Everything, apparently, except winning baseball games.
After a brutal Thursday that delivered two walk-off losses — the kind of back-to-back gut punches that make you close the MLB app and go outside — the Giants find themselves staring up at the rest of the NL West with no obvious path forward. Tony Vitello's squad looks lost, and the marquee acquisitions that were supposed to justify Buster Posey's front-office vision have been, to put it charitably, underwhelming.
Meanwhile, the organization is out here touting how AI is revolutionizing the fan experience at Oracle Park and being woven into every department's daily workflow. Look, we're not anti-technology. This is San Francisco. We get it. But there's something painfully on-brand about a Bay Area franchise investing heavily in algorithmic optimization while the actual product on the field is a mess.
Here's the harsh truth nobody in the front office wants to say out loud: no amount of machine learning can compensate for a roster that doesn't perform when it matters. AI can optimize concession lines and personalize your in-app experience, but it can't manufacture clutch hitting in the ninth inning. It can't fix a bullpen that bleeds late leads.
The Giants have always been a franchise that prides itself on doing things the "smart" way — Moneyball's cooler, fog-wrapped cousin. But smart spending means results, not just innovation theater. Fans aren't paying Oracle Park prices to marvel at how efficiently the parking algorithm routes them to their spot. They're paying to watch competitive baseball.
Posey's front office deserves credit for thinking big, but the scoreboard doesn't care about your tech stack. Five games under .500 and last place in the division is the only metric that matters right now.
Fix the roster first. Then tell us about the AI.


