The Best Players in San Francisco Giants History, Position by Position

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 11 min read

An all-time Giants team spanning New York and San Francisco, from Mathewson and Ott to Mays, McCovey, Bonds and Posey, with the criteria, the close calls and the limits of the historical data.

An all-time San Francisco Giants team has a problem no other National League franchise shares: it has to cover 143 seasons and two cities. The club began as the New York Gothams in 1883, became the New York Giants in 1885, and moved west after the 1957 season. Its Hall of Fame list has 30 names with four or more seasons in the uniform, and the outfield alone could be filled three different ways without anyone being embarrassed.

The shortcut is that the stars of each era are not close calls. Willie Mays, Mel Ott and Barry Bonds are the outfield. Willie McCovey is the first baseman. Christy Mathewson, Carl Hubbell and Juan Marichal anchor a rotation that would hold up against any in the league. The arguments are at third base, shortstop, second base and in the last two spots in the rotation.

Everything here is counted only while a player wore a Giants uniform, using the historical record through 2025. The Giants team page has the live record, the Oracle Park page has the park data, and the club's topic page collects the news. The reasoning is shown for each pick so you can overrule it.

How the team was chosen

Four rules governed the picks, and because the franchise is so old they matter more than usual.

1. Club production only. A player is judged on what he did for the Giants, in New York or San Francisco. That matters for Mays, whose club totals are a shade below his career totals because he finished with the Mets, and for Gaylord Perry, Jeff Kent and other Hall of Famers who spent only part of their careers here.
2. Games at the position. Each player goes where he played the most games for the club, using the historical appearances table. This puts Mays in center field, Bonds in left and Ott in right, with no argument about it.
3. Longevity before peak, then awards. A 15-year shortstop beats a five-year star, and MVP awards and Hall of Fame plaques break ties.
4. No WAR and no era adjustments. The historical record has no wins above replacement and no park-adjusted ratings, so I do not rank players across eras by a single number. I use the counting statistics, the rate statistics against the league around them where it helps, and the awards.

The era problem deserves a plain statement. Mathewson pitched in the dead-ball period, when league ERAs sat between roughly 2.5 and 3.2 and a 2.12 ERA is a different feat than it would be today. Ott played in the hitter-friendly 1930s, and Bonds hit in the early 2000s, when scoring was high. The numbers can be compared only loosely.

The outfield: Mays, Bonds, Ott

Willie Mays is center field and, for many writers, the best player in the history of the franchise and perhaps the game. With the Giants he played 2,857 games between 1951 and 1972 and collected 3,187 hits, 646 home runs, 1,859 runs batted in and 2,011 runs scored. He hit .304 with a .385 on-base percentage and a .564 slugging percentage, and stole 336 bases. He won the 1951 rookie of the year award, the National League MVP in 1954 and again in 1965, and 12 straight Gold Gloves from 1957 through 1968, which is also when the award started. The Hall of Fame elected him in 1979 with 409 of 432 votes.

The number that does not appear on the leader tables is the time he missed. Mays lost most of 1952 and all of 1953 to Army service, which is the best argument that the 646 home runs and 3,187 hits would have been higher.

Barry Bonds is left field, and the choice requires being honest about what he is. With the Giants he played 1,976 games from 1993 through 2007 and hit .312 with a .477 on-base percentage and a .666 slugging percentage, with 586 home runs and 1,947 walks, the most in club history. He won five of his seven MVP awards in San Francisco: 1993, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. In 2001 he hit 73 home runs, the single-season record in the historical data, and in 2002 he hit .370. Allegations that he used performance-enhancing drugs followed him through the 2000s; he has denied knowingly using them, and this article does not try to settle that dispute. What the voters did is part of the record: in his last year on the BBWAA ballot, 2022, he received 260 of 394 votes, below the 296 needed.

On the field the case is simple. His on-base and slugging percentages are the highest on this team, and his 586 homers are second only to Mays. I include him because the question here is performance with the club; whether he belongs in the Hall of Fame is a separate question.

Mel Ott is right field. He played 22 seasons for the club, 1926 through 1947, more than any other Giant, and hit 511 home runs with 1,860 runs batted in, 2,876 hits and a .414 on-base percentage. He was an All-Star in each of the 12 seasons from 1934 through 1945 and was elected to the Hall of Fame on the 1951 ballot with 197 of 226 votes. His home park, the Polo Grounds, was only about 258 feet down the right-field line, which helped a left-handed pull hitter. The historical record does not split home and road statistics, so there is no way to say here how large the discount should be.

