Giants: Managerial search narrowed to three candidates

The San Francisco Giants appear to be zeroing in on their next manager, with the list of candidates narrowed to three. Who will replace Bruce Bochy?

Now that the World Series is over and the offseason is officially underway, the first step for the San Francisco Giants will be finding a new manager.

After 13 years at the helm, Bruce Bochy and the organization have parted ways, and team president Farhan Zaidi will now get to handpick his next bench boss.

A wide net was cast in the early stages of the process, which began shortly after the regular season ended, but now it sounds like the field has been narrowed to three candidates.

Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area wrote:

“According to league sources, the Giants are believed to have narrowed their search to former Phillies manager Gabe Kapler, Royals quality control coach Pedro Grifol and Astros bench coach Joe Espada, who is coming in for a second in-person interview now that Houston’s bid for a title is over.”

The plan had always been to narrow the field to a handful of candidates for a final round of interviews.

While the early rumblings were that the team preferred someone with past managerial experience, the only one from that group who has filled the role at the MLB level is Kapler, and he was just relieved from his post with the Philadelphia Phillies at the end of the 2019 season.

That said, Espada and Grifol both have a wealth of coaching experience, and seemingly the respect of the industry as a whole.

Whoever lands the job will inherit a team in the early stages of overhauling the roster, with a farm system on the rise and a wealth of upcoming payroll flexibility.

After Bochy filled the job for more than a decade, the front office will be hoping for a long-term solution to usher in the next era of San Francisco Giants baseball.