MAJOR ANNOUCEMENT ABOUT JT SNOW

As reported by Andy Baggarly, the Giants are poised to make a major announcement concerning JT Snow at 6 PM today. As noted, only Brian Sabean will be at the press conference. Tim Kawakami also opines on what this means in his blog as well. There is nothing currently on sfgiants.com regarding this.

I think both their speculations make some logical sense. If Snow was taking an on-field job, then Bruce Bochy would be there. But with Sabean making the announcement, it must have something to do with what Sabean controls as GM, and nothing much with Snow's current trio of roles as broadcaster, coach, or special assistant to Brian Sabean (well, maybe tangentially that but there is no MAJOR growth that can come out of this position). With the PR department using an ALL CAPS headline, presumably this position is very significant, and not some community-rep or other non-decision-making job.

Baggarly throws out there the thought that perhaps it would be naming Snow as the new manager of the Giants, but notes that this is something that would be more likely to happen after Bill Neukom takes over, not slightly before. Yeah, I agree, not a move that should happen without Neukom and it would happen after he takes over, not before, unless, that is, he wants it done as part of the Magowan era, kind of like how Epstein quit the Red Sox for a while when they got rid of some popular player or something, then miraculously became GM again right afterward.

Kawakami goes a bit more speculative, saying that since Larry Baer isn't there, perhaps Sabean is taking on some of Baer's duties while Snow takes over Sabean's duties, leaving Neukom at top, Sabean/Baer next level, then Snow/Barr the next level. I don't see that happening without Neukom there to oversee the proceedings, too big a change without him and Magowan there.

A logical growth from his current position would be becoming a senior advisor like McCovey, but he's too young I think to take on that type of role plus that would lessen Willie Mac's role publicly being "paired" with Snow. Same goes for being Special Assistant to the GM like Felipe Alou, which is on the GM side of the house.

Looking over the various titles and people in those roles, my wild guess on this is that Snow is being named Director of Player Development. Stanley just got that job last year from Jack Hiatt, when Jack retired, but it says that he has 41 years of professional baseball experience, this being his 42nd, making him at least 60 years old and perhaps as much as 63 years old. He could have a multitude of reasons to leave - family (son and daughter), health perhaps (not saying he has something, just that it could be that at his age) - and obviously Snow has some interest in player personnel issues since he was assistant to Brian Sabean and not to Peter Magowan or anyone else.

Nothing else would warrant an ALL CAP headline, though I do recall some announcement this year getting the big PR push and it was not really much of anything. But still, if Brian Sabean is going to be in the press conference, that has to be a pretty significant move somewhere in his department as GM, else he could sent up Tidrow, Barr, or Evans to make the announcement with Snow instead. This role must be something where Snow is reporting in to Sabean, and the role should be significant enough to warrant a press conference, else it would have been quietly announced like all the additions to the Player Personnel area the last couple of years when Barr, Siegle, Schueler, Creech joined the Giants.

Then again, when Stanley took over for Hiatt, that didn't warrant a press conference either.

The only other position worthy of a press conference would be if JT Snow took over as Director of Player Personnel from Bobby Evans, who, if he's not in the press conference, is moving on to another position somewhere else. Another thought is that perhaps the additional duties Evans took on that were more baseball related than operations related (when Colletti bolted) either didn't appeal to him or he didn't do well there, and they are having Snow join in an equivalent position to Evans where he would be the book-end to Evans, taking on the baseball talent evaluation related duties (assuming he has any). Even then, Evans didn't get a press conference when he was named to this position.