A few scattered thoughts as Bruce Bochy gets sized for ring No. 4…
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I’ve been thinking about the order in which wins and losses happen. The Giants finished 79-83—but the order in which the wins and losses added up seems important. If you swap the Giants’ September record (9-18) with their July record (18-8), is Gabe Kapler still the manager?
The season ended with a storm cloud hanging over the team. But what if the storm cloud passed over in July, and the year ended on the high of finishing 18-8? Wouldn’t more than a few people be buzzing about this rookie-laden team figuring things out, setting up a promising 2024?
That’s obviously not what happened, and the team’s dismal finish is why Bob Melvin will be in the dugout next season instead of Kapler. The journey to 79-83 is more important than the final destination of 79-83.
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I think the Giants are going shopping this offseason. For all the hand-wringing over last winter’s disaster, I don’t believe we’re in store for a repeat. Brace yourself now for a second-place finish in the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes—and get ready for some combination of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Sonny Gray, Cody Bellinger, and Matt Chapman. Realistically, two of those five. But I’m calling it now.
The whole roster needs bolstering. There’s not one area I believe the team wouldn’t look for a significant improvement.
The Giants’ brass—and Giants fans—have made the need for recognizable players abundantly clear. Zaidi’s contract was extended to bring that mandate to life.
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One note on Ohtani: I don’t believe he will be a Giant next season. If winning is his top priority, it unfortunately makes too much sense for him to sign with the Dodgers.
But just as few people believe Ohtani will sign with the Giants right now, few people believed he would initially sign with the Angels. Anyone who thinks they know anything about Ohtani’s preferences is just guessing. He’s the most mysterious man in baseball.
My guess is that we’ll be surprised at his landing spot.
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It was discouraging—but not surprising—to spend much of October hearing a narrative about Bruce Bochy and the Giants I believe to be wholly untrue. That the man, a future Hall of Fame manager, was “pushed out” by Farhan Zaidi.
From the All-Star Break in 2016 through the end of 2018, the Giants were a bad team (167-229). That’s why they fired Bobby Evans and brought in Zaidi. The organization needed change. In almost every instance where a new baseball boss is installed, they bring in a new manager. It makes sense. The new boss wants his lieutenants in place.
The fact that Bochy was asked to stay in 2019, Zaidi’s first year, says everything about what Zaidi thought about Bochy. He could have easily dismissed him, and I believe ownership would have backed the decision. Instead, Zaidi rode with Bochy.
The 2019 season was a lackluster one, and also the end of Bochy’s contract. A natural parting of ways—framed as Bochy’s “retirement,” a plan I’m sure he endorsed—made sense. The Giants gave Bochy a tremendous sendoff ceremony, and he stepped away.
If he was still craving the manager’s chair at that moment, do you think he would have signed off on a retirement ceremony? Don’t you think he would have gotten a job before 2023?
Everything that played out at the end of Bochy’s tenure makes sense to me. Bad teams. New boss. And eventually, new manager.
However, do I think it’s ironic the Giants hired a veteran manager with a less decorated résumé than Bochy, days before the man won a fourth World Series title? Yes. It’s rich.