San Francisco Giants

From the Polo Grounds to China Basin

The Giants are older than most of the sport's institutions. The club began life in 1883 as the New York Gothams, playing in Manhattan for three quarters of a century before moving west in 1958, when they became the first major-league franchise to set up on the Pacific coast. The Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in the same year, and the two clubs carried a rivalry that had already run for decades in New York across the country with them. It remains one of the longest-standing rivalries in team sport anywhere.

The New York years produced five championships, in 1905, 1921, 1922, 1933 and 1954, and a line of players that gives the club more Hall of Fame representatives than any other: 67 as of 2025, counting 56 players and 11 managers. Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and later Barry Bonds are the names on the statues and the plaza outside the ground. The stadium itself, opened in 2000 on the water in China Basin and now called Oracle Park, sits at 24 Willie Mays Plaza and holds 41,331. Its right-field wall gives directly on to a stretch of the bay named McCovey Cove, where kayakers wait for home-run balls to land in the water.

The even-year dynasty

For all that history, the San Francisco era went 52 years without a title. Then came three in five seasons: 2010, 2012 and 2014, the first of them the club's first championship since 1954. The catcher on all three teams was Buster Posey, which matters for what follows, because Posey retired, bought into the ownership group and, at the end of 2024, took over as president of baseball operations. The man who ran the clubhouse during the dynasty now runs the front office.

The Giants have appeared in 20 World Series in total and won eight. That is the standard against which everything since 2014 has been measured, and the measurement has not been kind. By the close of 2025 the club had missed the play-offs in eight of nine years.

Posey's rebuild: big contracts, a blockbuster trade and a college coach

Posey moved fast. He extended third baseman Matt Chapman on a six-year, $151 million deal and signed shortstop Willy Adames for seven years and $182 million. On 15 June 2025, with the team 41-31, he pulled off one of the more surprising midseason trades in recent memory, acquiring Boston's Rafael Devers for Kyle Harrison, Jordan Hicks, James Tibbs III and Jose Bello. The Giants then went 40-50 the rest of the way, including a stretch in August in which they lost 15 of 16 games at Oracle Park, and finished 81-81. Manager Bob Melvin, whose contract option Posey had picked up on 1 July, was sacked on 29 September 2025 with a two-season record of 161-163. Posey's statement said only that a change of leadership was in the best interest of the team and that the last couple of months had been disappointing.

The replacement was the boldest call of his tenure. On 22 October 2025 the club hired Tony Vitello, 47, straight from the University of Tennessee, where he had gone 341-131 since 2018 and won the 2024 College World Series. He became the first major-league manager appointed with no professional coaching experience of any kind, on a three-year contract at $3.5 million a year with a vesting option for a fourth. Posey called him one of the brightest, most innovative and most respected coaches in college baseball. Vitello said he was excited to lead the group. The winter brought Luis Arráez, Harrison Bader, Tyler Mahle, Adrian Houser and Jason Foley as reinforcements.

2026: how it came apart

The season began with a three-game home series against the Yankees in which the Giants scored one run, and never really recovered. Through the first 34 games they hit 19 home runs, fewest in the majors; through the first 13 home games they hit three. Adames was carrying a.553 OPS early on. Devers had a.516 OPS in April before turning into the hitter Posey had traded for, posting a 158 wRC+ from 1 May onwards, third-best in baseball. Chapman managed one home run by May and then needed season-ending abdominal surgery. Bader put up a.557 OPS in 30 games and was lost for the year after a scooter accident while already on the injured list. Even Logan Webb, the rotation's anchor, had a 5.06 ERA over his first eight starts before recovering to be named National League Pitcher of the Month for June and Player of the Week for 31 August to 6 September.

The bullpen was the structural failure. The team's 6.11 ERA in the ninth inning is the worst in franchise history and its 13-25 record in one-run games the worst in the majors. On 26 August at home to Cincinnati the Giants led 9-3 going into the ninth, saw seven straight Reds batters reach base before recording an out, and lost 10-9 in front of a season-low paid crowd of 24,130. The club has not won more than three games in a row all year and has not swept a series. Vitello, managing a professional bullpen for the first time, has worn much of that.

Off the field there was the Pride Night episode of 12 June, when Giants pitchers wrote the reference Genesis 9:12-16 on their caps during the celebration. Major League Baseball issued warnings, and on 23 June commissioner Rob Manfred said the club's communication had been inadequate. In a city with San Francisco's history the reaction was sharp; the Chronicle's sister publication reported fans vowing never to return and some seeking and receiving refunds.

Posey turned seller at the deadline. Catcher Patrick Bailey had already gone to Cleveland on 9 May. On 2 and 3 August the Giants moved Mahle to Atlanta, Heliot Ramos to the Yankees, Robbie Ray to San Diego, and dealt Arráez, the club's lone All-Star, along with relievers Erik Miller and Caleb Kilian. The return was six prospects plus the young infielder Marcelo Mayer. Combined with the fourth pick in the draft, spent on the UC Santa Barbara right-hander Jackson Flora, and an extra first-rounder from the Cleveland deal, a farm system rated among the weakest in the league 18 months ago now sits among the best. Teenage infielder Josuar Gonzalez is trending towards the top tier of prospects across the minors, and 21-year-old Bryce Eldridge impressed after being sent to Triple-A in April.

The Giants were mathematically eliminated on 6 September, the second team in the majors to go, a fifth consecutive season out of the postseason. As of 9 September the record stood at 60-85, fourth in the NL West and 27 and a half games behind the Dodgers, on course for the club's worst finish since 2017. They are 35-36 at home and 26-49 on the road. The regular season ends on 27 September, and the remaining question in the city is whether the team avoids 100 defeats.

Who is still turning up, and what it costs

The crowds have held better than the baseball. On 23 July, with the team 42-60, the Giants were still averaging 36,646, sixth in the majors, though that was down from 37,212 at the end of June and the July homestand drew 33,413 a game. The club's response was a back-to-school flash sale offering upper-deck seats from $8, bleachers from $12 and club level from $20, pitched as 40 per cent below the average price, plus a $19 ticket-and-beer bundle carrying a $17 concession voucher. A $14 all-in ticket in the View Reserve and Bleachers has run for selected games all season.

Set against that, one 2026 study still placed a Giants day out among the five most expensive in baseball for a family of four buying the cheapest seats, parking, two beers, two sodas and four hot dogs. The ground is fully cashless. The Crazy Crab sandwich, the concession stand's headline item, is $28; most other food runs $12 to $18; and parking, where it exists, is $30 to $80. The club allows fans to bring in their own food and sealed non-alcoholic drinks in plastic bottles, which offsets some of that.