The Giants have signed manager Gabe Kapler to a contract extension that runs through the end of the 2024 season, the club announced. His original deal ran through next year, so the sides are extending their relationship by an additional two years.
It’s no surprise the San Francisco front office kicked off the offseason by hammering out an extension with their skipper. It’s fairly common for teams to avoid heading into the season with a manager in the final year of his contract — if for no other reason than to ward off speculation about their long-term future.
Of course, no one would’ve expected Kapler’s job to be in any jeopardy anyways. Signed to replace Bruce Bochy over the 2019-20 offseason, Kapler led the club to a roughly average showing in his first season. The Giants went 29-31 during the 2020 truncated schedule, finishing just outside an expanded playoff field. If anything, that roughly .500 showing looked to be an optimistic expectation heading into 2021. FanGraphs’ preseason projections gave the Giants just a 5.7% chance of reaching the playoffs, while Baseball Prospectus forecasted them at 75-87 with less than a 1% shot of winning a loaded NL West.
Instead, the Giants played one of the best seasons in the history of the more than century-old franchise. No other Giants’ team had won more than the 107 regular games claimed by this year’s squad, while their .660 winning percentage was the organization’s fifth-highest mark since 1900 (and highest since moving to San Francisco in 1958). The Giants led all teams in wins, narrowly holding off the Dodgers to claim an improbable division crown.
The team didn’t have the postseason success they no doubt desired, dropping a tight five-game Division Series against their archrivals from L.A. The front office surely isn’t holding the vagaries of a five-game sample against Kapler, though, and today’s extension reflects that.
It’s always hard to apportion credit or blame for a team’s success to a manager from the outside. Giants’ players no doubt deserve plenty of acclaim, with Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford, Brandon Belt and Evan Longoria playing as well as ever despite being into their mid-30s. That group has been effusive in their praise for the front office and Kapler’s coaching staff in helping orchestrate their turnarounds, though. Kapler and his staff also drew plaudits for their leveraging of San Francisco’s role players, with previously unheralded performers like Darin Ruf and LaMonte Wade Jr. thriving in platoon capacities.
The Giants’ marvelous campaign has massively raised expectations for the franchise heading into 2022. Facing the potential free agent departures of four-fifths of their primary rotation, president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and his front office have plenty of work to do this offseason. They’ve checked off one box early, keeping Kapler in the Bay Area for what they hope to be another few great seasons.
cant let The Bod leave, that’s for sure
True. Also means the Mets may need to wait for years for him as well, no big deal if they’re waiting 2, or 3, or ??? Years to poach from the brewers, but still. One less candidate to hear about the Mets waiting for…. maybe
The man looked so awful working with the Phillies FO and so good with the Giants.
Paraphrasing Mark Twain:
He sure learned a lot in a year.
Welcome back
Your dreams were your ticket out
Welcome back
To that same old place that you laughed about
Who’d have thought they’d lead you
(Who’d have thought they’d lead you)
Back here where we need you
(Back here where we need you)
Ooops my bad, that’s Gabe Kaplan. Ahahahaha
Kapler not Kaplan.
Hey MannyBMVP google Welcome back Kotter, you innocently missed the joke…
Get off my case, toilet face.
(Yes, I missed it.)
He stopped eating Mcnuggets without the breading
Maybe it was the Phillies internal issues and not Kaplers?
Hmmmm
you wouldn’t have thought that if you watched the games.
Well, the Phillies sucked with Kapler. Kapler leaves. The Phillies keep sucking. Kapler doesn’t. Interesting.
Nah, they just needed one of dem dare baseball gene-yusses like Joe Freakin’ Girardi.
Samuel:
The Phillies FO did not have a problem with Kapler. The owner, not the FO, wanted him out. The FO wanted to retain him.
And, I’d say it isn’t what Kapler learned, though, every season is a learning experience, but indicates that the FO was correct, and Middleton let his non-baseball background. make the wrong decision.
tad2b13, Which is why Mets fans should hope Cohen leaves the baseball decisions to his baseball people. As baseball fans, that’s how all of us should hope our favorite team is run.
