Because there's unfortunately a segment of fans who are simply never satisfied, we're going to hear A LOT of vitriol thrown at Giles & Reddick this winter. They both obviously struggled in the postseason - but they also both had some big moments; specifically, they teamed up to essentially win game 4 of the ALDS for us. And while I know Reddick was awful, offensively, from the ALCS on... he did play well defensively and the other team did throw left-handers at him fairly consistently. How they view Giles moving forward will be fascinating.
I do see this as interesting. Giles gave up 4-5 months of runs in 7.2 innings. If there wasn't anything physical wrong with him or the ball wasn't slick, he's basically got to be viewed like a better version of Hoyt and Feliz.
The slick baseballs were exclusive to the World Series and he certainly had his struggles prior in the ALDS and ALCS. He gets two built-in excuses: 1) the Yankees and Dodgers are elite offenses that got to see him multiple times in a long series; I don't think we should read TOO MUCH into his ability to close games for a 100-win regular season team; 2) the Astros asked him to pitch multi-innings three different times after asking him to do that just 4 times during the regular season. His atypical usage + Yankees/Dodgers + possibility of slick baseballs certainly lessens SOME of the concern about his postseason performance. But, man - not terribly uncommon for relievers to never recover mentally for failing on such a big stage.
