The Giants announced some additions to their coaching staff in year one under Bob Melvin. Longtime Melvin lieutenant Ryan Christenson joins as bench coach, while former MLB outfielder Pat Burrell is taking over as hitting coach. Matt Williams is also leaving the Padres to take over as third base coach.
Incumbent hitting coach Justin Viele will retain his title, tweets Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area. He and Burrell are co-hitting coaches, while Pedro Guerrero is returning as an assistant hitting coach. According to Pavlovic, assistant hitting coach Dustin Lind will not be back in 2024.
San Francisco also announced a few holdovers from last year’s group. Mark Hallberg, Alyssa Nakken, J.P. Martinez and Taria Uematsu are all returning to the staff. Hallberg is moving across the diamond from third base to first base coach. Martinez remains an assistant pitching coach, while Nakken and Uematsu are assistant coaches.
None of the additions are surprising, as all three had been rumored to join the staff. Christenson’s strong relationship with Melvin has led him from Oakland to San Diego and back to the Bay Area. He worked as a bench coach in Oakland and San Diego and spent this year as the associate manager for the Friars.
Burrell, a former number one overall pick, was a two-time World Series winner during his 12-year MLB career. The second of those titles came in San Francisco, where he closed his playing days in 2010 and ’11. Burrell hit .253/.361/.472 with just under 300 home runs in the big leagues. The Miami product has coached in the Giants’ minor league ranks going back to 2020.
Williams, of course, had an excellent playing career in his own right. The five-time All-Star got a managerial job with the Nationals in 2014. He led Washington to a 96-win season to earn the NL Manager of the Year award in his first season. After the team went 83-79 during his second year at the helm, the Nationals dismissed him and hired Dusty Baker. Williams has subsequently spent time on the Diamondbacks, A’s and Padres staffs (overlapping with Melvin in the latter two places) and managed for two seasons in South Korea.
There’s still more to come on the coaching front in San Francisco. The team has not announced the future for pitching coach Andrew Bailey, who has reportedly considered leaving to take a position closer to his family on the East Coast.
Love it…Willams back in a SF jersey is awesome
Wasn’t the greatest at sending guys from third last year. Some real questionable calls.
I’m sure the giants fans will be happy to have him:
The Padres weren’t clutch for a great portion of the year. Sometimes, you gotta be aggressive with a team that’s full of superflops.
Right, same with the giants but you can remove the super
What did you expect from a bunch of rookies that almost carried them to the postseason?
Don’t let the door hit ya
Bye Kai
crazy how they didn’t even mention him
It’ll be nice to see him go
SF Adding Williams and Burrell to coaching staff is straight Crack for low information Giants fan who place Nostalgia above everything else. Including winning baseball games
Bob Melvin, Matt Williams, Pat Burrell don’t mean Jack shiz if you don’t have Talented players
SF is loaded w/ a bunch of 1.5 WAR Guys, mediocre Rookies and Bad contract Injury prone guys, Conforto , Haniger
You can’t ‘Coach up’ a lack of talent. It’s impossible to teach talent
Your going to break a finger from up voting your own posts.
So obvious and pathetic.
I just realized every single one of @chumpy’s posts is a bot programmed to tell an AI program, “Write me a troll post for this SF Giants article.” Then followed up with, “Now, write that response while absolutely desecrating the English language. And like the post like 10 times.”
I cannot be convinced otherwise. There is no possible way a functional human could intentionally write that.
27chumpyspankees is just upset because the spankees officially suck lol
I know right, end of the off-season and the same roster….oh wait you are telling me the it hasn’t started yet?
I keep forgetting there is a team in the Bronx. They have become so irrelevant since 2009. I don’t think the AL east even notices them anymore
These coaching moves don’t move the needle at all in San Francisco. Until they field a talented group of players they’re gonna be stuck in 4th place in the NL West
The Giants will absolutely try to overpay for at least 2 free agents on the Top 50 list but it may be difficult to land them. They have to overpay because: 1) California state & local taxes are among the highest in the country and 2) SF has gone from being one of the nicest and coolest places to live to a cess pool of homeless, fentanyl-fueled zombies.
