The Giants held a press conference today to allow new new president of baseball operations Buster Posey to address the media. During that session, Posey announced that general manager Pete Putila will be given a new role and the franchise will be hiring a new GM. Maria I. Guardado of MLB.com was among those to relay the news on X. Chairman Greg Johnson reported at the conference that Posey will retain his seat on the club’s ownership board and has a three-year contract to serve as the POBO (X links from Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic).
Putila was hired as the club’s general manager going into the 2023 season, working under then-president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi. He got that gig on the heels of a long run with the Astros. He started with Houston as an intern in 2011, eventually moving up to director of player development and then assistant general manager before jumping to the Giants.
It’s difficult to assign blame and/or credit to someone in Putila’s shoes, who had a notable position on the Giants’ decision-making pyramid for the past two years, but on a staff that involved input from dozens of people. Regardless, it’s not terribly surprising that Posey is looking to find his own lieutenant, as opposed to just inheriting one from the previous regime.
Posey is coming into his gig in fairly unusual circumstances. Many of the people who lead baseball operations departments work their way up the ladder through scouting or analytics channels, gradually getting promotions and moving to more important positions. Posey took a different route, as he was on the field as a player as recently as 2021. Less than a year after announcing his retirement in November of 2021, it was announced in September of 2022 that Posey was joining the club’s ownership board.
At that time, Posey said that he wasn’t “taking on any type of front office role” and that it would be more “hey, let me know where I can help and I’ll help there” approach with his new position. It seems that his role and influence have grown in the past two years. It was reported a couple of weeks back that Posey took a leading role in the Matt Chapman extension negotiations and now he has been given the POBO role with a three-year contract.
Though the club clearly has lots of faith in Posey and he surely has confidence in his own abilities to handle this role, it’s possible that his second-in-command could play a notable role in helping him deal with any parts of the job that he hasn’t fully tackled yet. As such, he probably wants to pick someone that he feels best suits that particular requirement or simply someone that he has a good working relationship with.
For Putila, it seems like he will remain with the club for now but in a changed role of some kind. Prior to joining the Giants, he had interest from other front offices. He was a candidate for Pittsburgh’s general manager vacancy that eventually went to Ben Cherington, for instance. If he has interest for other such vacancies going forward, there would be little standing in the way of him pursuing those now. Clubs generally allow their employees to interview for positions with other teams as long as a promotion is involved, so Putila shouldn’t have any obstacles if another club views him as a possible future GM or POBO.
Please take Brandon Gomes
Monkey paw curls and the freak Timmy becomes new GM
Madbum…Fear the Beard Wilson could also be competing for the gig. Rumor has it Pablo would need to be committed to a strict diet in order to be a candidate but he said negative
Every monkey paw reference requires a thumbs up
I wonder what role John Barr will have going forward?
I’m gonna invite him to join my band, Jesse and the Rippers. He can play the tambourine.
HAVE MERCY!
Rogers you need to fire shapiro and useless gm atkins !!
Giants wasting No time…
So Kung Fu Panda or The Freak for GM?
Isn’t Brandon Belt still looking for a contract for this season
Yep, the event they had on August 10th was not actually the “2014 World Series Reunion”, but a press conference to introduce their new front office.
Haha, but in all seriousness, would love to see Bob Melvin replaced by Buster Posey’s Good Friend, Hunter Pence!
Scott, with all due respect and seriousness, your comment illustrates a common critique of Giant fans on this board and others.
The euphoric response from the Luddite crowd to Farhan’s dismissal and Posey hiring is telling. It’s gonna get ugly in the Bay.
Hopefully Atkins will be available to interview for this job
And his “Anal-lytic” team can be tossed in
That’s another term for stool-softener.
Fantastic day in Giants land
Quite sure that Putila will not be the last member of their FO and BO staff to get the boot. Especially scouting and player development staff. Posey will want his own people in there and that will mean a year or more of struggling as the new people get their sea legs and learn the organization.
I’m available. I know more about baseball than most Regular Joes.
let me know when a good day is to meet. My schedule is busy as I have other meetings with teams but I’m willing to listen.
OY, I know you’re serious. I hope they reach out. Good luck!
Just make sure they don’t get access to your collected MLBTR posts. You don’t want to get rejected before you even have a chance to take a meeting! 🙂
Are you prepared to give speeches saying how nice San Francisco is to live?
He is going to form a band with Michael Girsh of the Cardinals called “Banished to Special Projects”
Pete Putila and the Demotions.
With their signature hit, “I Second That Demotion”.