Ceyhey, if you haven’t noticed the Mets don’t have any baseball people. Ahahahaha!
I think he learn’t. 2 things. He comes across as a guy that’s not afraid to self improve. I also read somewhere that he was a bit of micro manager at the Phillies. Listening to him speak this year, he seemed to be going the other way. I’d have money on some honest self analysis and a few changes being implemented after his initial stint.
Just a year ago people were scratching their heads. Now, he’s a savior. I always liked this guy but haven’t seen him too much as a manager.
Give Gabe Kapler credit for learning during his Phillies tenure to allow relievers to warm up prior to bringing them into the game.
Prior to coming on is a good time to warm up.
Yeah, all it took was the opening series of the 2018 season and a letter of reprimand from the National League office. He’s obviously a quick read.
https://sports.yahoo.com/phillies-kapler-fans-upset-pitching-management-013406881–spt.html
That thought should be enlightening to all of us at how much value fan evaluation has for coaching staff.
There’s a certain intangible in knowing your manager can kick the ass out their manager that cannot be accounted for.
I hope that if the giants don’t win like the did in 2021 that fans don’t call for his head. Giants have a real chance to regress a lot in 2022
Virtually everything went right for them last season. Wouldn’t surprise me if they’re a .500 ish team next year, though I guess we have to see how the off-season plays out.
Clearly, The San Francisco Giants regular season success in 2021 was a fluke. And like most flukes, got bounced in the first round of the playoffs.
A bunch of 1.5 WAR guys mixed in with past Their prime guys. It’s was luck….and lightning isn’t gonna strike twice.
And their pitching?….They entered the offseason with 4 starting rotation spots to fill ?? LOL
Coming from a Padres fan lol, no room to talk
How much WAR did the Padres have to not even make the playoffs?
Yes, I too think the Giants will regress from last year, but this will be a very different team from last year and I think a better team than the 2021 Giants should have been, I think they should be able to contend well into September.
Oh my, the Birkenstock Boi got triggered again. You have such a thin skin. Everything you have ever said about the Giants has turned out to be wrong. I guess you are ready for more humiliation. LOL. I guess you’ll have to change your alias again. LOL
Giants74:
Have you noticed, that when the Giants clearly weren’t going away last season, our delusional friend was absent more and more from Giants articles as the season wore on? But now, since the Giants fell short of a WS title, he’s back trolling every Giants article with his severe lack of baseball knowledge. It’s pathetic.
Tad2b13:
I don’t even think he likes baseball. I think he gets a thrill out of being annoying.
Stop this fluke stuff. No one wins 107 games as a fluke. Agree everything went right, but come on.
Much of their outlook is watch their roster looks like in April. Farhan being Zaidi, I think a safer bet is 90ish wins. But a lot has to go right in terms of player performance.
What* their roster looks like
Well yeah, it’s all about player performance.
Well more specifically, I meant performances mexceeding projections.
I think they will regress but I think .500 is a stretch. I think they’ll be better than that. Posey is one of the biggest losses.
I remember the gasbag Mad Dog Russo blasting the Giants, his favorite team, for hiring Zaidi as PoBO and then Kapler as GM. He ranted nonstop. Called the Giants incompetent. Does anyone here listen to him regularly and why?
Back in his Mike and the Mad Dog days, Russo once argued that Ted Williams wasn’t clutch because he walked too much. “Ya gotta swing the bat, Mikey. Ya can’t be afraid of the moment.”
I believe that’s been his criticism of Joey Votto over the years, too. Yet, he speaks highly of Mickey Mantle, ignoring his high walk rates. I used to think his show demeanor was an act, but realized no one could carry that off. I pity his family.
The nature of sports tv or radio shows or podcast personalities is having “hot takes,” and lacking much substance. Are any of them likable?
Yes but because he’s widely different from others on MLB Network. Not the usual vanilla takes. It’s entertainment.
