Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports
Farhan Zaidi used the “C” word, the one that may have been borrowed from Billy Beane.
“It’s going to be a little bit of a crapshoot when you talk about a shorter season,” Farhan Zaidi said on KNBR on Thursday.
The same crapshoot Beane famously believed in that meant any playoff team could survive series because the better team often does not win. And because the Giants are objectively not the best team in a division that houses the Dodgers, this gives San Francisco an edge if baseball is indeed played this season.
There won’t be 162 games, but MLB will try to fit in as many as possible, likely using frequent doubleheaders to maximize both sample size and gates. It means the players will be tired, and it means the Giants will have a better chance for success than in a normal year.
“A shorter season would be a bit of an equalizer, there’s no doubt about that,” Zaidi said on “Tolbert, Krueger & Brooks.”
“I also think in some senses it’s going to make it really important that hopefully when we get all back together and start ramping up, you have a really good ramp-up period and you start the season really sharp. More like our Out of the Park 3-3 than our Strat-O-Matic 1-5,” Zaidi added, referring to the simulated seasons that are not going swimmingly. “Every game is going to matter so much more. In a 162-game season, you have a bad April, you think there’s plenty of season left. It’s going to be harder to make that point.”
Zaidi still anticipated a trade deadline would be established at about two-thirds of the way into the season. The Giants — and every team — would be in a mad dash to prove to the front office this is a team worth keeping together.
“Starting off well and then being nimble and being able to react to the way the standings evolve, that’ll obviously be really important,” said the president of baseball operations.