“I Wanna Be Demoted.”
Giants getting the old band back together reminds me of when USC kept hiring Pete Carroll assistants
Imagine losing your job to a grown ass man who walks around willingly calling himself Buster.
If he had any self respect he could have changed the name his parents gave him to Mack or Bud.
I think it’s a step up from his real name – Gerald Dempsey Posey III
Madbum used to kiddingly call Posey “Gerald” just to p.o. him…
Reminds me of the quote by Mike Piazza about Chipper Jones; “i call him Larry whenever he comes to the plate, I’m not going to call a grown man ‘Chipper’, plus it rattles him”
For his career, Chipper Jones had an .898 OPS against the Dodgers, and a .949 OPS against the Met’s.
Yeah, that sounds like it really rattled him.
To be fair to Piazza’s joke those number contain before and after numbers; after he was a Dodger and before and after he was a Met, not just during
Your post, which suggests Jones’ numbers were fueled by the pre-Met’s numbers and post-Dodgers numbers, forced me to do the research.
Perhaps Piazza’s strategy worked in the 3 seasons they played against each other when Piazza was in LA, Jones against LAD:
1995 – 37 PA .668 OPS
1996 – 51 PA .470 OPS
1997 – 47 PA .493 OPS
Total PA: 135
But clearly the stratagem didn’t work when Piazza went to NY. Jones against NYM:
1998 – 53 PA .931 OPS
1999 – 49 PA 1.510 OPS
2000 – 46 PA 1.057 OPS
2001 – 82 PA 1.058 OPS
2002 – 73 PA .752 OPS
2003 – 66 PA .965 OPS
2004 – 70 PA .897 OPS
2005 – 42 PA .867 OPS
Total PA: 481
Overall, Jones clearly got the best of Piazza. And perhaps those numbers against the Met’s are the result of Piazza pissing off Jones.
@Jean Matrac
You love apostrophes.
He still doesn’t get it. It’s METS not Met’s.
No, I love good punctuation. In Met’s, it’s shortened from Metropolitans, so I think that’s correct, as are A’s, shortened from Athletics, and Nat’s, shortened from Nationals.. TBH I did wonder about the apostrophe when Met’s is in the possessive. Is it Met’s’? I’m thinking it is, but it seems awkward.
My biggest problem is trying to keep from overusing commas.
Thanks.
Pete Puma was their GM???
“But I don’t want no tea! It gives me a headache!”
Won’t be long until they hire Pete’s cousin, Paul Puma.
Gonna cause “a whooole lotta lumps.”
Hire Barry Bonds as the strength and conditioning coach. Makes just as much sense.
LOL!!!
Name Brian Wilson GM. Not the Pitcher, he’d be terrible at it…
Who?
“The east coast girls are hip, I really love those styles they wear”
Brian DOUGLAS Wilson
it was nice having a modern front office for a few years. they had the architects of the dodgers and astros, perennial contenders and model franchises. now it’s all gone! and the Giants are back to being a backwards joke.
mooksman — They are CURRENTLY a joke which is why these changes are so necessary and so overdue.
nah
These comments are so pervasive they must be coming from bots. As if Posey’s going to require all scouts be 78 years old, chew and spit tobacco (with tobacco drizzle on the chin) and watch a bunch of independent league games talking about how some guy is a “professional hitter” and a “good clubhouse guy” but unfortunately has an ugly girlfriend.
Posey is going to be the face of the franchise. He’s going to set the direction and the path to success. They can hire an unlimited amount of number crunchers – thats not going to be Posey’s job. He might ultimately fail, but they were going nowhere.
Zaidi failed. He may have done great as a number cruncher with other orgs but the Giants were directionless under his tenure. In six years they have a low amount of young talent on the MLB roster and their farm system ranks between 20 and 30 by most measures. Zaidi did well in the Scottie Pippen role. he couldn’t cut it as Michael Jordan.
that’s not true at all
Paging Marco Luciano
Or maybe they just had the rejects from the Dodgers and Astros – dumped by these two organizations and picked up by a desperate organization.
Was it? It’s almost as if they had forgotten the point of all of this is to win baseball games. Seems kind of counterproductive to keep propping up a guy who does well in the bargain bin and may have drafted some good pitching and of course Eldridge but only Ramos has panned out at the major league level unless you’re willing to accept Bailey ending every season with a sub .600 OPS
Hrm also Fitzgerald, who would have been a ROY candidate over a full season. Bailey is one of the most valuable catchers in baseball; there’s a good chance his bat comes along with time, but even with a .600 OPS he provides overwhelmingly positive value with his glove. People need to stop focusing on what players don’t do well and enjoy the value they do provide.
