What’s Gone Wrong for Logan Webb in the New Year?

Logan Webb took over as the face of the San Francisco Giants once the organization’s current president — Buster Posey — retired back in 2021. In the midst of four straight years of mediocre baseball, he’s been the outlier.

Heading into 2026, Webb was also in the upper echelon of starting pitchers in Major League Baseball. Of course, there’s the first tier of arms where you’d find Tarik Skubal and Paul Skenes. However, in the next wave of starters is where you’d typically see Webb’s name.

We’ve grown accustomed to seeing a minimum of 200 innings and an ERA under 3.50 from the right-hander. However, the start to the 2026 campaign has been a different story for the Giants’ ace. With new league-wide systems in place and the departing of a Gold Glove backstop, some adjustments will need to be made by Webb to return to his prior form.

A Rough Start

An immediate red flag was raised on Major League Baseball’s Opening Day. In front of a sold-out San Francisco crowd and a nation tuning in through Netflix, Webb got bombarded by the New York Yankees. The outing was just the third time he had allowed seven runs in a single outing of his career, with six of them being earned.

This left Webb with a 10.80 ERA that he’d attempt to lower over the next few weeks while giving the Giants a pretty strong sign of what they could expect through their first few weeks of baseball.

It may not have seemed like it, but Webb would go on to have a fairly strong month of April following the lone March outing. In five starts and 33 innings, he threw to the tune of a 3.27 ERA with a 3.71 FIP. He wasn’t the best version of himself, but he showed signs that Opening Day was just a bump in the road.

Unfortunately, the calendar flipped to May and Webb got ambushed once again. He’s had his struggles against the division-rival Padres in the past, but nothing quite like this. He would go just four innings giving up six earned runs and striking out four in his one May start thus far.

This led to an extremely rare IL stint for Webb on May 9. Up until that point, he hadn’t missed significant time for San Francisco since the summer of 2021. Part of what makes Logan Webb one of the best pitchers in baseball is how available he is over the course of 162 games.

This time, a reported knee injury that he’d been dealing with for a while sidelined him. However, the veteran made it clear that it wasn’t an excuse for any of his poor performances. When asked about whether it led to the blowup inning against the Padres, Webb had this to say:

“No. Not an excuse for anything that happened out there.”

– Logan Webb

So, What’s the Issue?

Typically, when we see a pitcher regress significantly, we assume that they’ve aged and their stuff has ticked down. It happens all the time. As their career goes on, they simply can’t move the baseball like they used to.

However, even though Webb has never been one to overpower hitters with velocity and stuff, that isn’t the case.

	Sinker	Changeup	Slider	Fastball	Cutter
2024	111	112	109	92	80
2025	114	107	99	109	87
2026	110	106	96	98	84

If the knee injury wasn’t part of the problem and his stuff hasn’t regressed, then what’s going on with the perennial Cy Young contender? Well, there’s two factors.

It’s no secret that Webb lived on the corners and took advantage of umpires arguably better than anybody in baseball. Quite frankly, he had to because of his lack of pure stuff.

This made him one of the most susceptible players in baseball to the potential negative affects that the brand new ABS challenge system would have.

In 2025, Webb figured out how to strike guys out for the first time in his career. He led the National League in the stat and posted a career-high 9.74 strikeouts per nine.

Now, after the implementation of ABS, he has fallen right back down to earth, striking out just 20.2% of hitters while giving up the highest hard-hit rate (48.6%) and average exit velocity (90.9 mph) of his career.

There’s one more small factor that plays into this. For the past handful of years, Webb’s catcher has almost exclusively been Patrick Bailey — the best framer in baseball.

They were a perfect match. A pitcher who lived on the corners and a catcher who stole strikes at an alarmingly high rate.

While it hasn’t completely killed what makes both of those guys impact big-leaguers, ABS has definitely hindered what helps make them successful. Not to mention, Buster Posey just shipped off Bailey in the midst of the roughest stretch of his career at the plate.

What’s Next?

While it’s too early to sound the alarm, it’s not too early to grow a little worried. Webb has looked like a shell of himself when he was on the field, and the team as a whole is in shambles, currently holding the third-fewest wins in baseball.

To be fair, the club’s ace is coming off of three straight year’s of 200 innings and an ERA under 3.50. These include second, fourth, and sixth-place Cy Young finishes in the National League. While the recent IL stint will likely hold him back from reaching that innings total, it wouldn’t surprise anybody to see him lower the ERA to his usual mark.

Even though most of San Francisco’s issues have come on the offensive side, Webb returning to form will be a huge factor in the Giants turning things around.