As most Giants fans know, Buster Posey was named to replace Farhan Zaidi as President of Baseball Operations. In that announcement he noted that Pete Putilla would no longer be the GM, and is being reassigned (to what, no news so far). He recently promoted Zack Minasian, who was the Giant's Pro Scouting Director, to be his GM, his right hand man to execute their strategies.
I wrote on this in my last post, but wanted to cover that and other thoughts here. These are two good articles highlighting what Posey is thinking about what the Giants strategy is under his leadership: Chronicle and MLB (capttures their vision). There are nice quotes from Bailey and Chapman as well.
“I think it’s a huge advantage that we have this blueprint from not too long ago on what works in this ballpark,” said Zack Minasian, who was introduced as Posey’s new general manager on Friday. “Buster’s talked about [it]: We’re going to pitch, we’re going to play good defense and we’re going to find ways to score runs. Having position players that can beat you in a variety of ways is very important in this ballpark. It’s pretty simple. It starts on the mound and then having the right players defending to help the pitcher every given day and just scratch and claw every run we can get.”
As Posey said in his initial press conference, they will take advantage of the park by winning with pitching and defense.
ogc thoughts
We will have a better idea after this off season how Posey will run the Giants different from Zaidi, but so far, based on what's been said by Posey at his introduction press conference and at Minasian's GM introduction, plus leading into the GM meetings, the Giants are not going to be changing anything much other than replacing Zaidi with Posey and Putilla with Minasian. Zaidi was also trying to win with pitching and defense as well, plus with mix of hitting, but as we will see, fate intervened.
Posey in his press conference did not identify anything that was horribly wrong with the prior administration, except for playing fundamental baseball. He said basically what Zaidi said in his press conference, which is that being competitive is the goal, and that they will take advantage of the park by focusing on pitching and fielding. The main thing different mentioned is a player’s makeup, what his character is:
“Makeup is important,” Posey said. “I want to try to target people who have intangibles that I saw throughout my career with certain players, that I think help create a balanced roster and a winning roster. So you’ve got a lot of work to do to learn free agents, not only what their skill set is as baseball players but what type of person they are as well.”
No Major Changes is a Good Thing
That there does not seem to be a major change in strategy is gratifying to me, as I did not want Zaidi to be fired and replaced by someone with the edict of changing everything. I wanted to see how this group of prospects grow and progress, and how the Giants build around them. Hiring Posey, at least so far, means the Front Office operations will be mostly intact, except that Minasian will be replaced by a new hire and that Putilla is reasssigned (though I just saw Tweet that he’s taken an Assistant GM job with Atlanta; his major contribution seems to have been the recruiting and signing of Jung Hoo Lee). The Front Office is only changed at the top, essentially, but still running the same strategy with people who have been here.
I wanted Zaidi to get another season, as I was hoping and expecting the young players and prospects to take another leap in production. This is why I've been saying that this season is similar to 2007-2008, where key prospects took leaps that improved the Giants, and that growth plus new prospects, led to their breakout in 2010. I thought he earned another season, because his drafts have already delivered a lot.
But that is also why I would not commit to Zaidi beyond 2025, because maybe the leaps don't happen. I'm hopeful, because Bailey, Harrison, Birdsong, Roupp, Black, Ramos, Fitzgerald, Matos, plus Hicks and Jung Hoo Lee, look capable of taking a leap in production, but we never know until it happens or not. I was willing to go season to season, to see what happens. But with Posey and Minasian in charge, I still get to see how this develops.
I'm still excited about the young players coming up. I've liked the production of this front office so far:
- 2019 Draft: Fitzgerald, McCray, McDonald (Bishop?)
- 2020 Draft: Bailey, Harrison, Schmitt
- 2021 Draft: Roupp, Black
- 2022 Draft: Crawford, Whisenhunt, Birdsong, Meckler, Choate, Bertrand
- 2023 Draft: Eldridge, Whitman, McDaniel
- 2024 Draft: Tibbs
It takes time for prospects to develop into good major leaguers. The best reach that pinnacle in 2-3 years, but it is not unusual for them to take 5-6 years to do the development cycle: from draft to doing well in the minors to reaching the majors, and then producing well in the majors (2-5 WAR, or more, per season).
