The Astros have interviewed former Giants general manager Bobby Evans for their own vacant GM post, according to a report from Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Evans is the first name to have emerged in Houston’s hunt for its next top executive.
The Astros, of course, are in need of replacements for both deposed GM Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch. While we’ve had plenty of news to follow along with the managerial search, things have been mostly quiet on the GM front. It makes sense, given that spring training is just around the corner and, well, beginning the spring with no manager would be quite the bold move. However, hiring a manager before a GM is not an ideal scenario; it’s increasingly necessary that executives up and down the organization are on the same page. That’s created a tricky situation for owner Jim Crane, who placed himself in charge of the team’s baseball operations in the interim.
Evans worked in the Giants organization beginning in 1994, serving as the team’s vice president of baseball operations during the franchise’s dynastic run of success from 2010-2014. He earned a promotion to general manager prior to the 2015 season, a post that he held for nearly four seasons until he was fired in September of 2018. Interestingly, as the Houston Chronicle’s Chandler Rome notes, Evans’ San Francisco tenure largely coincided with Dusty Baker’s stint as the Giants’ skipper from 1993-2002. Baker, of course, has been named as a candidate in the Astros’ managerial search.
That connection, if it’s anything meaningful, could serve to quell some of the tension that could arise between a manager who’s been hired before his GM. Of course, it has been nearly two decades since the two worked together, so that history may wind up being irrelevant anyway.
Is he the same guy who has that restaurant named after him?
no, that’s roy rogers
Roy Rogers. Wasnt he that French goalie with the Canadiens. Pronounced “Wah Rojay?”
No that’s Popeyes
No. That’s mcdonalds.
Burger King.
No. That’s Wendy’s.
No, that’s Sloppy Bevinz
No thats Junior Seau
No, that’s Carl Jr.
Bob Evans, down on the farm.
To answer your question. Yes! I ate at one at Dick’s Half Way Inn Resort. On a scale 1 to 10. 10 being best a 11.
To answer your question. Yes! I ate at one at Dick’s Half Way Inn Resort. On a scale 1 to 10. 10 being best a 11.
Beat me to it
Yes that’s ducky’s in tampA
Why wasnt Arby invited in?
…oh lord
Can someone buzz the candidate in for the interview?
lol. why?
MLB top 100 prospects just came out and the Giants had 5, most products of Evans. He was terrible with trades but his scouting/drafting strategy seems to have worked.
Joey Bart 2nd overall
Heliot Ramos 19th overall
Hunter Bishop 10th overall
Marco Luciano IFA
Setn Corry 3rd round 2017
Bishop is Zaidi (2019).
The other 2 Bart and Ramos you’d expect 1st round pedigree, esp Bart who was billed as a generational talent at catcher. Corry is ranked 99 overall out of 100, still a top 100 prospect but I’d take that with a grain of salt.
Uh, not whiffing on a top 2, 10 or 20 pick has nothing to do with how good a GM is.
Evans is legitimately clueless how to build a team. I’d be shaking in my boots if I was an Astros fan, the old guard might be out, but the prospects they left behind still are there, and now Evans is going to trade Whitley for Samardjiza or something.
Not whiffing on 2, 10, and 20 overall has everything to do with being a good gm; it might be the most important skill in GMing. Take a look at some old drafts.
Jeffery Luhnow was considered one of the best GMs in baseball… He whiffed on back to back number 1 overall picks…
Luhnow had a huge influence on Cardinal drafting, player development, international scouting, etc… they never got to pick that high in the draft but he managed to find gems up and down the draft. Early rounds through later rounds he found value.
The GM is the defining force in draft picks. That would be largely the scouting department and the field manager. GM is responsible for contracts and trades and Evans was the worst GM in modern history.
The GM is the defining force in draft picks. That would be largely the scouting department and the field manager. GM is responsible for contracts and trades and Evans was the worst GM in modern history.
Jeez, if it wasn’t for hyperbole would comments sections be completely empty?
