Too Good to Be True? Larry Baer and the San Francisco Giants Beat Expectations!

If Major League Baseball decided to write a film about the San Francisco Giants and their winning 2021 season, well, we wouldn’t complain. Led by SF Giants CEO Larry Bear, the San Francisco Giants continue to defy the odds as they march toward one of the most unlikely and, potentially, rewarding postseason runs in franchise history. The culmination of a year’s hard work throughout the pandemic, defying both the IR list and burnout, the Giants would face off with the San Diego Padres at Oracle Park to win a division-clinching contest.

Paying attention to the San Francisco Giants this season was one-part baseball magic and one-part “I Can’t Believe This Is Happening.” Led by a team of scrappy veterans, the Giants would score a franchise record 107th win before nearly 37,000 fans at Oracle Park. Next up? A potentially deep run through the postseason with a fierce series against their heated rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers.

According to Brandon Crawford, an MVP candidate and starting shortstop for San Francisco, playing the Dodgers would be the next addition to what was already an esteemed rivalry. This potential series would also be the first time that the Giants and Dodgers met in the postseason during the modern era, dating back to 1900.

Overcoming Expectations with Larry Baer

Larry Baer took over as President and Chief Executive Officer of the San Francisco Giants in 2012 and a year later the team would taste a World Series championship. Now, less than a decade later, Baer has helped build a team that is ready to compete for another chance at glory in what should have been a lost year.

Buster Posey, starting catcher for the San Francisco Giants, said, “You’re going to be hard-pressed to see another race like this for quite a while.”

Of course, what Posey doesn’t mention is that the entirety of the baseball world had slotted the Dodgers and Padres as the top dogs in the Division, citing the major acquisitions made by both teams over the past couple of seasons. Yet for all of that money spent, San Francisco decided to derail the entire conversation.

Logan Webb would take the mound this past week as he guided the Giants through a masterful performance, going 8 solid innings while providing his own run support through a home run. It was a magical finish to what had been a magical season and, for Giants fans everywhere, it marked the beginning of something potentially magical.

Despite how long the odds were for San Francisco to finish how they did, belief within the clubhouse was always focused forward and onto positivity. Before the season began, Buster Posey proclaimed that the Giants were going to compete to win the division — and he was right.

The last time that San Francisco and L.A. had the chance to compete in postseason play was in 1962, though they were officially counted as ‘regular season’ games despite being for the League Pennant. The Giants won the series then and they aim to do so once again.

Giants CEO Larry Baer says of a potential match-up with the Dodgers in the postseason, “Either way would be epic.”

Farhan Zaidi is the President of Baseball Operations with San Francisco, a position that he has held for three years. Zaidi came over from the Dodgers front office where he had worked as General Manager. Zaidi said of the historic rivalry and its potentially explosive finish this season, “Both teams pushed each other. The last two or three months, every night felt like a must-win game.”