He Ain’t Having That: Buster is Bold and Decisive

Buster Posey hasn’t been too bold in this offseason, other than boldly doing nothing much, but his leadership so far has been marked by decisive moves that shows his need for speed, when he can step up.

Your 2025 Giants: New Front Office Leaders - Buster and Zack

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.  

Your 2024 Giants: Why Six Years Is Not Enough (also: Posey/Minasian)

[Wrote most of this in mid-October, just never got around to finishing until today's announcement of Zack Minasian as the new GM, so I've added some comments about that]

Just read an article on Fangraphs, written a while ago, regarding how long draft prospects take to reach the majors.  It was going to be a key rebuttal regarding the six years people have been complaining that Zaaidi’s had enough time to rebuild the team. Then reality took a left turn.

I was taking off for a vacation in SoCal, to visit my daughter, and was away from my phone since I was driving my wife and I down.  So after we checked in, I checked my phone and my brother who also follows the Giants text me "Posey!"  And I'm wondering what happened.  Then I see The Athletic notifications of articles about Zaidi being replaced by Posey.

So, now, after he’s been fired and replaced by Posey, instead this post will simply be a learning experience for those who don’t understand the player development process very well (which, based on the vast majority of people commenting on The Athletic, is a vast majority of Giants fans; which aligns well with what I experienced when defending Sabean back in 2007-2010).

The Zaidi Fallacy

Christmas has come and passed and many Giants fans feel like they got a coal in their stockings because Next Gen Leader, Farhan Zaidi, has not done much so far, with the biggest acquisitions being signing L/RHP Pat Venditte and picking up Mike Gerber off waivers.  Then there were the two Rule 5 pickups, LHP Travis Bergen (from Blue Jays) and OF Drew Ferguson (from Astros).  And the recent purchase of multi-positional Breyvic Valera (from Orioles).  Since surprising by leaving six 40-man roster spots open, and creating some excitement for significant movement, five marginal players have been picked up, leaving only one spot open on the 40-man roster (at the moment). 

Leading some to wonder:  if this is all the Giants were going to do, then why fire Evans?

Dissecting LA Time's Zaidi Profile

As I mentioned in my post about the hiring of Farhan Zaidi, the LA Times biographical article by Andy McCullough is an essential read for understanding Zaidi, and what he might bring to the Giants.  I thought I would go further and pull out what I think are key bits of info that I think is applicable to him being the Giants leader.

Oh Henry! Farhan Zaidi is the Giants New President of Baseball Operations

As reported first by the great Hank Schulman, Farhan Zaidi is the Giants new President of Baseball Operations, the NextGen leader that Baer said that the Giants were searching slowly for.

Reportage:

• Schulman
• Baggarly
• Kawakami
• Pavlovic
• Crowley

Baer's released statement (direct from the e-mail I got):

“We set out to find one of the best minds in baseball and Farhan's many accomplishments and expertise exceeded our expectations.  Farhan is widely viewed as one of the top executives in our industry and we are thrilled to have him lead the next chapter of Giants Baseball.”

Zaidi's released statement (direct from the e-mail I got):

“I am delighted to return to the Bay Area and to join one of the most storied franchises in the game.  I have watched the Giants from afar and I have great respect for the organization's culture and many accomplishments. I am excited about this new opportunity and I'm looking forward to getting right to work.”

Also, Baggarly's piece discussed possible implications and questions he will face, as did this Pavlovic article.