Dieter Kurtenbach: It's Year 2 of Buster's bold Giants experiment. The Bay really needs it to work.

Dieter Kurtenbach, The Mercury News on Mar 24, 2026

Published in Baseball

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Buster Posey is running a bold, brash experiment. For the sake of the Bay Area’s sports fans, it better work.

Greatness for the San Francisco Giants in 2026? Please. That’s greedy.

Just don’t let the floor cave in.

Just be interesting.

Give folks a reason not to click away by the sixth inning.

Just escape the aggressively bland, spreadsheet-fueled baseball purgatory of the last half-decade.

Look around. The local sports scene is a wasteland. The Sharks are swooning — even if they sneak into the playoffs, it’ll be a short ride. The Warriors have aged out of relevance, sinking to depths previously thought impossible by modern man.

The summer teams are in a weird holding pattern, too. The Quakes are playing good ball, but it’s going to take a lot more than a 4-1 start to get serious regional buy-in. And the Valkyries? Great first act. Now comes the hard part. The WNBA’s offseason is now its preseason, and they have to figure out how to stage an encore on short notice.

So here we are: One “Big Four” team will be playing in late spring and all summer.

The Giants have to carry the water for the entire sports-loving region until football season kicks off in earnest.

This is their window.

They already have the fans’ wallets — they’ll never relinquish that. But now they need to recapture their hearts, minds and attention spans. This is the Giants’ chance to capitalize on a region that genuinely loves baseball, provided they are given a reason to actually embrace the team rather than just watch a collection of platoons operate a rote simulation.

And hey, despite all my offseason hand-wringing, this might actually be the group to pull it off.

Perhaps the days of “boring” baseball are dead, replaced by whatever fiery, unpredictable chaos Tony Vitello is bringing to the dugout.

Maybe.

I’d love to sit here, crack a cold Coke Zero, and tell you exactly how this ends. I can’t. All anyone has right now is hope. Blind, unadulterated faith in Buster.

We’re about to find out how much that is worth.

There are good pieces in place. The local nine could boast a hell of a lineup, anchored by Rafael Devers, with the precocious Bryce Eldridge inevitably mashing his way back to Oracle to provide a massive early-summer power surge.

With some actual everyday stability in the outfield, they might just score enough to support a top-flight starting rotation. Because if Robbie Ray finds his old Cy Young form next to Logan Webb, and a kid like Landen Roupp figures it out? That rotation becomes one to envy in the National League.

And if they’re breathing in July, you have to believe this front office will step on the gas, make a move, and make Oracle Park the place to be again. Posey hasn’t shown much patience yet. I doubt that kicks in now.

Then again, there’s the bullpen. Someone has to get outs down the home stretch, or this team is going to bleed away winnable games in the most agonizing ways possible.

It all adds up to one frightening truth: Nothing for this team is a foregone conclusion this year.

That’s the fun part. That’s the scary part.

Success? Failure? Another grueling march through soul-crushing mediocrity? We’ve got 162 games to figure it out. It won’t all be enjoyable — it’s baseball, after all — but savor it while you can. A massive, stupid labor lockout is looming, threatening to nuke next season entirely. This might be the last classic baseball summer you get for a while.

And wouldn’t it be great if it were one to fondly remember?

So let’s start the marathon. Let’s see if this team can hold the fort down through August. Let’s see if one of the great brands in sports can put a little shine back on the interlocking San Francisco.

What do you say, Giants? Up for making October matter again? Down for making the late fall — with the upstart Sharks, a hopefully revamped Dubs and the Niners all playing well — one of the most exciting in recent Bay Area sports history.

Because it’s been a while since you’ve held up your end of the bargain, and boy, could we use y’all right now.

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