John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle reports this surprising news and, remember, his reporting was instrumental in getting Gabe Kapler fired.
A little bit of a surprise came yesterday afternoon in the form of reporting by John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle: neither Farhan Zaidi nor Bob Melvin received 3-year deals last offseason as had been widely reported.
Instead, the San Francisco Giants simply didn’t correct the notion that they were 3-year deals when in reality they were 2-year guarantees with a 3rd-year club option. Like major league deals, they’re guaranteed, so if the Giants were to move on from either, they’d still have to pay them for that guaranteed year — unless they’re allowed to interview elsewhere and leave, but that seems extraordinarily unlikely, given, you know, their track records.
A 2-year deal with an option was a sound decision by ownership. In true Zaidi style, they kept their options open by not tying down the future and they’ve given themselves enough time to answer for themselves a few lingering questions:
- “Was it really only Kapler holding us back?”
- “Did we go too far in the analytics direction and what’s missing is old school seasoning?”
- “Are we really just a year or two away from multiple prospects making an impact?”
Zaidi’s record in all facets has been average at best and Bob Melvin hasn’t managed in a way that makes one question San Diego’s decision to allow him to leave for a division rival. So, it makes sense why the organization gave itself a quick escape hatch if their very obvious downside risks took front and center.
It’s inarguable that the Giants have been a disappointment. Farhan Zaidi’s tenure is a monument to mediocrity and Bob Melvin’s managerial career is all thanks to the A’s magic formula. Sometimes, the plan doesn’t come together and it’s okay to move on — but we can get into this part of the conversation later if the team does wind up axing one or both.
I want to examine John Shea’s involvement here. He’s the national baseball writer for the Chronicle, so he’s first and foremost a reporter; but last year it seemed very clear that he was also a mouthpiece for the most prominent season ticketholders, or at least the vanguard of those (effectively) wealthy donors who wanted Gabe Kapler kicked to the curb — to say nothing of the Giants beat writers who were frustrated by the quotes he gave.
Farhan Zaidi deserves heaps of criticism. The Giants created a new position for him, let him run high payrolls, and thought they were getting a true genius. Instead, they will have had just one winning season since 2016 and three years on the one winning season they had was so clearly a wild stroke of luck that can never be repeated that it’s unfair to the front office to give them any credit for it.
Shea has transferred the tone of criticism from Kapler to Zaidi as the Giants’ season has once again fallen apart (again: deserved!) and it’s likely he’ll be making it clear that fans are not happy with a very specific person. I highlight two passages in his article as some evidence of this:
If ownership is losing patience with the Giants’ direction to the extent it makes a change at the top of baseball operations, the team still would need to pay Zaidi’s 2025 salary while also paying his successor. It also means Melvin and his staff, if he stays — the fan criticism of Melvin has been less venomous than that of Zaidi — would be working for a new boss.
[…]
Melvin was to provide an old-school/new-school mix, which generally had been welcomed by fans and players alike. Still, Zaidi and his staff have had a heavy hand, like many who oversee baseball-ops departments, in the daily planning and in-game strategies.
Giants pitching has been significantly worse this season than in previous seasons when they had the likes of Anthony DeSclafani, Sean Manaea, and Ross Stripling soaking up some innings, and that’s in part because Bob Melvin insisted on raiding the natural history museum to hire the Tyrannosaurus rex bones of Bryan Price to be the pitching coach. But also, season ticketholders agitated for — and won — the right to not have to see planned bullpen games, a strategy that was very effective for the Giants in previous years. So, now they’re just an average pitching staff. Somehow, that’s Farhan Zaidi’s fault?
The Zaidi-Melvin marriage hasn’t been as successful as the people who demanded Bob Melvin expected it to be and so Zaidi’s taking an outsized hit for that because he’s the one who’s been with the organization longer. The article — and this one from a week and a half ago: “Farhan Zaidi’s master plan didn’t work. What can the Giants do about it in September?” — do attempt to thread the needle between pros and cons of keeping Zaidi through 2025, but I offer this closing thought as a rebuttal to the thesis that “difficult decisions […] both on the field and off” will be needed this offseason:
The Giants are giving their “next gen” baseball hire a very reasonable amount of time to prove that his management style is the best fit for the San Francisco Giants. With 2025 as his last guaranteed season, he will have been given seven years to sort out the mess left by the previous group; and, two of those years were impacted by factors entirely out of Zaidi’s control: the Bruce Bochy farewell tour and the pandemic season. Ignore those two years and next year gives him a clean 5 years of room to work. Again: very reasonable. The Giants have tied Zaidi & Melvin’s fates together. If you’re agitating for one to be fired, then you’re asking for both to be fired.
Many fans would cut off their nose to spite their face, but if the Giants were sensible enough to give both guys two years then it stands to reason they’ll let this play out in full.
Unless September is an absolute disaster.