How Buster Posey can be the John Lynch of the SF Giants

Posey has the chance to emulate another Bay Area executive.

Nick San Miguel

Detroit Tigers v San Francisco Giants / Suzanna Mitchell/San Francisco Giants/GettyImages

When the SF Giants announced that Buster Posey would be the new President of Baseball Operations, many Bay Area sports fans instantly thought of another former player who helped turn around a Bay Area franchise.

That, of course, would be 49ers General Manager John Lynch.

Buster Posey can be to the SF Giants what John Lynch has been to the 49ers

Back in 2017 when the 49ers dismissed head coach Chip Kelly along with their GM Trent Baalke and opted for a rebuild, they hired Kyle Shanahan as their head coach who felt most comfortable with John Lynch as GM given his connection to his father Mike Shanahan.

There were many questions then about how wise it was to bring in a former player and broadcaster with zero front office experience to help turn around a struggling franchise.

7 years later, one cannot argue with the results as the 49ers have built one of the most talented rosters in the NFL and have come as close as possible to winning the Super Bowl.

Of course, football and baseball are two completely different sports and being the executive of a football team that has a 53-man roster and a practice squad is much different than being the executive of a baseball franchise with numerous minor league affiliates and way more players.

However, Lynch provides a useful model for Posey and the Giants. He had experienced front office personnel like Paraag Marathe and Adam Peters to lean upon who focused on the finer details of running a team.

Similarly, Posey will have assistant general manager Jeremy Shelley to lean upon and whoever he hires to be his GM figures to play the more detail-oriented role while Buster is the face of the organization and builds a vision and direction for the franchise.

Those who focus on Posey's inexperience do not understand that he is going to have countless people around him helping him in this endeavor. Certainly there will be a learning curve but he is not embarking on this alone.

The fact that Lynch has been so successful in turning the 49ers around should give Bay Area sports fans hope that Buster can do something similar with the Giants.

Nick San Miguel

Nick San Miguel has been writing at FanSided since 2017. He began as a contributor writing about the San Francisco Giants at Around the Foghorn and became a Site Co-Expert for AtF in 2024. A die-hard Bay Area sports fan born 10 minutes from Levi's Stadium, he has also written about the San Francisco 49ers for Niner Noise as a contributor since December 2023. In October 2025, he joined Blue Man Hoop as a contributor to write about the Golden State Warriors. He graduated with a degree in History from San Diego State University and is now based out of Chicago. He is the same age as Oracle Park.