The Ability to Score Runs in Different Ways
The MLB article also noted how the team was going to have position players who can beat the other team in a number of ways. This is what Zaidi was trying to build last season, again, not much different from what Posey said he is trying to do.
One thing fans keep on forgetting is that Jung Hoo Lee was supposed to be a key addition to the lineup, at lead off, providing the ability to get on base, speed and savvy on the bases, plus improved defense in CF. Once he went on the IL for the season, the Giants were at a loss on who to use at leadoff. How was Zaidi supposed to know he would be injured all season? And at such a key position.
That also forced another mistake in the lineup, putting Jorge Soler at leadoff. They probably don't do that if Lee wasn't out for the season, and let Soler figure out his issue in the middle of the lineup. The Giants lineup was actually pretty average in the 2023 season, which would have been good enough to be a winning team with the pitching, except for the clean-up position, and Soler was supposed to fix that. Soler, up to 2024, was a good hitter vs both LHP as well as RHP, with plenty of power and walks, an excellent addition and upgrade at cleanup. However, he got off to a slow start, then got too comfortable leading off to bat lower. How was Zaidi to know he would have trouble hitting cleanup?
Luciano was supposed to be able to step in at shortstop and provide value. The 2023 Giants shortstops were so collectively bad that they were many wins below average, and thus even if Luciano could be a below average SS, which ZiPS projected him to be, he would still be a huge improvement over 2023. Unfortunately, he could not do that. And while he was never even average defensively at SS, as long as he could hit as projected, he would still be a significant upgrade over Crawford et al. How was Zaidi to know Luciano would suddenly develop the yips? They would have stayed with him in the middle infield had he been able to handle the positions, but once he had the yips, he had to be moved to the OF, which requires him to hit a lot higher to earn an MLB position.
Lastly, Estrada had three good seasons with the Giants, but just could not find his hitting at all in 2024. He had a .266/.319/.408/.727 batting line in 2022-23, but fell to .217/.247/.343/.590 batting line in 2024. And losing Estrada and Luciano blew up the plan to have Fitzgerald be the fall back at both positions, in case anything happens. That forced the Giants to have to rely on Wisely, who hit well initially, but was worse than Estrada. How was Zaidi to know that Estrada, at only 28 YO, would have such a bad season?
Zaidi was trying to have a better lineup, just as Posey wants it, but too many obstacles that is not scenarios one would game play while thinking about how the season would work. Who can forecast injuries and severe declines as the above? That's half the lineup, no team has backups covering that much of their starting lineup.
Now Posey gets to work on the lineup and see if he can tweak it better than Zaidi. Using the same guy, Minasian, who scouted these players. That's just mostly continuity in the players the Giants might get, and also in evaluating the current roster, I would not expect a huge difference unless Zaidi was ignoring what Minasian was advising, and if it was that bad, I would have expected Zaidi to fire Minasian and replace him, if they disagree that much.
Honeymoon Reset
So that's the beauty of the Posey hiring, in my view: it allows a resetting of the honeymoon period, buying additional time from the fans who are anxious about the future of the team. All signs so far is that the Giants like what they got, but wasn't sure if Zaidi was the one who could get them over the hump, a huge problem given the fans' restlessness and complaints (though, fans were happy, attendance was up a good amount in 2024). The team strategy hasn't really changed much, other than looking for makeup and character, as well as playing fundamental baseball.
Even if weird injuries and unexpected poor performances crop up (many rookies have bad sophomore seasons, though I expect Ramos and Harrison to have good seasons, but not so sure about Fitzgerald), Posey will not be expected to win immediately, or at least not be treated that harshly by fans, since he gets a honeymoon period.
Which is perfect, because the future of the team depends upon the development of Bryce Eldridge, as well as Harrison and Birdsong, and Eldridge likely isn't going to contribute much until 2026, at the earliest, and the two pitchers still need to ratchet up their innings pitched, and probably won't reach the regular 180 until 2026. Meanwhile, hopefully the young players on the roster will have a season of further collective growth in the 2025 season, and be ready to take off in 2026.
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