And then there’s the pitching…the run prevention wasn’t always there, but Harrison and Birdsong are two of the more exciting pitchers in baseball, and they’re in the majors at 22, which itself bodes well for their future. You have to think with a few tweaks to command and a little luck and they can easily line up behind Webb and form an excellent rotation.
The Giants had near-identical records over the last 3 years, but the composition of the team had changed dramatically under the hood. Ownership dictated that there would be no tanking seasons, so Farhan dutifully worked his magic to scrape together competitive teams while he overhauled the farm (sometimes I wonder if the simple-minded Giants fan would have found it easier to understand them losing 100 games while they rebuilt rather than remaining Wild Card-competitive into September each year). In 2022/23, it was mostly short-term pieces like JD Davis, Carlos Rodon, Joc Pedersen etc. but in 2024 the Giants more or less seamlessly transitioned into a much younger makeup, peppering in Ramos and Fitz as the year went on. Sure, the record is the same, but rather than aging short term pieces it was legitimate long term building blocks providing the value, with the chance to develop and get even better, and more help on the way. Suddenly the role players Farhan was so keen to acquire start to find their roles more suited to their strengths, and we have a team like 2021: star power like Bryce Eldrige buttressed by a slew of excellent depth pieces like Wade Jr., Bret Wisley, etc.
This might have happened even earlier, but the first two Farhan drafts were scuttled by injuries; unfortunate, but part of the game. I’ve been a fan of the Giants for a long time. Taking the previous regime, for example: those guys took over in ’96, and I don’t think they had a single home grown position player make a positive contribution until Pablo Sandoval in 2008. 12 years! Cain was the first decent farm hand they had, and he was just a couple years earlier. I am so used to this team just having NOBODIES on the farm and finally, this year, the guys being called up were GOOD! Not just Ramos, but even guys like Matos and Schmitt showed potential in short bursts. I’m even listening to the Posey press conference and he’s talking about this very thing (as he moves in to replace the guy who built this system).
Ultimately, the Giants media and ownership group hardly gave Farhan a fair shake. 5 years (2024 doesn’t count since they had already started messing with his roster and made him fire Gabe, which also cost them their elite coaching staff, much of which has gone on to huge success in Cleveland) in nothing in baseball terms. Now I’m hearing Murphy refer to Farhan as “Saddam Hussein” on KNBR. Unreal.
Whatever. Maybe Posey will be good. I hope he is, I love the guy and I am doomed to root for this team till I die. But, maybe Giants fans will get what they deserve, at large.
Merrill, Skenes, Chouiro, Busch, and Shota are way above Fitzgerald lol. Let’s see if he can repeat his success next year. I doubt him or Ramos will be as good.
fitz actually has a higher WAR than shota despite being up less than the full year. his wRC+ is better than merrill and churio and his WAR matches theirs on a rate basis. the K% is worrisome but comparable to someone like colton cowser.
Bailey has the best D in all of MLB. Hit tool is sauce but hopefully he can figure it out. Ramos I wouldn’t count on. He got lucky hits according to Fangraphs when he had a 900ops his first couple months and projected a major fall off which was true. I wouldn’t bank on him next year
Posey better find a well qualified player personnel that knows how to develop farm systems – that would be his successful path
Find a GM that knows how to get various mediocre and less than mediocre talent into a pattern of sign and DF’a and get good talent on short deals to have them walk out the door after improvements to their game— opps that is farhan,
They will need a GM that knows how to get talent and when to ship talent off a year before they plunge
I don’t think most “fans” even knew the giants had Pete. You would constantly hear “fire the GM Farhan” he seemed to always overshadow whoever held that position and it seemed to me like he wanted it that way. I always view Buster as a team guy. A quiet leader who gave credit to his team. I think restoring that would be a huge boost for the organization as well. I think the GM hire is very important and whoever takes that role will know they are going to have a lot of pull and say which could make it more attractive.
Maybe they can find the guy who made the Dodgers system (Farhan Zaidi)? Or….the guy who built the Astros core (Pete Putila)? Wouldn’t that be special.
MadBum for GM. They connected quite well on the field and MadBum can officially retire after this season because his contract with the D-Backs ends (yikes).
Mad Mad as the new Mascot.
Putila – banished to the roof (Silicon Valley reference)…
youtube.com/watch?v=1vgJQyqWybo
JEFF KENT as manager, just to keep it mixed up.