George Kontos, Rich Aurilia and Shawn Estes join the crew on the 2022 Giants Season Preview Show to cast their predictions on where San Francisco will rank among the NL West.
The Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers were separated by one game last year in the regular season and one pretty suspect check-swing call in the National League Division Series.
While the NL West rivals are close in talent and expectations, their process differs. The Dodgers continued to spend, spend, spend this offseason, signing Freddie Freeman to a six-year, $162 million contract. The Giants, meanwhile, watched Kris Bryant sign with the Colorado Rockies and were unable to land splashy free agents Seiya Suzuki, Nick Castellanos or Kyle Schwarber.
But there is no better indication of how different the two organizations are than in their approach and mindset to the 2022 season.
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SIGN UP HERE Dodgers manager Dave Roberts on March 24 guaranteed the Dodgers would win the World Series title this season. On Wednesday, Giants manager Gabe Kapler was asked to respond to the proclamation, and his answer showed a key distinction between the NL West rivals.
"The way I think about it is, we have control over certain things," Kapler told 95.7 The Game's "The Morning Roast." "We have control over our processes. We have control over our practices. We always want to be finetuning those, always want to be trying to make those just a little bit better. We do that every day in spring training. We also do that during the season.
"If you ask me what the goal of the San Francisco Giants is right now, it's to improve our processes and practices and trust that that is going to lead to the best possible outcome in 2022. Whether that means going deeper into the postseason, which is one of our goals always, but more importantly, if you're Brandon Crawford, setting the goal of winning the MVP when you're coming off a season in which you were in the MVP conversation is probably not as effective as saying, 'my work is going to improve. I am going to recover better. I am going to take the steps that lead to success.'
"That's how we think about it. It's not that we don't want to win the World Series. It's not that we don't want to win the National League West, it's not that we don't want to win 108 games, making that an improvement on last year. It's that we have small steps to take that are way more important and are going to require a lot of attention and energy. That's how we think about what are our goals for 2022."
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While the Dodgers' big-picture focus will have them carrying a heavy burden for the entire 162- game marathon, Kapler's process-oriented plan could, in theory, allow the Giants to play looser by focusing on attacking every day instead of staring off into October.
However, the NL West rivals plan to get there, the expectation should be the two will meet again after a summer spent trading blows for a division crown. Perhaps then, when the weather turns, and the pressure intensifies, Kapler's desire to focus on the building blocks of a season will prove to be the difference for a Giants team that likely will have to get past the Dodgers to achieve their ultimate goal.