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MIAMI — The finger pointing began too late and was far too narrow in scope, but that’s what happens to franchises that allow pride to cloud the decision-making processes.

A near-collapse in 2016 followed by a dreadful 98-loss season in 2017 wasn’t enough for the San Francisco Giants to step back and recalibrate. A ballooning payroll and a handful of underperforming core assets did not properly faze the organization’s management, as key figures were instead given the customary vote of confidence they no longer deserved.

A remarkable run of continuity at the highest levels of the Giants’ front office finally ended when general manager Bobby Evans took the fall last September. However, the decisions to remove Evans, restructure the front office and acknowledge failures from the top down came much too late to salvage the 2019 season.

Pride is at the root of the Giants’ current struggles, and pride is why Evans’ replacement, first-year president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, faces such a monumental challenge.

To understand why the Giants are 21-31 and on pace for one of the worst seasons in franchise history, it’s imperative to see all the warning signs executives refused to heed.

After racing to a major-league best 57-33 record at the 2016 All-Star break, the Giants went 30-42 the rest of the way as a leaky bullpen nearly cost the club a postseason berth. The front office believed a top-tier closer would have pushed the Giants past the Cubs in the National League Division Series, so Evans signed Mark Melancon to a four-year, $62 million deal that temporarily made him the highest-paid relief pitcher in baseball history.

In two-plus seasons, injuries have limited Melancon to 14 saves and 89 1/3 innings.

A healthy closer wouldn’t have salvaged a 98-loss season in 2017, when the Giants finished with the second-worst winning percentage (.395) in San Francisco-era history. Only the 100-loss 1985 team was worse, but the next year, the Giants finished above .500 thanks to the immediate impact of rookie Will Clark and a pitching staff that finished with the third-best ERA in all of baseball.

The 2018 Giants didn’t have a young, emerging talent like Clark to build around. In the winter leading up to the 2016 season, they forfeited their first round draft choice to sign free agent starter Jeff Samardzija.

A 2017 season that was nothing short of an epic disaster was instead termed an “aberration” by the front office. Evans’ predecessor, Brian Sabean, was required to take a more hands-on approach to daily decisions while CEO Larry Baer insisted the word “rebuild” did not belong in the Giants’ vocabulary.

With a farm system drying up and a major league roster failing to meet expectations, the Giants had every reason to shrink their 2018 payroll, take a step back and focus on a more fruitful future.

Baer instead led the Giants down a dead-end road.

The (currently suspended) CEO expected Sabean and Evans to win in 2018 and reverse the team’s fortunes while staying under the luxury tax threshold. Under those impossible guidelines, the Giants traded away prospects to acquire veteran assets who were past their prime.

In December, 2017, the Giants shipped four players including three prospects to Tampa Bay to add third baseman Evan Longoria, who is owed more than $50 million over the next four years and is under contract longer than homegrown talents like Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford and Brandon Belt.

In January, 2018, the Giants traded reliever Kyle Crick and 2016 second round draft choice Bryan Reynolds to Pittsburgh to acquire pending free agent Andrew McCutchen.

The trades helped keep the Giants under the $197 million luxury tax threshold, but they did not turn the club into a serious contender. They ultimately had the worst possible effect, as the Giants hovered around .500 for much of the 2018 season.

The Giants’ record prevented the front office from capitalizing on the benefits of “selling” at the 2018 trade deadline, as McCutchen remained with the club past July 31 while other potential trade assets like Madison Bumgarner, Will Smith and Sam Dyson were not involved in deals that could have stabilized the farm system.

As the Giants limped to a 5-21 record in September, Evans was relieved of his duties. He became the singular face of the Giants’ late-decade meltdown, but the burden of recent failures is shared by many. Given Baer’s expectations, Evans did well to at least give the 2018 Giants a glimmer of hope, but the lack of a long-term plan made a necessary rebuild even more difficult.

Zaidi’s reluctance to say the word “rebuild” hasn’t helped restore any faith from Giants’ fans, but the club is in the beginning stages of a painful process. Fifty-two games into the 2019 season, the Giants have spent most of the first two months in last place and will soon confront more significant issues.

A plummeting attendance problem will get worse before it gets better, as the Giants are unlikely to sell 3,000,000 tickets for just the third time in the 20-year history of Oracle Park.

Bumgarner, a pillar of the franchise’s golden era, likely has fewer than 10 starts left with the club. Smith, one of the league’s best closers, will also be a target of many contending teams at the trade deadline.

Manager Bruce Bochy is in the midst of a nightmare final season, as the Giants must win 53 of their final 110 games to help Bochy reach 2,000 major league victories. The milestone appears increasingly unlikely with each passing day.

Finally, a franchise that won three World Series in five years is threatening to finish the decade with a sub-.500 regular season record. Including their 21-31 start to the 2019 season, the Giants are 765-745 since the beginning of 2010, but 188-260 since the 2016 All-Star break.

The team must finish the year 66-96 to avoid falling below .500 in what is undeniably the greatest decade in franchise history. At their current pace, they’ll win 65 games.

For far too long, pride prevented the Giants from believing they could fail in such spectacular fashion. They blew by every warning sign with the attitude they were immune to long-term struggles, instead prioritizing the past and present while ignoring the effects each decision would have on the future.

The consequences of those actions are finally setting in. Look at the damage that’s been done.