The Giants have identified at least seven serious candidates in their search for departed manager Bruce Bochy’s successor. Regardless of who ultimately gets the job, it appears it’ll be president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi making the call. Giants ownership is putting “the entirety of this decision” in Zaidi’s hands, Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic writes (subscription link). That isn’t the case for every team with a managerial opening, as we’ve seen with the Phillies.
As for those in the running for San Francisco’s job, Athletics quality control coach Mark Kotsay may be the favorite. One source told Baggarly it’ll be a surprise if the Giants don’t select Kotsay, a longtime major league outfielder who played in Oakland (2004-07) when Zaidi was in its front office. Kotsay, like the vast majority of candidates on the Giants’ radar, has never managed in the majors.
While Kotsay may be the front-runner for the Giants, the club’s still keeping its options open. The Giants have told a pair of their assistants, bench coach Hensley Meulens and third base coach Ron Wotus, that they remain under consideration to take over for Bochy, according to Baggarly. They’re the only in-house candidates so far for San Francisco, which Baggarly reports is not close to making a hire.
If they go outside the org for the hire, do Mulens and Wotus open themselves up for other vacancies?
I’d imagine they are already open to interviews with other organizations. If I recall, Meulens has interviewed for managerial openings in the past. Not sure about Wotus.
They both have interviewed in past years
Wotus has had interviews with other teams. I guess he’s not so good in interviews.
In Farhan we trust. Hopefully it’s Wotus or Bam Bam.
Good luck with that. He will likely stick with his Oakland bias and hire Kotsay.
Please give Wotus a chance. Give him a 2 year contract. See what happens. He’s earned a shot at this. Remember, he was Bochy’s right hand man for 3 championships. Not until this past season was he a third base coach. I hope he gets a chance.
Wotus is the obvious choice…..we’ll experienced and has been a very successful minor league manager…..knows the franchise well
Wotus is not the obvious choice because it’s a new regime.
WOTUS for POTUS!!!!!
This notion that Zaidi is gonna reward Meulens or Wotus with the Managerial job after they were part of a coaching staff that just booked three consecutive below .500 losing seasons is just laughable. Those interviews were ‘courtesy interviews’ based on their tenure as Giants. It’s protocol. It’s also rehearsal for Zaidi so he’s sharp when he interviews guys he’s really interested in.
I’m not sure why Giants fans would even support hiring either of those guys. But it’s clearly part of the culture out there. Giants fans are terrified of change. They still speak of the Giants in successful championship tones in spite of the fact that their run occurred a decade/ half decade ago and subsequently, they’ve been one of the worst teams in MLB the last 3 years. Awful players like Crawford and Brandin Belt are big fan favorites. It’s just bizarre.
If what happened the last 3-4 years in San Francisco happened in NY or Boston, heads would have rolled back in 2016- 2017. Someone would have stabbed Bobby Evans in the employee parking lot at Fenway.
Unfortunately, I agree with your take. Those guys will be lucky if they have jobs next year with the Giants without Bochy there to protect them. Zaidi needs to clean house and that’s what he’s trying to do. He should’ve pulled the trigger on those trades. You no longer have to win championships to be a profitable baseball club, which is why the Marlins are worth over a billion dollars and the Royals just sold for a billion, if my memory is correct. The Giants have a great fan base, a sweetheart deal with the city for the stadium, and could easily BUY another next World Series and pay the “luxury tax.” His task is to make the team more profitable. He’ll continue to pull outfielders out of burning Dumpsters, the crab sandwiches will still cost you $45 at Highest Bidder Park, and 25-30,000 loyal fans will still come out to most home games. The race to the bottom comes with the assumption that you’ll stop off and pick up some championship hardware on your way there. Where were you when the fun stopped? The new manager will be a blank slate.
I’m one of those loyal fans that went to 10 games last year. I kinda feel like I have to point out a few things to this post.
