SAN FRANCISCO — For the second year in a row, three men in suits sat behind microphones on the club level of Oracle Park, overlooking a fall morning on the San Francisco Bay and a playing surface that wouldn’t see any action until springtime.
Eleven months ago, Farhan Zaidi sat to the right of Bob Melvin as chairman Greg Johnson introduced him as the team’s 39th manager. On Tuesday morning, hours before the start of MLB’s postseason, Melvin and Johnson flanked Buster Posey on the dais as the franchise icon laid out his vision as Zaidi’s successor.
“There’s a standard and an expectation for being a San Francisco Giant,” Posey said, invoking the names Mays, McCovey, Cain, Clark and more.
After six seasons and one playoff appearance under the modern-minded Zaidi, Posey outlined a desire to recapture the Giants’ past identity. At its core that means fielding rosters with “great players” that make up “great teams,” but ultimately, he said, “we’re in the memory-making business.”
The goal, Posey said, is to contend for championships on an annual basis, and Johnson confirmed ownership would provide the financial backing to do so, skirting any commitment to spend beyond the luxury tax but saying, “we will do it if we have to and we will spend what we need to put a winning team on the field.”
Posey was part of the board of directors that approved more than $300 million in spending this past winter that resulted in a fourth-place finish in the NL West and the fifth non-winning record in Zaidi’s six seasons. He purchased an ownership stake in 2022 and plans to hold on to it, as well as his board seat, in his new role.
Assuming the title of president of baseball operations, Posey received a three-year contract “with no contingencies,” Johnson said. He was short on specifics about the shape of their current roster or what needed to be done to achieve their goals but did announce one major shakeup.
Pete Putila, hired by Zaidi to replace Scott Harris as his general manager, will take on a different role. “One of the first tasks right out of the gate” will be hiring a general manager, Posey said, ideally someone with front office experience and a scouting background. The name of Jeremy Shelley, a longtime front office staffer, came up multiple times, though the team affirmed its commitment to follow the Selig rule and interview minority candidates for any open position.
The circumstances that led to the elevation of the three-time World Series champion and beloved former catcher into the organization’s top baseball post were far more unique. The ouster of Zaidi was hardly a shock, but the instant insertion of Posey into the role just three years since the end of his playing career came as a surprise.
“I think Farhan still is one of the great baseball minds out there,” Johnson said. “But the reality is six years and one playoffs, you can point to all the things that didn’t work or were unlucky here or injuries here, but the reality is we need to be in the playoffs. This year we put a lot into making sure we were going to get to the playoffs and we didn’t do it.”
When Posey joined the ownership group in September 2022, he said, “by no means am I trying to take on the role of front office and be in the trenches.” But just two years later, those calculations had changed.
About a month ago, Posey came to Johnson and expressed his desire for the job.
“My first reaction is, ‘Wow,’” Johnson said. “Because I always joked with him for years about how he’ll be doing this. It’s probably a little bit sooner than I anticipated. But when the timing’s right, the timing’s right. … I don’t think we’d come to any conclusion about what to do at that stage, but when he came forward and said I’m ready to do that, that’s what really moved things along.”
Johnson said that Posey “asked for the ball,” and manager Bob Melvin offered his endorsement using the same terminology.
“When somebody like Buster asks for the ball,” Melvin said, “you give it to him.”
In his opening remarks, Johnson thanked Giants fans for their patience, Zaidi for his service and Posey’s wife, Kristen, for agreeing to allow him to take the hands-on, round-the-clock role that, no matter how much he delegates, will mean less time with their four young children.
“As Greg alluded to, it was convincing my wife, No. 1,” Posey said. “I’m so passionate about baseball. I know I finished a few years ago, but the opportunity again to be a part of a team … the overall big picture of being something bigger than yourself was appealing.”
Johnson admired Posey as a player but only got to know him well once he joined the board of directors.
“For me and for the board, what we’ve observed with Buster working with him the past three years is that competitive fire he has to win, it didn’t end when he took his jersey off. It’s as strong today as ever,” he said. “It was really Buster’s desire to be accountable 100% for baseball, and that spoke a lot to me that he desired that.”
Posey, 37, will join Harris, who led the Detroit Tigers to an improbable postseason berth, as the youngest leaders of any team’s baseball operations. While acknowledging criticism over his lack of experience was “fair,” Posey said, “I do think a strength of mine is I’ll be all ears, listening and taking in information from people that have been doing this for a long time.”
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In addition to Shelley, who joined the organization in 1996, the majority of the front office is expected to stick around, as well as the major-league coaching staff. While Posey was noncommittal when it came to an extension for Melvin, whose contract is only guaranteed through 2025, the two lavished praise upon each other.
“He’s meant so much to this community, to this baseball team, the city – all of the above – so that’s what I’m excited about, being able to work with a guy that’s had that type of success in this organization,” Melvin said.
“I can say that I’m really excited to work with Bob, as well,” Posey added. “As a player, seeing him in the opposing dugout, if I ever made eye contact with Bob when I was playing, I never felt like he liked me.”
And Melvin chimed in: “Oh, I admittedly didn’t. And I never made eye contact with him either because he was always making my life really difficult.”
“So,” Posey concluded to laughs, “I’m happy we’re going to get to share some more endearing glances, I guess.”
