SAN FRANCISCO — Throughout a difficult September, Giants officials tried to focus on the silver linings of their situation. The main one came on the pitching side, where the rule down the stretch basically became that if you had a working arm and could potentially be in the mix for 2027, you were going to get some innings. Young pitchers like Yunior Marte and Cesar Perdomo received long looks, along with trade acquisitions Matt Wilkinson and Anthony Molina. Basically, the entire Triple-A bullpen was called up, and several waiver claims came and went.
Buster Posey and the rest of the front office feel that they truly might have found some guys who can be part of the solution, but there might be equal value in how they did it. As they spent October talking through what had just happened — and, possibly with Tums on hand, going back and actually watching a lot of those games — they found themselves having increased conversations about concepts that bounced around the same offices five years ago.
Over two days in Las Vegas earlier this week, “openers” and “platoons” were thrown around liberally. For Posey, this is all...