If I’m a player with a young family, I’m not sure I’d want my kids in SF. Sure you can still find a posh area to live in but if the family comes to a game or has to go downtown, there’s no avoiding it. It’s such a shame what has happened out there.
You might wanna ask Steph Curry on what he thinks..plus the Oracle park and Chase Center in not in the cess pool area you speak of..Mission Bay is pretty much a new neighborhood..
Ah if only Curry spoke Japanese and had Ohtani’s phone number..
Cobb does
Hey Dorothy, I live here and SF is gorgeous and I love it. I’m so sick of this stupid doom loop story being told over and over.
@agnes
Agree! SF is so beautiful, and that “SF BAD” narrative is so lazy. It’s funny too, because any time I ask somebody who shares that narrative where they live and why it is better, I have NEVER gotten a response.
The problems (s)he described are that of any big city. Crime and homelessness are problems in Chicago, LA, and Philly as well, to name a few, and top free agents have signed in those cities. If nothing else, hitters may steer clear of SF because it will sap their power, although that didn’t hold back Haniger or Conforto (each of whom had other suitors as well).
@disadvantage Exactly! Well said.
@agnes gooch I finally agree with you on something. I’m also tired of the stupid doom loop story being told over and over about SF. SF truly is a beautiful city.
On a separate note, do you think Farhan was kind to fire Kapler, to save his own job?
Doom loop? How about the hundreds of businesses that have shutdown, vacant office buildings, and declining values in real estate? SF has a huge problem(s) that needs to be addressed.
Realtor here – real estate values are not declining.
Agree. SF looks beautiful from Sausalito or Tiburon. SF is not beautiful inside the city, with some exceptions of course.
was it an overpay for Machado? How about Tatis? What about Judge?
“There’s no avoiding it”
Here’s a secret. Take the ferry over to the ballpark from Alameda. Bar onboard and drops you right at the back gate.
“SF has gone from being one of the nicest and coolest places to live to a cess pool of homeless, fentanyl-fueled zombies”
Unfortunately, Dorothy is correct here
Not to mention Human feces in the street!! Which is just disgusting. How does a FA player get his wife and kids on board w/ San Francisco when there is human Doo Doo on the streets?
SF even has an interactive ‘Poop Map’ in an effort to help residents avoid it
Look:
arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=b6fab7209126…
Los Angeles isn’t any better, and they get talent to sign there. Shoot, actors are fleeing Hollywood for Vegas. Yet you have Betts, Freeman, Kershaw still getting that money. Free agents will sign there in SF…for money.
I’m starting to think TheBull and 27champsyankees are the same person at this point: always on SF Giant articles, never have anything positive to say about the team, and the evident 5-10 likes on comments right away; no matter how egregious or trolly they are
@bull
So it’s clear you’ve never actually been to SF. You found that poop map one day (which is all poop including the 120k dogs, not just human), and think it proves your point for you. All big cities have issues. Get a new talking point.
These dudes are rich. No shot their wives and kids are anywhere outside Noe Valley, Pac Heights or the Presidio, and that’s only when they are in their adopted SF home.
Your catching on.
A few more accounts as well.
Copy and paste this on more articles please.
@TheBull you forgot to mention the other cities that have poop maps, like Chicago and New York. Every major city in America has poo poo on it’s streets. I’m speaking from experience, in actually having BEEN to them, not just letting my opinion be formed by others via the media. I suggest trying it
@Balk, I’m not sure they will, at least not hitters and not on a regular basis. I think the giants are going to have to trade for some bad contracts since they seem to be unable to build with in. Think dodgers red Sox type trade a few years back where the dodgers took on what looked like crippling contracts for Crawford and Beckett to get Adrian Gonzales. Once they can show they have a hitter or two that can protect a star hitter to some degree they may compete but right now all they have to offer is money, and most stars can get money from any number of teams.
