Maybe the Giants won’t have such a bad season? That’s certainly on the table. Not just because they humiliated the Los Angeles Dodgers this week, but because they really have been playing slightly better over the past couple of weeks (8-6 since April 7th). And, yes, that’s because some of the key contributors have started to contribute and some surprises have emerged, but there are two key players who will be critical throughout the summer.

Jung Hoo Lee has temporarily hit his way out of the “bust” conversation concerning his free agency by hitting .320/.340/.440 over his last 14 games and 53 PA. It looks even better in a smaller sample, but the point is that for two seasons now he’s basically been an afterthought and the organization never had a contingency for that outcome. They dropped a massive deal on him because they hoped after a year or two of adjusting to the big leagues that he’d blossom into, well, basically a Luis Arraez type — high contact guy who could create traffic on the basepaths.

Lee started off last season on fire, with 43 hits in his first 36 games (151 PA). That triple slash of .312/.364/.507 (.871 OPS) was All-Star reserve-worthy, but the .251/.315/.374 (.690 OPS) he hit the rest of the way (114 games, 466 PA) should’ve had him looking for a minor league deal with an invite to Spring Training in the offseason. His current full season line is basically equivalent to those final 466 and so it’s probably safer to assume that this is who Jung Hoo Lee is. But, if the Giants are going anywhere this season, they’ll need him to hit beyond that and closer to what he’s doing now.

Is there any hope of that beyond fanatical wishcasting? Yes!

Crack into that 466 plate appearances block of Jung Hoo Lee’s 2025 and you get something much more relief-inducing: one massive cold streak. There was a 46-game stretch (193 PA) where Lee was among the worst in the sport: .182/.269/.300. There were 6 doubles, 4 triples, a couple of homers, a trio of stolen bases, and 18 walks against just 17 strikeouts in there, but overall, pretty gnarly and, of course, substantial. But from July 2nd until the end of the season (68 games, 273 PA), he was a much more respectable .298/.348/.425 (.773 OPS). If you split it again and just look at his second half, that OPS does drop to about .758, which is now bordering on “not what you paid for,” though still, compared to the rest of the Giants’ typical lineup, not terrible.

So, there is reason to believe that Jung Hoo Lee has the tools to compete in the major leagues. In theory, one thing that JHL does that Arraez can’t do is hit for more power. That plus his ability to at least appear average in the outfield creates a balance in the lineup that otherwise doesn’t exist in his absence. The Giants don’t have anyone of his profile they could plug into right field, as much as we all wish it was Grant McCray. Hopefully, the flashes we have seen and are seeing right now are the things he can build on for the next time the league adjusts to him rather than the brief burp of momentary readjustment on his behalf.

Another strong point in his favor is that against 95+ mph fastballs, he’s hitting .286. He’s right there with the team leaders in that category:

Christian Koss (lol): 1-for-1 (1.000), 6/18 = 95+ (33%)Daniel Susac: 3-for-4 (.750), 15/85 = 95+ (17.6%)Jared Oliva: 1-for-2 (.500), 4/27 = 95+ (14.8%)Jerar Encarnacion: 2-for-5 (.400), 29/119 = 95+ (24.4%)Luis Arraez: 7-for-18 (.389), 101/391 = 95+ (25.8%)Heliot Ramos: 9-for-24 (.375), 120/390 = 95+ (30.8%)Drew Gilbert: 2-for-7 (.286), 28/106 = 95+ (26.4%)Jung Hoo Lee: 6-for-21 (.286), 72/368 = 95+ (19.6%)Below .200: Willy Adames (.182), Harrison Bader & Rafael Devers (.154), Casey Schmitt (.125), Patrick Bailey (.111), Matt Chapman (.071), Will Brenan (.000).

So, obviously, the Giants will need Adames, Devers, Chapman, and Heliot Ramos to hit, too, but the point is that having Arraez and Lee also in there does lengthen the lineup and make it more dynamic. The problem is that Lee has been bad enough for long enough that there’s certainly some doubt. And then there’s his injury track record, which is the big thing hanging around the other key player the Giants will need to be perform if the team is going to be good this season.

Landen Roupp is just like Jung Hoo Lee in terms of what he brings to the starting rotation. He lengthens it and makes it more dynamic. After he handled the Dodgers, I wondered if his combination of red ass and pitch repertoire made him the team’s new Ryan Vogelsong — a comparison I felt was apt given Vogelsong’s role as the organization’s roving pitching instructor. But then people pointed out that he doesn’t give up home runs, so, maybe he’s more like Matt Cain? Well, hmm. Maybe there is no 1:1 comparison out there just yet, at least in terms of Giants history.

