The Giants have a fourth known candidate in their search for a replacement for iconic manager Bruce Bochy. The club interviewed Royals quality control and catching coach Pedro Grifol for the position on Thursday, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets. The Giants have also shown interest in two of their own assistants – bench coach Hensley Meulens and third base coach Ron Wotus – as well as Athletics quality control Mark Kotsay.
Of the eight teams looking for managers, the Giants are the second who are known to be considering Grifol, a former minor league catcher. The soon-to-be 50-year-old is also on a list of possibilities for the Royals, with whom he has worked in a few roles since 2013. He previously garnered professional managerial experience with the Seattle organization from 2003-05 and in ’12.
If there’s an obvious common theme among the Giants’ group of candidates, it’s that not a single one of them has managed at the big league level. But plenty of teams have turned to novices in recent years, including three of the remaining four clubs in the playoffs (the Nationals, Cardinals and Yankees), and the Giants may be the next to do so. Of course, with president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi having said he’ll interview six to eight individuals for the role, there could still be an experienced option(s) on San Francisco’s radar.
Wrong Pedro.
Wasn’t Kapler a possibility due to his previous LA association with Zaidi?
The Giants Board would never bite with Kapler’s recent legal issues. I know there’s a hypocrisy level in all this, but Kap isn’t a Forever Giant or a Giants Owner.
My guess is Kotsay gets the Manager job and the GM job will go to one of the A’s scouts that’s close friend of Farhan.
What legal issues? What hypocrisy?
As reported in the NY Pist on Feb. 7th, Kapler didn’t report an assault on a minor by 2 women while 2 Dodger minor leaguers filmed the assault. The girl later told police on of the players sexually assaulted her. Google “Kapler legal issue.”
…NY Post…
…one of the…..
GM is probably going to be the A’s AGM Billy Owens
No to him
There was some speculation that Kapler may get an interview due to his association with Zaidi but that does not appear to be the case
I know nobody has heard of him, so I don’t blame Giants fans for being underwhelmed, but Grifol is going to be a good manager someday.
As a fan, I want my team to find the right manager, not the name everyone knows.
Never heard of him. However, I am putting my trust in the Giants front office. My only hope is they find someone who doesn’t just play players because of a salary or a sense of misguided veteran respect.
That would be a nice change of pace.
Just because Player A is a vet and making more money than Player B, and Player A was getting more playing time, doesn’t mean the reasons were simply salary and experience.
Just because you think Player B is the better player doesn’t mean he is. This scenario usually happens when a veteran player is under-performing somewhat, and there is an option with another unproven guy. Fans love to clamor for the unproven guy, simply because of who he’s not.
The simple reason is that the team has a much better understanding of the abilities of the unproven guy than the fans do. Managers, like Bochy, want to win games as much as any competitive player.
The idea that a manager would throw away wins because of a player’s salary is absurd. As a GM’s decision, guys making a lot do get roster spots, due to resource allocation. But on the field the manager is playing to win. Between Bochy’s ideas for how to do that, and the average fan’s, I’ll go with Bochy.
There are times where salary is legitimate reason for giving someone playing time, and I can’t exactly blame them.
If the owner is approving the GM giving a big contract (or if the owner demanded they sign the player), it’s not going to work out when the GM and manager are benching the guy.
If you’re giving a guy 20M, you should probably expect the owner will demand he plays.
Owners demanding that a guy plays is the stuff of conspiracy theory. If a guy is under-performing while making $20M+, he will have roster spot. If a guy has roster spot he will see some playing time. But the manager will still mostly play the guys that give the team the best chance of winning. To make the deduction that some guy plays simply because of how much money he makes is a leap of logic.
@tad2b13 Absurd? I’d say you’re out of your mind, but since I don’t know you I’ll simply disagree completely.
The reason these new GM-led teams are hiring these young, random managers is that they generally play who the GM thinks they should play, and who the analytics tell them to play. That’s why you don’t see any rumors for veteran managers like Dusty Baker anymore. They play their hunches, they play their guys. Dusty Baker in the 2002 World Series had a DH slot and played creaky-kneed Lofton in CF instead of the younger, faster, better defensive player Shinjo. Instead Shinjo DH’d.. Why? He was quoted as saying Lofton would have been insulted playing DH and he was one of Baker’s ‘guys.’ He sacrificed defense for loyalty, right?
To think that Bochy wasn’t trotting Belt and Crawford out there partly out of loyalty is mind-boggling to me. You’re saying Crawford was a better option than playing Dubon or Solano at short? In Pence’s last year and he got 250 at bats with zero production, and the only reason he didn’t get more was he was injured.. Do you think anyone wasn’t a better option than Pence? No, he was played out of some sense of loyalty, because of his paycheck, and because he was a fan favorite.
In the business world, I deal with people who are underperforming all the time. Some managers stay loyal to their guys and give them as many chances as possible to produce before replacing them. They also do it because replacing them can be costly and it’s dead money. Some guys will see a downward slope and make changes right away, regardless of cost.
What I’m saying is I hope the Giants find the latter.
I remember Pedro Grifol from the 90’s when he was playing for the Twins’ AAA team. Like Bochy he was not much of a hitter. His career batting average was less than .230 in the minors. Using Baseball Reference on these old players is really a trip down memory lane. I had forgotten Nashville was once a AA affiliate and that there was a briefly a team called Hardware City (New Britain if I remember right.) Grifol even played in Portland, OR.
Buck would be perfect. 85-77 every year.
Better than 77-85…..
As a Royals fan, I’m hoping Grifol stays in KC. He works well with the young players and has good baseball smarts. With new ownership committed to win, some good young players a couple years away, Grifol would be a good fit.