There is nowhere near 25,000 fans at games this year. I was there on opening day and it was probably half full. I was there the last weekend of the season and it was probably 1/3 full. I was there in a mid-season game against San Diego and it was empty. No, fans aren’t showing up.
Sweetheart deal with the city? They paid for their own ballpark. If the city helped them along, great. It was better than giving them $350 million like Miami did with the Marlins. Also, if anything the city should be thanking the Giants. Before 2000 that area was a ghost town of empty buildings and warehouses. Now its’ the most thriving part of the city, with a new neighborhood, a hospital, and an arena the city has coveted for decades. This is all thanks to the Giants building that place and starting the rejuvenation.
Your take is moronic. You’re insinuating the Giants are going to be the next Marlins? I have no clue where you get that take since they consistently are one of the highest paying payrolls in MLB. Man, they went after Stanton two years ago and Harper last year, yet you think they are complacent? They tried to continue winning with the current core, and now that plan failed and they are retooling and you think… what exactly? They are tossing in the towel? I don’t even understand what you’re talking about.
Lastly, can you elaborate on what the heck this means? “The race to the bottom comes with the assumption that you’ll stop off and pick up some championship hardware on your way there.” Are you saying that you’ll win a World Series and throw games at the same time?
Well said. It must be something in the water? 49er fans still think Joe Idaho is going to lead them to another Super Bowl.
Nah, the defense is going to lead them to another super bowl.
The Giants haven’t been good for a decade? Not sure if they had math at your educational institution. They won the World Series in 2014 & in 2016 gave the Cubs (the eventual champs that year) all they could handle in the NLDS. If the bullpen hadn’t blown a 3 run lead in the 9th, even Cubs manager Joe Maddon said they’d have been in trouble. Cueto (who was lights out in that series) would have pitched Game 6. And game 7 woulda been pitched by one of the greatest post-season pitchers ever. So SF made playoffs in 2016 & have won 3 World titles in last 9 years…& you say they’ve been terrible for the last decade? If that’s terrible I can’t wait until they’re good, according to your math and calculations they probably will go 162-0 every year
Yeah, the 2016 Giants were so good that they could have taken the 5-game NLDS to a Game 6 and 7
Meulens and Wotus were also a part of the 3 WS titles. You want to blame them for the past 3 years, but not credit them for 2010 through 2014? The team was bad due to the FO.
They should go get Whitey Herzog!
The Giants Fans who believe in Santa Claus and want the Giants to be something like it was 1964, 1980 something or 2010-2014 are slowing backing off.
I did find comical all those “Who popped in your cereal” “Who tinkled in your coffee” “take it down a notch” “change the channel” “lower the volume” comments in response to Giants criticism amusing. Some Giants Fans are just whack jobs
Amen
Calling people whack jobs and you can barely string together a coherent sentence…?
You’ve got bigger things to worry about homie
How classy of you to comment. Classy Giants Fans like yourself are just class.
Hensley Meulens is the Kim Ng of managerial candidates… tons of interviews, but never gets a shot anywhere.
Does he pick his nose or fart during the interviews? Maybe take sabermetrics name in vain?
What gives? We need to hear from a Giants fan that “watches every game” since that means they know what they’re talking about!
I actually like Bam Bam and he could be very useful speaking all those languages. That said, people just don’t listen to him. It has been well noted. When he was the hitting coach he tried introducing the launch angles to the Giants. Giants players refused to listen to him. If players aren’t going to listen to him as a hitting coach, they’re not going to listen to him as a Manager.
Same could be said about Posey. People talk so much about Posey’s leadership’s skills. Sorry, but when you’re the Captain of a 90 Loss Team for 3 consecutive seasons and you can’t talk your peers into listening to the hitting coach, that doesn’t make you a great leader. Posey might be a great catcher or was a great catcher at one time, but that doesn’t make him a potential great manager. By the same standards I hold Bam Bam to, Posey would be horrible manager.