Including MadBum14
other good adopted home areas would include the Marina District, Sea Cliff, North Beach, Mission Bay, Ingleside, Twin Peaks
Regardless of what you think about the city I think there’s additional reasons why a top end player wouldn’t sign with SF.
1. If you like to hit home runs, you don’t play half your games in Sf
2. Players what to PLAY and not be yanked during a game or not play at all because the math says so
3. They haven’t contended for years except one season, they need to prove they are trying
4. When they do pursue a FA, they look for ONE player and they miss out. Players want to be surrounded by additional talent so they win.
I love SF, lives there 10 years. It’s a beautiful city and ballpark but regardless of what you think reality is, other people’s perception is THEIR reality.
Btw last time I was there, it HAD gone downhill and that makes me sad to say.
And yet those very same reasons are the same for Los Angeles. But they get stars. I think let’s see what happens after this offseason and then pass judgment. I’m thinking they’re going to be exciting to watch this offseason.
LA doesn’t play the extreme version of math ball, it’s not a park where home runs go to die. Also compare LA to SF over the last 5 years. LA spends money and tries to compete. SF has dumpster dived for players.
SF could do better but ANY top tier FA is going to be wary. I’m a Giants fan for goodness sake but if they don’t admit to having issues with their approach, they can’t fix them.
Deke who almost signed Judge and who did Correa come to terms with, the Giants or the dodgers? Also the fences have been brought in, since a Giants player set the all time HR record playing in the same park and it’s still a great place to pitch.
@Dorothy_Mantooth Anyone who thinks that all homeless people are ‘fentanyl-fueled zombies’, is a zombie themselves. A media fueled one. Also there’s feces on the street in literally every major city in America. I’ve actually been to all of them, I actually know from experience. I don’t just let the TV form my opinions.
DOROTHY — Old, warn out (and untrue) narrative that you keep waving around. SF is no more a “cess pool of homeless” than any other US city.
No one likes drugs and homelessness in their city, but SF is not the epicenter. What’s more, California taxes mean little to millionaires; they’re spread out through California.
Mantooth
While I would not want to live in SF city, some of the nearby suburbs and coastal locations are among the nicest in the world, more so if you have MLB top 50 free agent money.
When you make that kind of money, the taxes do not impact the majority of decisions. Quality of life and family preferences prevail.
I agree that the city needs to significantly better address its drug and crime problem, but I disagree that SF is at a disadvantage over the majority of MLB teams due to its geography, demographics and politics.
I hope you realize that dumb fox news stories make SF out to be a big scary warzone but you can generally boil down the majority of the claims and video footage to the tenderloin – which is roughly a 3×5 block area of the city
It’s still a .500 team at best. Fire Farhan
Maybe let the off-season play out ? You have no clue on how this team will look in 2024 or the percentage of wins.
Gloomy crystal balls on Gumby.
Right on gfan!
Are any of you guys Giants fans ?
Ha! I root for the Cubs and Dodgers and A’s and against the Giants, Yankees and Astros. But like time I checked the Giants and Astros were the two most successful postseason teams in the past quarter century. The trolls can’t take the Giants’ past success away. To me, objectively, the Giants do have a less talented roster than the Dodgers, Diamondbacks and Padres. But things change fast in the MLB, just look at the Rangers and Diamondbacks who just a year to two ago were among the worst in the league and they played each other in this year’s World Series.
Are any of you Giants fans?
Over abundance of trolls.
Mostly not Giants fans.
We’re like homeless people roaming these boards … I am sure you can relate.
Bro, stop. How much better is it around Chavez Ravine?
Half of it is the one POS. It’s how he gets his kicks.
At least he’s on a map tho..
Waiting to get your shot on KNBR Gummy?
Valid point Gumbinator
If the Giants were smart they would have hired Barry Bonds as the hitting coach, who better?
The hitting was horrid this year.
maybe they’ve tried and kicked around the idea and Bonds was like “nah”..or maybe the Giants don’t want to keep him the spotlight again..why not the Cubs have Sosa be their hitting coach or the same w/the Cards and BigMac? How about Papi and the RedSox or Jose and the A’s?