Mike Tiernan (428 stolen bases, 1887 through 1899), Ross Youngs (.322, a Hall of Famer), Bobby Bonds (186 homers, 263 stolen bases) and Kevin Mitchell (the 1989 MVP) are the other outfielders with serious claims.

First base and catcher: McCovey and Posey

Willie McCovey won the 1959 rookie of the year award and the 1969 MVP, and with 469 home runs for the club he is fourth on the list behind Mays, Bonds and Ott. He played 1,775 games at first base, most of them in San Francisco, hit .274 with a .377 on-base percentage and a .524 slugging percentage, and drove in 1,388 runs. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1986 with 346 of 425 votes. Bill Terry, who played first for the club from 1923 through 1936, is the other candidate: he hit .341 with 2,193 hits, and in 1930 he hit .401 with 254 hits, still the last .400 average in the National League.

Buster Posey is the catcher by a wide margin: 1,093 games, a .302 average, a .372 on-base percentage and a .460 slugging percentage with 158 home runs. He was the 2010 rookie of the year, the 2012 MVP (.336, 24 home runs, 103 runs batted in) and a catcher on all three World Series winners of 2010, 2012 and 2014. He won five Silver Sluggers and one Gold Glove, and made seven All-Star teams. Wes Westrum (901 games, a .356 on-base percentage on a .217 average) and Harry Danning (798 games) are the next names. Roger Bresnahan, a Hall of Famer who played here from 1902 through 1908, is the historical wild card.

Middle infield: Jackson and Doyle

Shortstop and second base are the positions where the 143-year span creates real choices, because the Giants have had Hall of Famers and long-serving defenders at both.

Travis Jackson takes shortstop. He played 1,323 games there between 1922 and 1936, hit .291 with a .433 slugging percentage, 135 home runs and 929 runs batted in, and is a Hall of Famer. The challenger is Brandon Crawford, who played 1,617 games at shortstop between 2011 and 2023, hit .250 with 146 home runs, and won four Gold Gloves, in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2021. If you value defense and reliability on two championship teams more than offense, Crawford is the answer. I take Jackson for the hitting and the Hall of Fame plaque.

Larry Doyle takes second base. He played 1,591 games there between 1907 and 1920 and finished with 1,751 hits, a .292 average and 291 stolen bases. He won the MVP award in 1912, in one of the award's early forms. Jeff Kent, who hit .297 with 175 home runs and an .535 slugging percentage in six seasons from 1997 through 2002, was the 2000 MVP and has since been elected to the Hall of Fame, so the choice is a real one. Doyle wins on 1,622 games to Kent's 900; Kent wins on every rate statistic. Robby Thompson played 1,278 games there from 1986 through 1996 and stole 103 bases for the club.

Third base: the thin spot

Every team like this has a weak spot, and third base is the Giants'. Jim Davenport played more games there than anyone (1,124 from 1958 through 1970), but he hit .258 with 77 home runs. Art Devlin played 1,098 games at third for the club from 1904 through 1911 and stole 266 bases. Pablo Sandoval (894 games, .285) was the third baseman in the 2012 and 2014 championship years.

The choice here is Matt Williams, who played 1,010 games at third from 1987 through 1996 and hit 247 home runs, the fifth-most in club history. In 1994 he hit 43 home runs in 112 games before the players' strike ended the season. His career line with the club is .264 with a .312 on-base percentage and a .498 slugging percentage. Freddie Lindstrom, a Hall of Famer who played 777 games at the position from 1924 through 1932, is the historical alternative. Nothing about this position is settled, and if you pick Sandoval or Devlin, I would not argue.

The rotation: Mathewson, Hubbell, Marichal, Lincecum, Bumgarner

Christy Mathewson is first. He won 372 games for the club, 119 more than the next Giant, with a 2.12 ERA, 2,504 strikeouts and 79 shutouts. In 1908 he went 37-11 with a 1.43 ERA, and in 1909 he went 25-6 with a 1.14 ERA. He also threw three shutouts in the 1905 World Series, which the Giants won over the Athletics, 4 games to 1. In 1909 the National League's ERA was 2.59, which means a 1.14 was less than half the league mark.

Carl Hubbell won 253 games between 1928 and 1943, with a 2.98 ERA and two MVP awards, in 1933 and 1936. His 1933 season (23-12, a 1.66 ERA) helped the Giants beat the Washington Senators in the World Series, 4 games to 1, and in 1936 he went 26-6. His screwball and his longevity put him second on the list.

