SF Giants managerial candidate's ties to Buster Posey may hurt his chances

The search for the next SF Giants manager is on and one name that has been floated as a candidate is first base coach Mark Hallberg. His chances may actually end up being hurt by his ties to president of baseball operations Buster Posey, though.

When Posey was first hired to his new role a year ago, it seemed only natural that Hallberg would be a potential future manager for the Giants given his relationship with Buster.

Posey and Hallberg were teammates in college at Florida State University. Having ties to a potential boss usually bodes well when trying to land a new job, but in this case Posey may be fearful that he would be accused of hiring an old college buddy with no managerial experience.

Hallberg's candidacy for SF Giants manager may be hampered by ties to Posey

This characterization would be unfair to Hallberg because he has been with the Giants since 2020 and was the lone holdover from Gabe Kapler's staff during the transition to Bob Melvin's staff. Hallberg even interviewed for the manager role after Kapler was fired.

His coaching experience was a little light prior to joining the Giants, but he has been with the team for a while and certainly has familiarity with the guys on the roster which is a plus.

However, reports suggest that the Giants do not plan to interview any internal candidates for the manager position which means that Hallberg will not be the next manager if those reports are true.

There were surely a number of reasons for this, but Posey may just not have been comfortable with any sort of feeling that he was giving an old friend of his a chance ahead of more qualified candidates.

Hallberg still could remain on the staff in some capacity which would not be a big surprise. Maybe he could be the new Ron Wotus and remain on the staff for over 20 years, forever waiting for his chance to be the manager. Or maybe he will venture off to another opportunity where he will not have the albatross around his neck of being Posey's old college buddy.

The search for a new manager marches on. It would still not be a surprise if Posey has some degree of familiarity with whoever he hires, whether they played together in the past or coached him in the past. Just do not expect them to have gone to college together.

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