Giants hire Gabe Kapler as manager, Twitter reacts

The San Francisco Giants hired Gabe Kapler to be their new manager on Tuesday night and Twitter had some thoughts.

With future Hall of Fame manager Bruce Bochy departing after 13 seasons, the search for the next manager was item No. 1 on the offseason to-do list for the San Francisco Giants.

After an exhaustive search that was eventually narrowed to a field of three candidates, the Giants have made a decision.

It’s former Philadelphia Phillies manager Gabe Kapler.

To say this move is a controversial one would be putting it mildly.

If you’re not acquainted with Kapler’s baggage, I’ll direct you to this piece from Grant Brisbee of The Athletic for the case against hiring Kapler and this tweet form Julie DiCaro of 670TheScore:

From a purely baseball standpoint, he also struggled to a 161-163 record in his two seasons managing the Phillies, including a 2019 season that began with lofty expectations.

So what does Twitter think about the hire?

A lot.

First, this from Bob Nightengale of USA Today:

Based on everything else you’re about to read, I would call that take wildly optimistic.

Phillies fans seemed to think Kapler would never manage again after his disappointing two-year run with the team, which is certainly telling:

Jon Heyman of MLB Network weighed in on the baseball side of things:

Getting players to play up to their potential would seem to be key when you’re sitting in that manager’s seat.

Here’s what Farhan Zaidi had to say about the hire, via Kyle Glaser of Baseball America:

In the end, the front office knew this was going to be how the fan base reached, and they made the hire anyway.

That would seem to imply that they think the initial blowback is worth it. We shall see if that’s the case.

For now, Giants Twitter is a dark, dark place.