Being a great hitter doesn’t make you a great coach.
And Barry did not like being a coach when he was with the Marlins. After trying it he said something like, “It’s not my style.”
Co-hitting coaches, really? Just to avoid firing the imcumbent hitting coach (who coached SF to a NL worst .213/.312/.383 team slash)? Are we sure that Kapler isn’t behind the scenes somewhere?
Clearly it was all Dustin’s fault.
Hey gfan, you seem like a nice person. I’m part of a little blog of Giants fans, we are all friendly and watch games together and talk trades or whatever. It is slow now but there are no trolls, only nice people! It is a Disqus comment system so you will need a log in to post. Come join us!
Here’s the main page:
sfgiants.blog/
Here is where we are commenting now:
sfgiants.blog/2023/11/07/meetings/
Thanx Agnes.
I’ll try but don’t have too much free time. I do get tired of the recycled doom here but someone has to battle the trolls. I live near a bridge so must.keep.them.away !
Lol gfan! No worries, I totally understand!
gfan agnes is actually one of the trolls
Yup. Back under the bridge I go. I’ll let you whiners take over with all your positive posts about stuff you can’t control. It’s obviously working.
@agnes gooch you’re self projecting again. Also, who are you to tell people who to listen to or not? Talk about feeling entitled and self righteous. Rolls eyes
Apparently so.
Actually the year that they had 107 wins they had 2 more hitting coaches than they did before this and had guys snatched by other teams.
Been a Giants fan since my first game in ’77, and while it’s nice getting some old school baseball dudes into the coaching staff the Giants will be stuck in mediocrity until they figure out how to do better in the draft.
SFGLifer, we have some really exciting kids on the way, I know there are no assurances but Harrison looks good and Whisenhunt might be even better and should be up this year, Birdsong and Black are good too. Hopefully between Vaun Brown, Wade Meckler, or Luis Matos we have a solid Giants OF or two. Bryce Eldridge and Walker Martin are young but great!
@agnes gooch don’t (conveniently) forget to mention exciting first round talents like Hunter Bishop and Will Bednar
@ agnes gooch Harrison and Whisenhunt maybe on the pitching side, but all of our hitters are obvious 4A players at best. Luciano too. The Giants don’t have a single player in the the upper farm with a plus-plus hit tool. Not a single one. That’s why we can’t pull off any significant trades; no team wants our junk 🙁
SFGLifer, you are believing all the prospect rankings articles that come out. They might be right occasionally but in general mostly miss the mark. For all teams, not just the Giants. How many highly touted prospects fall flat? Tons of them. The Giants major league team and minor league system are ALWAYS undervalued. Just see how it plays out. I’m not saying our system is stacked, but it’s not as dismal as many say.
AGNES — Don’t forget McCray.
Yes Pete! I’m pulling for McCray, thanks!
You do realize that almost an entire draft class made the major league roster last year
That is scary because it tells you how bad the vet’s infront of them were.
worst part of this is that Viele is still employed
I like it of course. And want to see how it plays out next year. I think definitely needed coaching changes, leadership. And Pat has a ring. Which is cool. And Matt Williams is a Legacy. And Ryan is Melvins understudy. I like it all so far.
Williams has a ring from his days in Arizona.
Giants have too many coaches. Nakken and Uematsu are mere window dressing with the title “Major League Assistant Coach.”
They can’t fire Nakken because it wouldn’t be PC and it’d cause a PR problem. They’re stuck with her. In my opinion she’s very selfish, interviewing for the manager position, while pregnant and due to give birth just a couple days before spring training starts. Imo she should prioritize her child, over reaching for fame, but that’s just my opinion
Wtf. Who thinks like that.
The most obvious interpretation of the Nakken situation is that Zaidi gave an employee he respects, and who has future career aspirations, the opportunity to experience the interview process. Anyone with moderate intelligence and an ounce of understanding of how decent humans go about things in business, would appreciate that situation.
foppert1 I just told you one person who thinks that. And I was being bluntly honest. As a parent I understand the importance of children and putting them first.