@Baytown, I don’t know if he’s “the worst in modern history” but I agree he was pretty darn bad. He was responsible for the long/overpay extensions of both Crawford and Belt and Pence (Pence’s clubhouse presence and work ethic made the contract more palatable, but it was not a good contract for the club). AND, for bummer’s-sake, he traded for Evan Longoria. Brutal!! I think he’s a perfect fit for the Asterisks!!!! Then, they pick up Dusty and
be the laughing stock of MLB, which is about what they deserve at this point.
yeah the issue with evans was that in the offseasons he would be like, last year everyone complained i had a bad closer, so i’ll overpay for a closer, JOB DONE! and that is it – same thing the previous years in other positions- it was the difference between the sabean years where you saw a bunch of little moves that patched the little holes all over together with scraps and mid tier moves and made a working team and the evans years where he just seemed to want to let it ride and fix the one thing .that people complained about the previous year
Evans was able to Draft Bart Because he had just booked a 98 loss season w/ 200 million dollar payroll the year prior
Love all these negative comments on Evans. Unless a poster was actually employed with the club, how do you know he wasn’t the real force behind Sabean’s magic? I have no idea but my point is Astro ownership needs to get this right in many aspects and apparently there’s something positive that Mr. Crane sees.
Giants had mediocre draft results for a very long time before 2016. There is far more bad from Evans than good. Its also not hard to hit on the #2 pick. Going from Luhnow to Evans would be stepping back into the dark ages.
I’ll give Bobby Evans his credit a director of player personnel, but not as a gm. and I only give him that credit because he was working in the minor league scene as lincecum, Cain, panik, panda, Crawford, and Posey were coming through the system.
You shouldn’t give him credit for Posey, who was a generational talent. Nor Lincecum, who’s father made the Giants use contract language that they would not interfere in any aspect of his (at the time) somewhat unusual mechanics, gameday prep and his entire game. Almost all those guys mentioned were always going to hit MLB. Tell me who Evans pulled out of nowhere? He has none of those.
If Posey was such a obvious generational talent why did he last until the Giant’s with the 5th pick? Why did Tim Beckham, Pedro Alvarez, Eric Hosmer and Brian Matusz appear to be better choices than Posey to the teams with the first 4 picks?
And don’t give me that BS that it had to do with those 4 teams not liking what it would take to sign Posey. If he’s such an obvious generational talent teams don’t pass like that. This kind of revisionist history is ridiculous. It’s just an obvious attempt to make criticism of Evans appear to be valid.
Funny Tad that Strike Four has no response!
In a related note. Yankees sending Stanton and Andujar out for Arenado.
Lol yeah keep eating shrooms ejemp
not gonna happen but man I would love to see stanton in colorado
Interesting decade for the Giants. Was an ultimately old, weak team recently the necessary cost of 3 World Series titles, or was there needless GM malpractice during the 10s?
Ohoh: “Your comment is awaiting moderation.”
Apparently pointing out that bribery built the Texas Rangers new stadium has a cost.
Is this part of the punishment?
That’s funny
Does Kim Ng just not want a GM job? Or is MLB determined to never let a woman hold this off-field position?
Losing 1st and 2nd rounders 2 years in a row. Mlb doing behind the scenes check ups and micro managing for a few years. She shouldn’t take the job; nobody in their right mind would take the job having both hands tied behind your back for a few years.
She would take the job instantly
Losing first and second round picks isn’t that big a deal when your minors/major teams are as stacked as the astros. And the draft pick ramifications won’t manifest for many years
isn’t that par for the course for women in leadership roles – it is a pretty common thing for corporations to hand the reigns to a female CEO when the company is struggling and to a male CEO when things are rosy
Troll.
@spinach not trolling, just wondering why the same group of terrible GM’s are allowed to keep getting jobs when they have never proved they know how to build a contender.
The Astros are cancelled
I think the knee jerk reaction to this kind of a situation is to get the opposite of what you just had. I think that’s a big mistake. The Astros lost their culture under Luhnow which is something Luhnow would be wise to consider in his next gig somewhere(he’s way to smart to be black balled). Stay progressive in your gm hire but it’ll be on Crane to manage the culture going forward and make sure they don’t get lost in the win at all costs mentality.
“…it’ll be on Crane to manage the culture going forward…”
Well, Mr Fox, we are delighted to offer you this position guarding the henhouse!
Evans’ tenure as GM in SF came just after their 3rd WS win in 5 years, and it was clear his focus was to keep the gang together no matter what. His legacy is an ugly collection of albatross contracts for players nobody else wants. Zaidi will be years digging out from the concrete Evans poured to anchor declining players in SF. If anyone in HOU finds themselves in a drunken state actually believing Evans is worth consideration, just spend a couple minutes pondering the Brandon Belt extension, and that should bring you back to reality.