I remember both quotes that you mentioned. I go back to his day as part of The Mike and the Mad Dog show on Wfan. I always thought he said ridiculous things to create a buzz and increase his ratings. I guess it worked as I often listened.
I remember Russo from his days at WMCA, which had a small listenership at the time. The joke was that he talked so loud because it was the only way anyone might hear him.
Like most, I was more than a bit surprised when the Giants hired Kapler.
But, again, we learn “In Farhan we trust”.
he was downright dreadful as a Phillies manager, but a lot of people learn from bad experiences and become great performers. I know that has happened in my own life. I wish the Giants well going forward, but it will be interesting to see how they do next year because it seemed like a lot of things really broke right for them this year.
So how did he end up with a higher winning percentage in Philly (.497) than his replacement, Joe Girardi (.495)? The same Girardi who was 200 games over .500 in 10 years with the Yankees. And Girardi had the benefit of Zack Wheeler for his two seasons. Safe to say that this year’s NL East and NL West stretch drives showed that it was the Philly players who were the problem, not the manager.
He was not anywhere close to dreadful with the Phillies. Yes he made some mistakes but Girardi has made his share as well Lower winning percentage with Joe with much higher payroll.
Casey Stengel made his share of mistakes with the Mets. Gee, I wonder why they didn’t win like Casey’s Yankees.
Coming from someone who didn’t watch every Phillies inning. No he was dreadful. Taking out their star pitcher after 68 pitchers thrown and cruising, and a host of other tactical mistakes. Maybe the worst of all was his positive spin on things when it’s best to say “we played a bad game today.” The FO actually came out in public and said he needed to stop that. I’m guessing that didn’t happen in SF or you would know exactly what I’m talking about. Phillies fans hated it. And who had anything about Joe G doing a great job. All that said the Phillies main problem the past number of years was neither Gabe nor Joe. They are not developing enough players thru their system so they have to spend, spend, spend just to be near .500.
Yep–a lot went right this year—next year will be a letdown, which would be understood and expected ,with 80% of the rotation free agents and the vets 1 more year older– –just depends if they end up an 85 90 win team or a 75 win team–
The Giants will be a perpetual powerhouse just like the Dodgers. Brainpower & money is a monstrous combination in the game of baseball.
In time, perhaps. Next year or two might be a blip on the radar as they straddle between competing and getting younger. It can be done, of course, but it won’t be easy alongside likely regression.
Maybe Bud Selig Fan but I think that the Giants had career years from a bunch of older players many of whom will be gone to FA. And Buster Posey retired. I don’t see really any of them having the same success even if they all resigned with the Giants.
Exactly MikeSadek3333 I think Kapler may end up like Bob Brenly, have one really good season then a bunch of disappointing ones. Well at least Brenly’s Diamondbacks won the 2001 World Series.
He had no prior experience and made a ton of mistakes managing the Phillies. He’s an odd cat but I wish him nothing but the best. He’ll be picking up some hardware in the near future when he wins NL Manager of the Year and he deserves it.
He does some weird things like putting a ton of faith in young relievers. Sometimes it doesn’t work out but once you do it enough you get guys like Doval who imploded early on in the year but learned from mistakes and ended up being nearly unphased by the big moments down the stretch. Too bad he made one critical mistake to Bellinger in the NLDS
Congrats to Kapler.
Zaidi is a top tier GM and is realistically the one responsible for the teams success.
He picked Kapler to fit into the system he created, so you’re not necessarily wrong.
The “line change” pinch hitting strategy was innovative. I have never seen 3 pinch hitters in an inning before.
I think they should all hop over the dugout fence together as if they were a hockey line change, but no one else will hear me out.
I remember when they signed him a few years back no Giants fan had adored him. Now that the Giants have managed to become contenders, the sticks have moved. Now it’s the complete opposite.
Duh!! He replaced an extremely popular Manager. Why would he be accepted?