Fire Farhan
Nakken’s credentials do not have her ready for manager consideration.
But who the frog are you to say that being pregnant disqualifies her from accepting an interview? Path-etic
@MannyBeingMVP I know she’s not qualified to be a manager. So then why was she interviewed? That proves my point.
I didn’t say that being pregnant disqualifies her from an interview, as it clearly did not. I was referring to neglecting a newborn who needs it’s non, to prioritize a sports team and personal glory.
Don’t twist people’s words, to do that is pathetic
Needs it’s *mom
Giants need SP more than anything. That and a decent CF.
Is that what you say or what the players say?
Pat Burrell aka THE MACHINE 🙂
No one wants to admit that Pat Burrell in a gimp mask and Aubrey Huff in a women’s thong motivated the 2010 Giants clubhouse through the postseason.
Not mentioning Matt Williams 1994 year with the Giants in this article is sacrilegious.
The guy was on his way to breaking Roger Maris’ record when the players went on strike.
He’s not a touchy feely, trying to be friends with everyone guy.
He’s an OG. Pat the Bat too
One thing I’ve always enjoyed about Giants baseball, is Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper broadcasting a ballgame.
Whether we’re watching the game, or listening to it in the background, those two, bring a lot of joy to my household. Definitely part of my childhood too.
Giants broadcasters have ruined all other sports and teams for me, they are so good and enjoyable to listen to it doesn’t even matter how bad the giants are, still want to listen. Truly spoiled here.
And Kai Correa??
So many people just can’t accept that San Francisco (the city) has in fact declined to the point it is no longer a destination city. You can spew nonsense about other cities having the same problems, but it simply isn’t true. Walk downtown, there are homeless people in tents everywhere. You can’t even walk on sidewalks. The homeless are also just sitting in chairs with needles hanging out their arms. It is not uncommon to see grown men drop their pants and take a crap right on the sidewalk or in the middle of the street. Even saw a guy take a crap on the hood of a parked car. The city is not safe. Company I work for will no longer go to several areas of the city due to crime. Really the only places not infested are the presidio and sunset. I’m sorry if people can’t handle reality. Ultra leftism and Silicon Valley greed have destroyed what was once the best city in America. This isn’t some “media driven” narrative, this is reality.
That said, the giants stadium is one of the best places to attend a sporting event. Really is a magical stadium and there isn’t a bad seat in the house. The Uber wealthy are immune to the problems that plague California, so really it shouldn’t affect free agency.
Farhan being an arrogant dipstick definitely has an affect though. He’s incompetent at everything except scouting. Worst negotiator the giants have ever had.
@highway
To summarize your post: SF’s problems are way worse than most big cities. *Goes on to describe problems all big cities face*
Do you really think the poop problem is unique to SF because you’ve got anecdotes? Do the homeless people in, say, Seattle, Portland or LA just not poop? Are their tents 1 bed 1 bath? That’s before mentioning that dogs pooping is also a problem when you have 120k+ in SF.
As for safety, do you just skip down the streets or Chicago, NY or Philly? Those cities must be amazing! Frolicking down the street without a worry with streets you can eat off of, nobody will mug you, and zero homeless. Right?
SF has its problems for sure, but has suffered the same way virtually all big cities have from a pandemic and a bad economy. SF suffered disproportionately from WFH being more common so there are fewer people spending money downtown, but the problems you had described have always been an issue in SF. SF, as far as I know, is more proactive in allowing open-air drug usage than other cities as a form of harm reduction in designated areas like Tenderloin (where tourists will never go anyway). Which is off-putting to be sure, but drugs are no more common in actual tourist destinations in SF than any other big city.
Anyway, the people complaining the loudest about SF either can’t afford it or aren’t people we want to associate anyway. So please keep spreading this bad information to keep them out. I’d prefer a guy shooting up to them anyway.
Three hitting coaches?