Solaris602
You said it all in one sentence,
“The Brandon Belt extension”
the belt extension isn’t even that bad but the trade for mccutchen, the trade for longoria, the trade for matt moore, the signing of melancon, signing of span and a bunch of other busts as well as the slow walk on development due to aging blockers ebmbedded in positions but not performing
I will say this, whoever is the brewers GM, needs to get axed.
This position is a little hard to understand, since the Brewers were a game away from the World Series two years ago, and lost the wild card last year to the eventual champions. Has he done something unethical that I’m not aware of? I don’t see any reason to remove him based on performance.
Ultimately, SF sent Evans packing because he took the fall for awarding too many veterans contracts that rewarded past performance rather than future performance. This mess has led to a few seasons of mediocrity that current GM Zaidi is suffering through presently.
As SF clung desperately to the idea that they could compete with the WS core of 2014 largely intact, Evans went all in and made some trades that were largely later maligned . He leveraged the future by signing Cueto and Samardzija deep into their thirties. He traded away prospects for McCutcheon and Longoria, who were fast fading. He traded for Matt Moore, who turned out to be an utter bust…
Evans and Sabean pulled the strings for the championship years, but got sloppy and paid for it.
Evans also seems like an “old-school” guy and not an analytics-driven type. I don’t think that would fare too well for the Astros.
Thanks for the summary!
I have to wonder how much of that was Evans setting out to keep the core together, and how much of it was ownership feeding him the narrative to keep the team together at any cost, and to field a winning team (even when they desperately needed a teardown).
Ownership had just funded a massive real estate project, so it was in their best interest to keep the Giants relevant. And for what it’s worth, snagging two franchise players (even aging, deteriorating ones) was pretty interesting, even though it did not work out.
Not that I think Evans is a good GM. But I also don’t think his tenure with the Giants is the best sample size.
Giants fans are spoiled. They expect a World Championship every year.
* every other year
people that have that attitude I don’t think realize that those 3 are the only rings that the giants have ever had while in SF and were nearly moved out of SF at one point not long ago
“However, hiring a manager before a GM is not an ideal scenario; it’s increasingly necessary that executives up and down the organization are on the same page…..Interestingly, as the Houston Chronicle’s Chandler Rome notes, Evans’ San Francisco tenure largely coincided with Dusty Baker’s stint as the Giants’ skipper from 1993-2002.”
So does this mean Baker is secretly the frontrunner for the manager’s job? At first glance it seems that way
I think that someone has made the connection between Evans and Baker and is wondering. Crane did say of Baker recently that he is at the top of the list, whatever that means.
Is he the guy who grabbed cell phone from wife knocking her over?
That was Larry Baer.
I believe that Evans was just the tip of the iceberg in SF. The decline of the farm system was probably equal parts bad luck and poor evaluation of talent available prior to the draft.
The thing to remember is that although GM’s do make some trips to see players prior to the draft,the team relies heavily on its scouting department for recommendations on whom to draft. The problems with the Giants’ farm went deeper than the GM. That’s likely why Zaidi made changes to scouting when he took over. You know there’s a problem with the way you’re evaluating players when teams are drafting better players in the 8th round than you’re taking in the 1st-in multiple seasons.
Saying they missed out on better talent due to later first round picks is just a cop out. The Dodgers have successfully built a quality farm while winning more regular season games. They did it by making smart decisions + signing top international talent.
I don’t blame them for Posey and Crawford’s deals. That’s what it took to lock up two of their best young players with some cost certainty.
Belt was a short- sighted deal. He was never a great player, and they were betting against their future ability to draft or acquire an equal or better first baseman.
Don’t really blame them for acquiring Evan Longoria. They didn’t and still don’t have a viable 3B option in the minors, and there was no guarantee they could’ve signed or traded for a player better than him anyhow. The contract was the real bad part. Not my money though, so I don’t care.
The move I really hated was the signing of Samardzija. Not only hasn’t he earned his big salary, but he cost them a first round pick. At the time it seemed like just a knee- jerk reaction to missing out on the pitcher they really wanted- Jon Lester. Samardzija was never an ace- type pitcher. San Francisco has had this arrogant attitude that they could turn so- so pitchers into aces with a combination of the home ballpark dimension and Dave Righetti. Meanwhile the game passed the Giants by.
MLB set the Astros back 5 years but this move would set them back a couple of decades.
A couple of decades? A bit dramatic
Astros fans everywhere:
Oh no…we suck again (in best Rob Schneider voice possible)
This has the potential to not end well…