In my opinion, this is how Luis Rojas will end up. He’ll be a successful manager elsewhere after two years of growing pains with a flawed NL East team.
Doubtful. He’s too downtempo. Too extremely defense and pitching oriented. His teams also didn’t hit in the clutch
That’s on the manager. The team takes on the character of the manager. They were an 86 win team with Callaway in 2019
Sounds like Rojas would be a great coaching fit for the Marlins and take the reigns once Mattingly goes to manage the Yankees.
Pitching and defense are the keys to building a winning team. You can’t blame the manager for lousy hitters, which is what the Mets had/have. Just watch. Rojas will manage again and be highly successful.
Kapler and Rojas don’t exactly come from similar backgrounds, and the latter had spent most of his life around the game. Kapler had far less life experience of that sort.
Not saying there isn’t a chance Rojas makes strides if given future opportunities but I wouldn’t make a link there. Otherwise, you might as well suggest every manager who initially struggles with a flawed team will end up being good.
W.
Congrats to Kapler, seems like a good dude.
Outside of a championship anything after setting the franchise record in wins in a season is going to be a letdown (unless they break that record).
Well, I think 2021 was a fluke and the Giants will go back to 78 win territory
Tell me you didn’t watch Giants baseball in 2021 without telling me you didn’t watch Giants baseball in 2021
It’s extremely unusual for a team to have .451, .475, .483 winning percentages the previous 3 seasons and then .660
Most of the team posting OPS+ and ERA+ way beyond previous seasons and career averages
The probability of regression is way higher than the probability of sustaining the same production again
Just to name two examples out of many, Gausman had a 145 ERA+ and Crawford a 141 OPS+. It’s highly probable that won’t happen again
I get that. So to me, the law of averages says there is an external influence positively effecting them. Is there something different that they all have in common ?
I’m a Giants fan, so I’m going to be positive. Pretty confidant in what they have going on.
At the the day, time will tell.
Hardly. If you check out any objective measure of what a good team does, most importantly to score runs and prevent them, the Giants were one of the best teams in baseball. Their Pythagorean win loss total put them at 103 wins, which is nearly as good as their actual record.
It was fluky yes but the regression is prolly more like high nineties wins
High 90s? Not very likely. 85-90 maybe, but probably not
Of course they could still be good but it’s incredibly fluky to jump to 107 wins from 77 territory without major amount of high end prospect and free agent additions
Gausman and Desclafani are both likely to regress, as well as much of the lineup
The 107 wins is definitely a fluke. They were a good team, but you never predict 107 wins. The Dodgers are more likely to repeat their 106-win season because it more closely matches their projected roster talent, yet even they will have a very difficult time replicating that. Always bet the under on 100 wins, no matter how good the team looks.
The Dodgers’ roster will look quite a bit different in 2022. Still an excellent team but winning 106 games in an unreasonable expectation. Winning 100 in MLB is hard.
I agree. The smart money is that no team in NL West will win 100 in 2022.
Guas and Disco won’t be on the team
This contract is well deserved. Kapler is a genuinely good manager, is well expected by his players and manages his bullpen well. He makes the team better, it’s a good signing.
Wow that came out of the blue.
I hope Farhan Zaidi takes full advantage of the Oakland A’s fire sell, because I’d like to see a couple of their players on the Giants roster next year.
I’m asking this as someone outside the market, but do the two teams ever make trades? For example, the Yankees and Mets rarely trade, and when they do, it’s usually smaller pieces. Does that same dynamic exist with these two teams?
@Rob not typically, but Frahan got his start with the A’s, so maybe that connection can “Bridge” the gap?
No precedent there. Plus, why would Farhan trade away from one of the best farms when he could just go buy whatever he wants on the free agent market? I don’t see the two teams as logical trade partners.
As indicated in the article, Giants players were extremely consistent in immediately referring to the coaches this year. Buster Posey was asked twice in his retirement presser about his performance this year. and Both times, immediately referred to the coaches. You watch enough Giant player interviews
player interviews…..and you can’t help but think they have something different going on.
