar outcome in 2021 (it was an odd-numbered year, after all)—only to be proven gloriously wrong when all was said and done.
The aging core of Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford and Brandon Belt turned the clocks back to deliver the greatest regular season in franchise history. San Francisco won’t sneak up on anybody this season, though it’s also a near-certainty that the club won’t rack up 107 wins again in 2022. With Opening Day looming, has the team positioned itself well enough to keep pace with the juggernaut Dodgers?
Gauging expectations for the 2022 Giants is tricky. The team could finish 20 games off of their 2021 pace and still be a good team—the Braves just won the World Series after winning 88 games last year, and postseason expansion will give three wild-card teams in each league at least a three-game playoff series to keep their seasons going. Still, predicting just how good San Francisco will be is no easy task considering just how right everything seemed to go for them a season ago.