Juan Marichal won 238 games and struck out 2,281 batters in 14 seasons, with a 2.84 ERA and 52 shutouts. His peak seasons were 1963 (25-8, 2.41), 1966 (25-6, 2.23) and 1968 (26-9, 2.43 in 326 innings), and he never won a Cy Young Award, in part because Sandy Koufax won it in 1963 and 1966 and Bob Gibson in 1968. He was elected to the Hall of Fame on his third ballot in 1983, with 313 of 374 votes.

Tim Lincecum won the Cy Young Award in 2008 and 2009, struck out 1,704 batters in 1,643.2 innings, and went 108-83 with a 3.61 ERA from 2007 through 2015. Madison Bumgarner went 119-92 with a 3.13 ERA and 1,794 strikeouts from 2009 through 2019, and was the World Series MVP in 2014. Matt Cain (104-118, 3.68, 1,694 strikeouts, and a perfect game in 2012) and Gaylord Perry (134-109, 2.96 over 1962 through 1971) are the next in line. Joe McGinnity won 151 games with a 2.38 ERA in seven seasons, and Amos Rusie won 234 in the 1890s, so the last two rotation spots are a real debate.

The bullpen: Nen, Beck and Wilson

Robb Nen is the closer. He saved 206 games for the club between 1998 and 2002 with a 2.43 ERA and 453 strikeouts in 378 innings, the most saves in club history. Rod Beck (199 saves from 1991 through 1997, 2.97 ERA) and Brian Wilson (171 saves from 2006 through 2012, 3.21 ERA) are next.

Gary Lavelle holds the club record for appearances (647), and Hoyt Wilhelm, a Hall of Fame knuckleballer, pitched for the club from 1952 through 1956 with a 2.98 ERA. Saves are a poor measure across this much history, because the statistic did not exist for most of it.

The all-time Giants at a glance

The managers behind the players

John McGraw is the manager. He ran the Giants from 1902 through 1932 and won 2,583 games against 1,790 losses, and under him the club won ten pennants and three World Series (1905, 1921 and 1922). Bruce Bochy is the San Francisco counterpart: 1,050 wins between 2007 and 2019, three World Series titles, in 2010, 2012 and 2014. Dusty Baker (840 wins, 1993 to 2002) took the club to the 2002 World Series.

Those three titles are the reason the modern Giants are on any list of this kind. The 2010 club beat Texas, 4 games to 1. The 2012 club beat Detroit in a sweep after surviving a seven-game National League championship series against St. Louis. The 2014 club won a wild-card game at Pittsburgh, beat Washington, then St. Louis, then took Kansas City in seven games. Much of the staff above was on those teams.

What the historical record cannot settle

The first limit is time. The historical record shows Negro Leagues play through 1948 as major-league data, and the Giants' roster included Monte Irvin, a Hall of Famer who hit .296 with a .389 on-base percentage in seven seasons with the club, from 1949 through 1955. His prime years were in the Negro Leagues, and the database cannot give you a full picture of them.

The second is the parks. The Giants have played in the Polo Grounds, Seals Stadium, Candlestick Park and Oracle Park, and each one favored a different kind of player. By the site's reference data, Oracle Park is 339 feet down the left-field line, 391 to center and 309 down the right-field line, with a high wall in right. In the sample years I checked from 2000 on, the park factor in the historical ran between 93 and 102, so the modern ballpark leans toward pitchers, and the modern Giants pitchers deserve a small discount for it.

The third is defense. The historical record shows errors and chances, not range. Mays's 12 Gold Gloves and Crawford's four are the only evidence of that kind that the database holds, and they are not perfect evidence.

Common questions

Is Mays the best Giant ever? The data supports it: he leads the club in hits (3,187), runs (2,011) and home runs (646), and he won 12 Gold Gloves in center field.

Why is Bonds on the team? Because the criterion is on-field performance with the club, and his rate statistics are the best on this list. The Hall of Fame has not elected him, and that is a separate question.

Where does Hubbell rank among the Giants? Second in wins (253) and close to Marichal, who won fewer games (238) with a better ERA (2.84 to 2.98). The eras differ, so the ordering is a judgment.

Who is the best player left off? Bill Terry, who hit .341 for the club and could play only first base, where McCovey has the longer résumé.

Where to go next

Start with the history of the San Francisco Giants for the franchise story, then the Oracle Park guide for the ballpark. The titles above are described in the best Giants seasons and every October run. For the NL West rivals, read the Dodgers' history, and for the move west, see the history of the World Series.