Also the fact so many of them were better than expected. 10 of them do it. Probably a fluke. All but 1 or 2 of them…..got to be something the club is doing.
My fearless prediction. More of the same for the 2022 Giants.
When Kapler was hired I had an open mind. I figured if FZ wanted him he couldn’t be that bad. Kapler, like FZ, is very analytics driven. I read that FZ is very happy with how Kapler employs the data that’s given to him.
As to the comments that he was a horrible manager in Philly, I have to take that with a grain of salt, if not the entire shaker. Managers don’t go from being horrible to successful like that.
When fans say he makes bad in game decisions, what they really mean is they would have made a different one. The problem with that is most fans don’t have nearly the same amount of info that the manager has.
Here’s an example: Many Giants fans were up in arms when Bochy took Romo out of a game against the Cards, after Romo easily retired the previous two batters. There were men on base, and up next was Yadier Molina. Fans raged that Romo was throwing well, and had the platoon advantage. What those claiming Bochy made a bad call didn’t know was that Molina raked against Romo. Not sure of the exact numbers, but he was something 5 for 8 with a HR and a couple of 2Bs.
So forgive me if some guy in Philadelphia writes that Kapler made bad moves, and I don’t take his word for it. Especially after watching him for 222 games.
So you don’t take the word of the folks who actually watched him manage in Philly, but do take your own based on events of what happened after his tenure there. Makes sense.
I can only speak as a Mets fan who had limited access to watching him as well as generally following along with what the Phillies were up to but I got the sense that Kapler’s biggest issue was that his mistakes were so loud and obvious rather than him being a bad manager on a consistent basis. When he screwed up, it was mistakes you wouldn’t even see the bad managers make. Completely nonsensical substitutions patterns for his starters. Comically bad decisions irrespective of the circumstances. To me, he looked like a guy hitting full throttle on analytics while losing track of literally everything else, and a guy who really could have benefited from more managerial experience. He was clearly overwhelmed in his position. Of course, I could be off on most of this.
My semi-educated guess is that he learned some from those experiences and came to find a better balance between the two sides while also clamping down on the brain farts. And we have to remember that being a baseball manager isn’t exactly rocket science, a field where such seemingly rapid progress would not be possible in such a short amount of time.
I think part of the problem is many people, let alone baseball managers, are not capable of introspection and, thus, real growth. Individuals who are capable of it stand a much better chance of making significant non-superficial strides in whatever it is that they are working toward. Kapler would seem to possibly fall in that camp.
That all said, you’re not wrong in that most fans aren’t great evaluators of decision-making since they tend to play the hindsight is 20-20 game; I am not one of those fans for what that’s worth. Good or bad decisions are made in the moment based on the available data at the time rather than once the results would come in, the latter of which should only be as a trigger for review and reanalysis of the original decision-making process. As you said, we aren’t privy to the same number of stats as the managers themselves—I really wish more beat reporters would press them for the specific analytics that went into certain decisions—but there are still times where I think it’s fair to question specific decisions based on what would be available to us.
In any event, Kapler looks to be a different breed of manager now, though I suspect the entire Giants team—Kapler included—will be in for some significant regression next season. The more important question is how much?
So you say two years ago he was a manager that made a lot of mistakes, because some fans said so, but now a he’s a candidate for MoY, because he saw the error of his ways? Makes sense.
Other than twisting my words maybe look at what I really said. Based on what I’ve seen watching Kapler for 2 seasons, and seeing his success, it would be stupid of me to simply accept somebody’s word that he made a lot of in game mistakes.
And FZ, one of the smartest people in the game, hired a guy that made obvious, stupid mistakes that even the most casual fan could recognize? How about some specific examples of those “out loud” mistakes. I won’t take your word any more than I will some stranger in Philly claiming Kapler is bad manager.
I’m not trying to be belligerent. I can see you have thought through some of the things I brought up. But, to me, it defies logic that, were Kapler as bad as some say he was, that he has now completely remade himself, and has suddenly become smart.
