The San Francisco Giants are hanging onto their postseason hopes by a thread.
After spending more money than any team but the Los Angeles Dodgers this past offseason, the Giants are in fourth place in the hotly contested National League West. They're 4.5 games out of the Wild Card race. And they sold more than they bought at the trade deadline.
With such a bleak picture surrounding what was once a promising season, the pressure is reportedly mounting on the Giants' front office for the results on the field to begin shifting.
According to MLB insider Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the Giants' Farhan Zaidi is currently on the hot seat, and his job could be in jeopardy if the Giants miss out on the postseason.
"If they fail to make the playoffs, there will be talk, at least, about whether or not he should return," Rosenthal said Friday on Foul Territory.
And at 54-56, the odds are already stacked against the Giants the rest of the way. They entered play with an 11.0% chance to make it to the postseason, per Fangraphs.
Zaidi has been the president of baseball operations for the Giants since November of 2018 and signed a three-year extension through 2026 this past October. According to Rosenthal, though, that extension doesn't guarantee he'll be around after this season.
It has been an up-and-down tenure for Zaidi with the Giants, as the Sudbury, Ontario native was charged with re-starting the franchise after the core that won them three World Series titles in the early 2010s slowly phased out.
In 2021, Zaidi had his biggest success, as the Giants shockingly won 107 games and an NL West crown. But the two seasons since have been disappointments, and the Giants fired manager Gabe Kapler in September of last season, who Zaidi hired prior to that 2021 season.
For all the disappointment of the season so far, the Giants clearly aren't out of the race just yet. But their predicament is a reminder of the realities that the stretch run can bring for top executives, as Zaidi's fate may be as up in the air as their current playoff hopes.
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