Baseball is about to look a whole lot different. Instead of a 162-game marathon, fans (from afar) will watch a non-stop, 60-game sprint this season.
That can bring a whole lot of chaos to stats and standings. The Giants again were expected to be low in the NL West as they continue their rebuild, but randomness will be king in this odd season. Theoretically, a shorter season should help the Giants, who don't have the same kind of depth as, say, the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Perhaps season length simply won't matter, though. ZiPS, a player projection from FanGraphs, pegs the Giants to win just 25 games in the shortened season.
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That's an interesting number, too. The Giants went exactly 25-35 through their first 60 games last season. And the same goes for their final 60 games last year.
In this projection, the Giants would have the worst record in the NL West, 13 games back of the Dodgers. They also would have the fifth-worst record in all of baseball. This doesn't necessarily mean the Giants would have the No. 5 pick in the 2021 MLB Draft, either. Next year's draft order still hasn't been laid out, and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred can make changes.
Due to health concerns regarding the coronavirus pandemic, the Giants will play 40 games against NL West teams and another 20 against AL West opponents. That won't come easy, as teams in both divisions improved this offseason. The Giants will face the fourth-hardest schedule, according to ZiPS. They have a 3 percent chance to win the NL West and a 9 percent chance to make the playoffs.
San Francisco Giants
[RELATED: MLB power rankings: Where Giants, A's stand before season]
Hello, optimism!
Projections only mean so much, and they can't compute health concerns when it comes to the coronavirus and players potentially testing positive. The game is on the field, but the computers aren't big fans of the Giants right now.
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