“So you say two years ago he was a manager that made a lot of mistakes, because some fans said so, but now a he’s a candidate for MoY, because he saw the error of his ways? Makes sense.”
Quote where I based my opinion on the opinions of “some fans”. And everyone knows the MoY award is about the most useless award there is. You could be a poor manager, but if your players or front office exceed expectations you’ll be in the running for it and vice-versa. The only way to measure a manager’s abilities would consist of being a level-headed and rationale fan who watches most of the games.
“Based on what I’ve seen watching Kapler for 2 seasons, and seeing his success, it would be stupid of me to simply accept somebody’s word that he made a lot of in game mistakes.”
Good point. I do think it’s entirely fair to be skeptical of what was written about him, particularly knowing how the media can be, but you sound a little less skeptical and a little more sure that they are wrong. If you want to know the truth, maybe interact with a moderate sample size of Phillies fans who watched the team every day and get their opinion. Just hit up reddit or the community here while trying to avoid the haters. I’m certainly not to be trusted either, but I also don’t care enough about this topic to do anything further.
“And FZ, one of the smartest people in the game, hired a guy that made obvious, stupid mistakes that even the most casual fan could recognize? ”
One overachieving season doesn’t make FZ one of the smartest people in the game despite his arrowing point straight up at the moment. The sample size needs to be bigger to make any substantive claims there. But as to your point, FZ probably was able to see his strengths while realizing some of his flaws were correctable with additional experience and a fine-tuning of approach. I’m sure he was also impressed with the way he interviewed. For what it’s worth, I do think he is probably an upper-echelon GM or something relatively close to that.
“How about some specific examples of those “out loud” mistakes. ”
A quick internet search would help here. Several of of his blunders made the mainstream news and social media rounds. Relying on me and my imperfect memory for perfectly accurate details several years into the future would be a disservice.
“But, to me, it defies logic that, were Kapler as bad as some say he was, that he has now completely remade himself, and has suddenly become smart.”
I thought it was pretty clear my implication was that the he probably wasn’t as bad as made out to be, but that the mistakes he did make were worse than you’d normally see and garnered a lot of attention. I also thought I made pretty clear it’s not as simple as going from dumb to smart in the classical sense. Decision-making in baseball is not calculus. You have a limited number of options, sometimes boiling down to a binary choice. It isn’t a stretch to suggest an adjustment in his use of analytics, additional experience, and introspection could have lead to significantly improved results.
Terry Francona’s first managerial job was with the Phillies.
He admits he was awful and still thanks both the owner (the late David P. Montgomery) and GM (Ed Wade) for giving him the chance to manage a ML team and sticking with him for 4 years even though he stunk.
There’s an old adage that it’s best to get a manager that has been fired once or twice.
Have you noticed that managers on winning teams are considered better than managers on losing teams?
@manny have you noticed that winning teams have good managers?
Was Kapler a good manager in philly or did the frisco air make him suddenly good?
Until they lose in the post-season. Then everyone wants them fired.
Cey Hey Sometimes the fans want their manager fired even wheñ the team gets to the World Series. Lots of Braves fans wanted Snitker fired during the NLCS after one bad inning by Luke Jackson (really just one bad pitch).
“If you want to be your strongest, get some sun on your boys. And by boys, I mean your testicles.” – Gabe Kapler
kaplifestyle.com/2015/08/13/au-naturel/
Holy Misnomers Batman….please cue the Terry Francona comparisons….? Loved Francona, was weirded out by Kapler….As a lifetime Phillies fan….urgh….
Kapler and Roberts played for Francona in 2004.
Cora and Cash played for Francona in 2007.
Rex Hudler and Torey Lovullo played for him in Philly.
The guy births managers.
Let’s go to the goat of baseball announcing. Vin’s quote, Managers don’t win games but they do lose them. . No quotation marks. Since Vince said this multiple times over his brilliant career.