Although the Giants are mired in their second straight poor season, expectations are that both executive vice president of baseball operations Brian Sabean and manager Bruce Bochy will return in 2019, Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets. General manager Bobby Evans may not be as fortunate, though, as Nightengale reports that he’s on the “hot seat.” Evans, previously San Francisco’s assistant general manager, took over the GM role from Sabean in April 2015 as part of a series of promotions. The Giants were the reigning World Series champions at the time, but their results have been disappointing since then, even though they’ve been among the game’s highest-spending teams.
More from San Francisco, which has dropped 11 of 12 this month to fall to 10 games under .500:
- Giants first baseman Brandon Belt’s season may be over. Belt underwent an MRI on his sore right knee, and if the results aren’t to the Giants’ liking, they’ll shut him down for 2018, Kerry Crowley of the Bay Area News Group was among those to report. Belt has been dealing with knee issues since late July, when he landed on the 10-day disabled list and missed two-plus weeks. The 30-year-old’s OPS has dropped nearly 100 points since he returned from the DL (from .842 to .756), which may be thanks in part to his knee. Between Belt’s injury and the fact that the Giants have nothing to play for as their season nears an end, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them put Belt on ice until 2019. Belt remains a key cog for the organization, as he’s due another $48MM on the five-year, $72.8MM extension the Evans-led Giants awarded him in April 2016.
- While it appears Bochy will return next year (something he’d like to do), at least one member of his staff won’t. The club dismissed strength and conditioning coach Carl Kochan on Thursday, per Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports California. Kochan had been in his seventh season with San Francisco, and his firing is just the first of multiple changes that could occur. The Giants are evaluating “all levels of the organization” at this point, Pavlovic writes.
There’s your scapegoat. Strength and conditioning coach?
Nope, just the first domino to fall.
Lol
Clearly says the gm Bobby Evans may not be so fortunate to return.. I don’t blame Bobby I feel most of his moves were guided or approved by Sabean and Baer and the lot..
Clearly says only one who got fired, was strength and conditioning coach.
So did Bobby Evan do anything then since you said he was guided by higher up???
Waste of money to pay Bobby
No, he has been clearly terrible- when sabean was in charge he made a number of small moves that added up to a complete team, Evans on the other hand did move after move of signing high profile guys to replace high profile holes while ignoring the other needs and gutting the farm
Good one xabial, thanks.
Hmmm I wonder if the reason they dismissed the strength and conditioning coach is because they feel he’s somewhat to blame for the injuries this season? Having said that the injuries to Panik, Longoria and MadBum cannot be attributed to the coach.
They probably dismissed him because of general veteran malaise. No doubt, there’s been a notable flagging in health and power this season, particularly for position players. The coach can’t be blamed for many of their numerous injuries, but clearly guys like Crawford, Belt, Pence, Longoria, Posey, Belt, etc, are worn out and have seen their power decimated. Could be that these guys are just old and broken, but could also be (in part) that the conditioning coach hasn’t done all he should to help them stay spry. Probably the coach is a scapegoat, but that’s how baseball is: Lose games and eventually there’s going to be a personnel shakeup.
They need a change in the strategy for drafting. They seem to be satisfied drafting middle level players that never become superstars. They consistently have one of the lowest ranked farm systems. And are often unable to trade for big names because other teams are not interested in their prospects.
Part of that may be that until recently, they had low picks in the draft. Bart and Ramos could be superstars. The jury’s still out on their high picks from the post championship era..
It’s quite amusing hearing KNBR host like Marty Lurie make excuses why this team has been one of the worst in baseball since the 2nd half of 2016. I’m pretty sure the Giants are going to run it back and make more non impactful moves like last off-season. What they really need is to hire someone from the Rays or Brewers front office and start to retool for the 2020s.
Burn it down, salvage the nails, build a new cabin.
Marty is truthful I guess that the truth hurts you? mature audiences only!! Better stick to Rod Brooks or Kelli Johnson or Runel
Sabean seemed to have something Evans does not in procuring talent. I think we pay some (a lot) of these guys too much. Instead of a superstar they bring in past super talent. They’ve had some great deals in the past, guys like Gorkys this year who have numbers better than their better player (see Belt). Why not bring in the fences in left field and center so as to create an environment that somebody like Bryce Harper et. al. would consider playing in? Sounds crazy but 81 games made easier at one of the hardest parks to hit in might help. So would some players that aren’t hurt all the time. Evans does need to go.
I think the giants drafting has been fine. They just need more top-10 picks to build the empire over again. Hence why I think they should rebuild 2019 and 2020 and aim for 2021 when Bart, Ramos, Suarez, D-Rod, Avelino, etc start maturing into big league players. The payroll helps as well. Probably should spend big in 2019/2020 to prep for 2021.
D-Rod and Suarez are already “big-league” players. Just think that they need a year or two to develop more to become a solid 1-2 punch.
D Rod and Suarez will be like 30 years old in 2021.
And what’s wrong with that? Being 30 doesn’t mean they can’t produce good or decent numbers to help the team
they will both be 29 and in the prime of their careers
Let the rebuild begin. Trade Crawford, Belt and MadBum. Get as much value in return right now as you can. Don’t turn into the 2012-2015 Phillies where you keep all the aging veterans and try to ride it out. It’s over with this group. Time to move on.
The difference between an indisputably amazing and brilliant GM/PBO and an awful one is so often a few lucky marginal moves.
That is true, but the Cueto and Smarzdija signings shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Cueto began to show signs of a breakdown as early as 2015, and Samarzdija has been one of the most overrated pitchers in baseball since he stepped on a diamond. Any FO that expected anything more than what SF has gotten from that pair was kidding themselves. We could possibly excuse Evans for the Melancon signing because the Giants absolutely had to sign a closer at the time, but Bobby just picked the wrong guy for too many years and too much money again. Could have had a guy like Fernando Rodney for fewer years, a LOT less money, and MUCH better results. Evans has shown a clear tendency to bet on the wrong horse every time, and so it really is time to go.
Just watching today’s game I see Crawford save run after run. He could hit .250 and he’d still be worth it. Actually he’s not that far from .250. But he’s still the best.
Kyle Tucker would be a regular starter on a team like the Reds, Padres, or White Sox. Just not the Astros.
As a giants fan I would have preferred a rebuild years ago. My point about Evans being guided was more so that, he never had that option the team wanted to compete and keep trying to band aid to maximize there window. I’m not by any means saying his moves were great! But when you can’t rebuild and you can’t go over a luxury tax your being semi handcuffed by ownership.