SF Giants make a win-the-fanbase type of move by hiring Buster Posey as top front office executive

The SF Giants surprised many in baseball on Monday when they announced that Buster Posey would be taking over as team president of baseball operations. It was a move that certainly excited the fanbase.

SF Giants make a win-the-fanbase type of move by hiring Buster Posey as top front office executive

Posey is taking over for Farhan Zaidi, who had been serving in that role since November of 2018. After three straight disappointing seasons, it was relatively evident that this regime was not working out and that a change was needed.

Posey will now be leading that change. Of course, the three-time World Series champion is already familiar with the organization and fanbase as both a player and minority owner. He needs no introduction.

That said, it was a move that was met with mixed reactions around baseball and there is plenty of inherent risk. First and foremost, the former Giants catcher has no traditional experience in the front office. In fairness, he did play a role in finalizing the Matt Chapman extension.

Similar to when the San Francisco Forty-Niners hired John Lynch, Posey will need to surround himself with excellent talent evaluators. In a lot of ways, his success at the helm will depend on this. The game has changed and the way talent is evaluated whether it is at the amateur ranks or free agency has changed as well.

Interestingly, the Giants bypassed the potential to survey for external options by hiring Posey right out of the gates. The Giants feel and look behind the curve in a lot of respects, especially on the pitching side. This had a downstream effect on the player development side as well.

Plus, to complicate matters, the Giants have struggled to develop everyday position players. They did find several through minor trades and waiver claims in recent years, but it was a roster with not enough talent.

This is an organization that has grown stale in recent years after missing the playoffs in seven of the last eight seasons but decided an internal hire was best. On the other hand, the St. Louis Cardinals brought on Chaim Bloom to begin to take over a larger role in baseball operations decisions after John Mozeliak had been in charge for the better part of two decades.

The Cardinals knew that a change was needed and replaced him with one of the more respected executives in baseball. Bloom's time with the Boston Red Sox did not lead to much success but he left them one of the strongest farm systems in baseball. That is a nice parting gift for an organization that likely pulled the chord too soon.

Was hiring Posey the right move? It is certainly way too early to tell. That said, this is the same ownership group that handed Farhan Zaidi an extension that was not warranted less than 12 months ago, so they have not demonstrated great judgment recently.

Posey will have a tremendous task ahead of him. He is the last remnant from an organization that won three titles in five seasons. That was in the early 2010's but it feels much longer than that after several disappointing years.

I have no doubt that Posey will have considerable sway with players in free agency. However, can he build an organization from the ground up? That is what the Giants truly need. Spending heavily in free agency is a band-aid to a more foundational problem.

Posey has that aura about him where it just feels like he will succeed in whatever he does. As a minority owner, he will get a long leash to turn things around.

At the very least, the Giants netted a win with the fanbase on Monday by hiring Posey to be the new president of baseball operations. More importantly, will that translate to more wins on the baseball field? Only time will tell.