The Giants have announced a broad shake-up of their coaching staff, which will remain under the charge of skipper Bruce Bochy. Most notably, perhaps, the team will shift long-time bench coach Ron Wotus to third-base duties while filling the resulting opening with Hensley Meulens, who had been the hitting coach.
Wotus has been on the San Francisco staff for two decades, most of it as the bench coach. He has filled that job under three different managers, in fact, and has often been cited as a managerial candidate himself. Now, though, he’ll cede the job to Meulens, who (per the announcement) will “take over the day-to-day administration and participate more directly with Bruce Bochy’s in-game strategy.”
In other moves, the Giants have added Matt Herges as bullpen coach and decided to keep Jose Alguacil (first base coach) and Shawon Dunston (replay/on-field instructor) in their current roles. The club bid adieu to Phil Nevin, who had functioned as the third base coach.
Additionally, the Giants have reassigned the rest of the pitching and hitting staff members. Long-time pitching coach Dave Righetti will move into the front office as a special assistant to GM Bobby Evans, with last year’s bullpen coach Mark Gardner taking on a “special assignment” role. Assistant hitting coach Steve Decker will become a baseball ops “special assistant,” per the club.
Evans explained the moves, which are fairly notable but perhaps aren’t all that surprising after a miserable 2017 campaign, as driven by a need to maintain the team’s “edge” in a highly competitive industry. It’s necessary, he says, “to constantly infuse new ideas and energy at every level of the organization, on the field and in the front office.”
There will be a few new voices in the dugout, too, though their identities remain undetermined at this point. In the wake of today’s announcement, the Giants still need to hire a pitching coach, hitting coach, and assistant hitting coach. The club says it is still conducting interviews for those jobs.
So they rearranged some chairs on the deck of this titanic of a franchise and called it “infus(ing) new ideas and energy”
Yeah, good luck with that
Three World Championships in five years this decade. There’s obviously going to be a need for a rebuild after that level of success.
Thank you Debbie Downer
Bobby Evans and Bruce Bochy need to go.
You can replace Bochy with another three time World Championship Manager. Oh wait…
La Russa is a 3x WS winner.
There’s a reason LaRussa hasn’t managed since 2011. You might as well make a push for Casey Stengel.
If you listen to his interviews he doesn’t sound like he has anything left to give. No passion, just kind of going through the motions. I love Boch for all he has given the team and the Bay Area, but it is time to put him out to pasture and bring in some fresh blood.
Have you ever heard Boch before this year? He is a laid back dude. He sounded uninterested in the post WS press conferences
Bochy could win the lottery and he’d be exactly the same. He’s almost devoid of emotion. I played for managers like that and it’s actually kinda refreshing because they don’t have to scream at people to make a point. Their theories were “we play a lot of games. Never get too up and never get too down, keep your emotions in check”. Most of them felt like getting to hyped up would force you to make mistakes.
Absolutely true
In other breaking news, ownership and the front office will be seeking replacements for themselves.
What? Of COURSE not, you see, the coaches were just not in the right positions this last year … that being “ready to take the fall for Bochy after another disappointing season” so he can retire at the end of 2018 for “medical reasons”.
Dude has had 3 heart operations in 3 years, he ought to retire or move to the FO for his own good
Just a few years ago he was being hailed as a genius, now he can’t retire soon enough. Isn’t that just the thing, though? When a team fails to complete, the blame nearly always comes down to the manager and coaches. Ownership rarely fires a front office, and nobody can fire ownership.
More down votes for truth. Here they come.
It’s the same ol same ol in MLB ! What have you done for me lately?
And while the Giants have been busy shuffling the current staff other teams have snatched up the best pitching and hitting coaches available. I would have filled the vacant positions first with quality candidates and then moved the existing coaches around. Eh, what do I know?
The giants interviewed them, they decided to go with currently established teams….
Unfortunately none of these guys play outfield or hit homeruns. The Giants were one of the worst hitting teams in the majors and the hitting coach gets a promotion?
Makes no sense huh? Why turf Righetti when he’s been successful. Giants have NEVER hit well and Bam Bam takes a step up? I’m sure there’s reasons I don’t understand but I’d love to be enlightened.
I’ve heard one theory that they see Bam Bam as the next manager. No idea if this is a good idea or bad. But if he’s a crappy hitting coach. Can’t imagine he’d be a better manager unless he hired a kick butt hitting coach to make up for his failings.
How was Meulens not the first person axed ?