Today, Roupp’s curveball leads the National League in Run Value (+4), tied with the Angels’ Jose Soriano and Pittsburgh’s Braxton Ashcraft. It’s got a 33% Whiff rate on it and just a 4.8% Hard Hit rate. From a Pitching+ perspective (104), he’s right there with Tyler Glasnow (105) and Tyler Mahle (104). Reminder of Pitching+ (emphasis mine — also, remember that 100 is league average):

Pitching+ is one of three models that, along with Stuff+ and Location+, attempts to look at the process underlying a pitcher’s performance in order to remove some of the noise that can be present when looking at on-field results. […]

Stuff+ looks only at the physical characteristics of a pitch. Important features include, but are not limited to, release point, velocity, vertical and horizontal movement, and spin rate. A pitcher’s secondary pitches are defined based on their primary fastball — with “primary” defined by usage in an outing — and so are judged by velocity and movement differentials along with raw velocity and movement numbers.

Location+ is a count- and pitch type-adjusted judge of a pitcher’s ability to put pitches in the right place. No velocity, movement, or any other physical characteristics are included in the statistic. A breaking ball should go to different parts of the strike zone in 2-0 and 1-2 counts, and Location+ captures that phenomenon. Stringer-based command statistics that attempt to judge what a pitcher was intending to do with each pitch do not add predictive value to those models, so Location+ only looks at actual locations and implicitly assumes the intent is generally the same across the league in certain counts with certain pitches.

He is a big league pitcher and an above average one by every measure. He is also a late bloomer, having turned 27 last September. There are only 30 right-handed pitchers since 1975 to make 26 or more major league starts and throw 160 or fewer innings before their age-27 season and Roupp is #5 on that list at 157 IP in 26 starts prior to 2026. I think it’s instructive insofar as our hopes and dreams here. Is there a historical comparison to be had?

Trent Thornton leads the list with 160 innings, and that’s in large part from 154 IP and 29 starts made for the Blue Jays in 2019, his age-25 season. He had a 4.84 ERA and 4.59 FIP and would make just 6 starts combined in 2020 and 2021. He made one start in 2023 and that was that: he was a reliever the rest of his career. Adbert Alzolay started 27 games before 27 and most of those came in 2021, his age-26 season (21 starts). After 2021, he never started again. Glen Otto made 33 starts for the Rangers in 2021 and 2022 combined and hasn’t pitched since 2023, when he was used as a reliever in 10.2 major league innings. Jharel Cotton started 29 games between his age-24 & 25 seasons but that was it for him as a starting pitcher despite pitching two more major league seasons (2021 and 2022). More recent examples are Hayden Birdsong (ahem), the Athletics’ Joey Estes, and the White Sox’s Shane Smith. Roupp is basically better than this field, so there’s not really a good comp to be had.

I think we all know why, too: injury! He’s missed time from injury in every year of his pro career with two concerning ones cropping up last year (right elbow inflammation in July and knee inflammation in August). It’s a lot to ask of this #3 starter to get to 180 innings and maybe even 160 innings, but that’s the sort of contribution the team will need from him if 2026 is going to be memorable. Taking his above average performance as a given (which is risky, I admit), the more innings from the starting staff means less work for the bullpen. The Giants’ 837 innings from their rotation last year was just 17th in MLB. The top 10 teams all had winning records, and so figure it’ll take somewhere in the 860s to crack that list.

Every fan has their pet player who they think will be the key to the team’s success in a given season, and that’s fine, but here are two players who the Giants simply can’t play well without. They might be able to get buy with some 0-for-4s from Jung Hoo Lee (who, to be clear, has had a lot of them), but his mere presence in the lineup can sometimes be enough to setup the other guys. Roupp, on the other hand, might be able to have a bad turn through the rotation if the other arms have done well, but otherwise, the Giants need Roupp to be as consistent as a peak Matt Cain or Ryan Vogelsong and simply shove when put in front of an opponent.

And yes, obviously, these two straws can only stir a drink that’s been made. If Logan Webb, Robbie Ray, Willy Adames, Luis Arraez, and (long sigh) Rafael Devers don’t approximate their career norms and with the extraordinary caveat of general good health on the roster, then there’s no lineup for Jung Hoo Lee to lengthen or dynamize and no pitching staff for Landen Roupp to prop up.

But without either of these players, the Giants won’t be going far.