It’s been less than a week since the Giants fired Bob Melvin, ending his tenure with the organization after just two seasons even in spite of the team’s decision to preemptively exercise a 2026 club option on Melvin over the summer. It was a somewhat surprising decision given that context, and today Melvin spoke about his time in San Francisco, his dismissal, and his future plans with Shayna Rubin of the San Francisco Chronicle.
A Bay Area native who was born in Palo Alto and currently resides in Menlo Park, Melvin expressed gratitude for the opportunity to manage both the A’s while they were in Oakland and the Giants in San Francisco “in one lifetime,” calling the opportunity “more than I could even imagine.” Melvin had far more success in his time with the A’s, who he managed to pilot to a 823-764 record across 11 seasons that earned him six playoff appearances and two of his three Manager of the Year awards. By contrast, Melvin’s two seasons in San Francisco were generally disappointing as the club finished with an 80-82 record in 2024 before making only a token improvement to 81-81 in 2025, even after Buster Posey took over as president of baseball operations and brought in quality veterans like Justin Verlander, Willy Adames, and Rafael Devers.
That 2025 campaign is even more disappointing when one considers that the Giants were tied for the division lead in mid-June, shortly before the Devers trade. It would be easy to point to that second-half decline as the reason for Melvin’s dismissal, but Melvin told Rubin that he hadn’t received a concrete reason for his firing when he spoke to Posey about his decision the day of the announcement. Posey would later cite the club’s performance over the final months of the season as the reason for Melvin’s dismissal, but Melvin pushed back against that characterization. He correctly pointed out that Posey and the front office made the decision to sell off key pieces like Tyler Rogers and Camilo Doval at the deadline in July. In that context, the club’s 27-26 record over the final two months of the season actually looks relatively impressive.
Whatever the reason for Posey’s decision to go in another direction, Rubin suggests that Melvin hasn’t closed the door on continuing his managerial career. There’s a number of vacancies all around baseball (including attractive jobs in places like Atlanta and Baltimore), and a three-time Manager of the Year with 1678 wins under his belt seems certain to be an attractive potential candidate to any club hoping to find an experienced voice in the dugout. Another stateside gig may not be his preferred destination, however, as Melvin told Rubin that he’s “always wanted to manage in Japan.” Having managed Japanese superstars like Ichiro Suzuki and Yu Darvish during his career, Melvin went on to note that he “really enjoys the style of baseball they play” in Nippon Professional Baseball.
Expatriate managers in Japan aren’t especially common, but they aren’t completely unheard of with Bobby Valentine’s time managing the Chiba Lotte Marines standing out as perhaps the most notable example of an MLB manager finding work in an NPB dugout. Perhaps Melvin will follow in those footsteps, though he acknowledged to Rubin that it’s “tough to say for sure” what his plans are so soon after being dismissed by the Giants.
