The San Francisco Giants Are Dead Wrong For This

The San Francisco Giants made headlines today, announcing the “reassigning” of long time coaches Dave Righetti, Mark Gardner and Steve Decker.

These are the only coaches that have officially been reassigned as of now, but the other dominoes are expected to fall soon. According to Robert Murray of FanRag Sports, who broke the story, sources said Hensley Meulens and Ron Wotus are expected to be reassigned as well.

We can make the assumption that first base coach Jose Alguacil and third base coach Phil Nevin‘s jobs are not secure either.

The Giants built their dynasty with amazing pitching, strong defense and timely hitting. However, along with that, team president Larry Baer and manager Bruce Bochy consistently preached family, loyalty and chemistry as much as how they were winning on the field.

The Giants built their dynasty by developing homegrown talent like Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, Pablo Sandoval, Brian Wilson, Tim Lincecum, Sergio Romo, Buster Posey, Madison Bumgarner, Brandon Crawford, Brandon Belt, Joe Panik and Matt Duffy.

Part of what made that list so special was how the team let those players grow with the big club and believed in all of them enough to give them permanent jobs with the team. Nearly all were given a contract extension during their tenure with the Giants.

The first player that wasn’t given a chance to grow and develop came last season with Duffy. Duffy, who won the Willie Mac Award in his lone full season with the Giants, was traded at the deadline in 2016 to the Tampa Bay Rays for Matt Moore. While the move was important for the Giants starting staff at the time, it was the first homegrown talent the Giants let go so quickly.

Others like Wilson, Sanchez and others, had played several seasons for the Giants before any change had been made. Injuries and production were the reasons for previoud moves. In Duffy’s case, although he was injured, he was expected to be the Giants third baseman once healthy. And while Duffy has remained an injury concern ever since in Tampa Bay, it was a message to the entire locker room that their was a new general manager.

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Bobby Evans was willing to make a move that didn’t seem popular in the clubhouse in order to try and upgrade the team. His move seemed to work in the short term as the Giants made the post-season in 2016 and Matt Moore was a huge reason they did. His outings against the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs in October were special.

Then came 2017, and 98 losses hit everyone in the organization directly in the face. Something had to be done. The Giants could not continue with the same players. Something had to be done.

Instead, the Giants have decided to gut the entire staff. All of the talk of family, loyalty and chemistry seem to have been erased from the chalkboard.

To make matters worse, Bob Nightengale has reported that the team made these decision weeks ago, but did not want to announce them yet.

Meanwhile, players who did not perform in 2017 like Denard Span, Hunter Pence, Johnny Cueto and Mark Melancon are still employed by the Giants. To be honest, anyone not named Buster Posey had a down season in 2017. Posey, who did have a strong season, did have lower power numbers for the second year in a row. The main reason for the problems is on the field performances and the lack of on field talent.

If players had played to their ability in 2017, the Giants could have competed for a playoff appearance like they did in 2016. However, two years later, veteran players are even less likely to improve.

Next: Giants Reassign Coaching Staff

Evans, by making these moves to the staff, has put himself on the chopping block next. If the Giants have another last place season, Evans will become a special assistant to the traveling secretary like George Costanza.