San Francisco Giants: Is Gabe Kapler a fit for manager opening?

The search continues for the next manager of the San Francisco Giants. Is Gabe Kapler a potential fit?

With Bruce Bochy calling it quits as manager of the San Francisco Giants, the search for a new manager is underway. A new candidate is available in the form of the just-fired former manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, Gabe Kapler.

Kapler managed the team for two seasons and amassed a record of 161-163. With a roster as loaded as the one in Philadelphia, not to mention the huge get of superstar Bryce Harper in the offseason, that record didn’t cut it.

It is obviously not entirely his fault, but someone has to take the fall after a disappointing season and more often than not it is the manager.

But would he be a good fit for the San Francisco Giants?

A lot has already been made of his relationship with Farhan Zaidi from their time together in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization. He was the director of player development from 2014-2017 and he obviously had a hand in helping the progression of some of the team’s current players.

He’s viewed as a bit of an eccentric around the league for his emphasis on healthy food and analytics, but Zaidi should have no problem given his own analytic-oriented approach.

The appreciation for analytics checks one box, and youth is another box you can check since Kapler is only 44 years old. He was a long-time journeyman in the big leagues before moving to the player development side of things and eventually managing.

This all leads one to believe that there is a very real chance that he could be managing the San Francisco Giants next year. Who really knows if he would be a good fit until he’s on the job?

The new orthodoxy of MLB managing posits that you take orders from the suits upstairs and make sure that the troops are in good spirits.

So why not Kapler? He’s young and as an ex-journeyman, one would think he’d be able to relate to players just fine.

If Zaidi is looking for someone who can serve as an extension of himself in the dugout, Gabe Kapler seems like someone who will be pretty high on the list of options to replace legendary manager Bruce Bochy.