Giants in no hurry to pick Bochy successor
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The job seekers are paying their respects to Bruce Bochy. Sixteen hours after Bochy’s retirement announcement, president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi had not received a single text or call from someone seeking the job next year. In this game, that’s an upset. “It will not surprise me when those start coming in,” Zaidi said Tuesday. “I do think there’s going to be a good amount of outreach. At the right time, we’ll start thinking about that more actively and then put together a list.”
The applicants need not hurry.
Although Bochy’s preseason announcement affords Zaidi a good head start in finding a replacement — and the Giants’ new executive does not want to wait too long to think about it — he remains focused on building the 2019 team.
“It’s not something you want to wait until November first to do,” Zaidi said. “But right now, that’s not going to be an active process.”
Being first in line is not
necessarily critical, either.
Zaidi noted that when he and Andrew Friedman replaced Dodgers manager Don Mattingly after the 2015 season, Dave Roberts was not on their initial list of finalists.
Though Zaidi pledges to remain open-minded about candidates, his mind is not necessarily a blank slate.
“’Everybody, by virtue of his own expertise, has a list of people he’s thought of,” he said. “‘Hey, that guy could be a manager someday.’ Or, ‘If I’m in that position, that’s somebody I would think about.’ But when we get to that point, it’s going to be a collective process. There are a lot of people who will draw on their experiences to bring names to the table.”
That could include a general manager whom he hires after the season, although Zaidi does not feel compelled to hire a GM first.
Zaidi confirmed that during his interview with the Giants, he was told Bochy was contemplating retirement, so the news did not take him off guard, as it did most players.
Bochy did, however, keep one of his most-tenured and trusted players apprised.
“I had a good idea,” catcher Buster Posey said Tuesday. “This will be my 10th year with him. I just want to soak it up and appreciate who he is to the game of baseball and enjoy this last year and, not that you need any extra motivation, if you do, it’s pretty easy to look to him to get some more.”
Posey acknowledged it will be odd to play for a different manager next year, but he understands why Bochy feels ready to go.
“The relatively short amount of time I’ve spent in baseball compared to him, you understand the grind and the toll of a professional season,” Posey said. “To do it as long as he’s done it and remain as passionate and desired to win year in and year out, I appreciate that the most.”
Bochy can expect acknowledgments in each city the Giants visit in 2019, starting, appropriately, with the March 28 season opener in San Diego, where he managed from 1995 to 2006.
“Obviously there will be a lot of tributes,” Giants President Larry Baer said. “The ultimate tribute should be, will be, the Hall of Fame.”
The earliest Bochy could be inducted is 2022. The “Today’s Game” committee, which votes on managers, next meets at the winter meetings in December 2021.