It’s like the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine was too afraid to fire someone incompetent so she promoted him instead.
hensley became the hitting coach in 2010. think he’s done a pretty good job
as fans, we don’t see the day-to-day interactions between him and the players. his leadership and demeanor may have played into the bump from h.c. to bochy’s right hand in the dugout.
he’s also been the manager of the netherlands team that finished fourth in the last wbc (not too shabby).
popular thought here is that ‘bam bam’ is being groomed to take over for boch in the near future. just like dusty was roger craig’s (humm baby!!!) heir apparent back in the day.
it’s our starting staff and defense i’d like to see shored up. just thinking out loud here, but if we moved the shark (as our version of andrew miller) and moore (as affeldt part 2) to the pen, our pen would be ridiculous. madbum #1, cueto #2, stratton #3, blach #4, and decent f.a. signing for #5 if the kids in sacramento aren’t ready for prime time.
my $.02.
Bam Bam also managed the previous Netherlands team that made it to the finals,I honestly have zero worry if he takes over as manager, the only thing that sucks is that works kind of deserves the promotion
I agree with everything you said bunba3b except that Muelens has done a pretty good job. I think he’s been terrible for the most part. But I’m honest enough to admit that you could be right about the “day to day” stuff. But in the end I just think his results have been terrible.
So, you would move a $20 million dollar a year starting pitcher to the bullpen? One that pitches 200 innings a season and will give you roughly 200k’s, and a FIP in the upper 3’s? He also led the league this year with 1.4 BB/9.. Samardzija is the definition of a rotation workhorse.. He is a solid #3/#4 pitcher and is paid like one… To say he should be moved to the bullpen when he is still better than most mid rotation pitchers in MLB is foolish.. Also, I don;’t put much stock into the WAR stat but he turned in a 3.8 F-WAR in 2007. with a 3.61 FIP and a 3.60 xFIP. Those are very solid stats for a #3 pitcher and better than several #2’s around the league.. He is a flyball pitcher and IMO if he had decent OF defense hie would be seen as a better pitcher than some of his numbers would let on.. Just my 2 cents..
It was all Phil Nevin’s fault…..everything is fine now.
I wonder if something is wrong with Phil Nevin healthwise. He gets fired by the Giants and doesn’t even make it past the first round of interviews for Phillies manager. I know he used to throw constant temper tantrums when he was younger. Does he still do that? Odd that he’s the only coach that doesn’t get retained or even reassigned.
Didn’t hire Mike Maddux or Chili Davis. Sigh.
You assume they didn’t try- the Giants were the first to interview davis
Exactly, if I was a hitting coach I would probably prefer to go to a stacked lineup hitting half their games in Wrigley Field as opposed to a ho-hum lineup with few power hitters in a known pitchers park.. Also, the Cubs have a very young team.. Players are probably more open to direction when they are young. Plus, I doubt Davis wants anything to do with a reunion with Sandoval.
Fair point but I did not make that assumption. I bemoaned their lack of success, not their lack of effort.
Anyone being critical of moving instead of chopping heads should consider that one of the best things you can do after the disaster last year is a post mortem, one of the best ways to do that is to get the guys on the ground to huddle with the guys in the front office and let them know where the cracks are in the organization. When it comes to the on field staff, really the most important guys are your bench coach, hitting coach, pitching coach and manager. One guy internally is getting a chance and two of the other positions are open. We will find out what we can realistically expect from the team after the winter meetings when people really wheel and deal and after those positions get filled. Personally I would like to see bonds get a go as hitting coach,I know regardless of what happened in Miami, he worked well as an instructor in 2012 when he was in Scottsdale with them
Didn’t Miami try Bonds as a hitting coach and completely fail? He seems like the kind of guy they want to have as an instructor, not the coach.
It failed the second Dee Gordon a drug test. It wasn’t the smartest move by the Marlins.
It’s hard to put stock in what happened on the Marlins, it was a pretty toxic atmosphere and mattingly isn’t known as a great guy to work with. Bonds is in the system right now working with instruction on the minors in the giants system, it is more of getting him to accept a full time position
No matter what coaches you put on the field, they can’t fix the long term damage done by Evans and Sabean in their short sighted efforts to win just one more.
Shifting cooks around the kitchen stations in a restaurant doesn’t make better food if the ingredients aren’t there!
Not sure how much a hitting coach actually contributes, but I’m glad to see Meulens go. Calling Will Clark!