There is one person to blame for SF Giants struggles and it is not manager Bob Melvin

While it has been a rocky first year at the helm for SF Giants manager Bob Melvin, the subpar season is not his fault. The front office led by Farhan Zaidi is a bigger culprit with how the team has struggled to meet expectations in recent years.

There is one person to blame for SF Giants struggles and it is not manager Bob Melvin

A season that began with so much promise and energy has again turned into a year that the San Francisco Giants and their fans would like to forget. After all, the team is headed toward yet another season with a losing record. 

If we all remember last winter, the club made a managerial change and hired longtime skipper Bob Melvin to lead the team. It was viewed that Melvin was the change that was needed to push them back to the playoffs. But as we know, this hasn’t been the case. 

However, we must pump the brakes on blaming Melvin for the team not meeting our expectations. He isn’t the problem and has done an overall good job. Now, there will always be places where he could’ve been better. That being said, he has done a much better job of managing games compared to what the club has had in years past. 

After all, Melvin has won the Manager of the Year award three times in his career and has been in the postseason a whopping 8 times as well. The track record speaks for itself, which is why he deserves to be given a fair shake. One-and-done doesn’t do anything but show more and more internal issues with the Giants. Not to mention, Melvin has been a great player's manager this season by showing he has the player's back as he has been tossed from five games this season. 

But maybe the biggest thing that stands out to me is how good of a leader he is to the players. There were multiple times when it seemed like the season was spiraling out of control and the team always seemed to rally and get back into the playoff race.

This is something that hasn’t happened in years past. Even now, we’re seeing them rally and make a push to finish with a winning record despite going on arguably the toughest road trip of the season. 

Now, let’s be honest Melvin’s managing wasn’t up to par there for a few months. In August when he stuck with Camillo Doval as he continued to struggle, it was something that hurt. However, this is the second straight season where Melvin’s team has finished the season as one of the hottest teams in the game. No one was expecting the Giants to roll through three playoff teams on the road and win every series. This is clearly a Melvin thing after the Padres did the same to end the season in 2023. 

But most of the blame should go to the President of Baseball Ops Farhan Zaidi. This was Melvin’s first season, so he should easily be given another chance. For Zaidi, he has now had six years to build this team into a winner and hasn’t. Many good young players have finally made their way to the team. 

This point that the issues on the team stem from the front office makes even more sense after it was reported that Buster Posey had to step in to get the Matt Chapman extension done after Zaidi was unwilling to give the third baseman a no-trade clause to push the deal over the finish line. That said, many of the details from that initial report have been refuted.

We shall see in the coming days whether the organization really does care about winning. If they do care about winning, the wise move would be to hold onto their veteran skipper Bob Melvin.