As quickly as days after the Giants dismissed Gabe Kapler, some within the organization wondered about Bob Melvin’s situation and intentions.
Melvin is under contract in San Diego for one more year, but he always seemed like the most natural fit for the Giants. A former Giants player, Athletics manager, Menlo Atherton graduate and Cal Berkeley alum, Melvin checks boxes even before reviewing his lengthy accomplishments.
Now the three-time Manager of the Year, according to Andrew Baggarly and Dennis Lin of The Athletic, has become the leading candidate to replace Kapler with the Padres having granted the Giants permission to interview Melvin.
An intra division defection, while rare, isn’t unprecedented. In fact, San Francisco famously hired Bruce Bochy away from the Padres in 2006.
Given the circumstances surrounding Melvin, the Padres and the Giants, overwhelming signs point to the Giants making the 61-year-old their next skipper.
Here’s an aerial view of the possibility of the Giants poaching Melvin from San Diego.
- Would Bob Melvin be a slam dunk hire?
Melvin is one of the game’s most accomplished managers; his 1,496 wins trails only Bochy, Dusty Baker, Buck Showalter and Terry Francona among active managers. He’s as respected a skipper as any still working.
Melvin has worked with all sorts of front office types, including Farhan Zaidi when he was Oakland’s assistant general manager.
He’s charismatic and, in his 20 years managing, has guided both star players and unproven young prospects. The Giants want the former and have the latter.
The Giants need a manager who can invigorate the fan base, bring a new voice into the clubhouse and shepherd the next generation. After two mediocre seasons, they need a skipper who can lead a winning team right away. They need someone with the experience and chops to be able to work alongside Zaidi but also put his own stamp on the club. Someone like Melvin.
Nobody is going to rival Melvin’s credentials. Still, there are some rational concerns hanging over him.
- Why couldn’t he get the most out of the 2023 Padres?
The Padres reached the NLCS as a wild card team in 2022, then added star shortstop Xander Bogaerts.
Yet even with an improved roster, San Diego’s 2023 campaign went into the tank. SD finished 82-80 despite the third-best run differential in the National League. The Padres went 9-23 in one-run games and 2-12 in extra innings.
Most of the Padres’ stars stayed healthy, and many of them played up to or above their expectations. They had the likely NL Cy Young winner, a lights-out closer, and a lineup of six regular players with an above average OPS+. That shouldn’t be a third-place team.
How much of San Diego’s underperformance was due to bad luck? How much of the blame should fall on Melvin? If he can’t maximize a stacked, $250 million roster, how could anyone expect him to extract the most value out of San Francisco’s sum-of-its-parts group? Shouldn’t he be just as responsible for San Diego’s clubhouse drama as Kapler was (Melvin, like Kapler and many managers across the sport, tends to lead a clubhouse with a hands-off style)?
As accomplished as Melvin is as a manager, he probably wouldn’t be in this position if he had done his best possible job last year.
- Wait, why does Melvin want this job again?
It’s well documented that Melvin and Padres president A.J. Preller’s relationship, at the very least, has been strained.
But the Padres expressed confidence that they could bridge their differences and lead together in 2024.
“Bob is our manager,” Preller said earlier this month. “He’s going to be our manager going forward. A lot’s been said, obviously, in the last few weeks, but both he and I are very excited about the challenge of getting this group back to the postseason next year. From that standpoint, a lot’s been said, and I think with Bob and myself, I think, just even in the last couple days, you get a chance to recap and look at some different things, and both of us feel really good with where things are at moving forward.”
Melvin and Preller’s rift wasn’t substantial enough to warrant a divorce, but the gulf is apparently wide enough for the Padres to allow Melvin to interview with the Giants.
Still, from Melvin’s perspective: why leave? Even with all the personalities on the Padres, and Blake Snell’s potential departure, he’d be trading one of the most talented rosters in the sport for a fourth-place team and potential front office instability as Zaidi enters the last year of his deal. If Melvin departs, the Padres job would likely become the most appealing available managing gig.
The Padres’ work environment must be a real mess if Melvin wants to leave Manny Machado, Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr., Ha-Seong Kim, Xander Bogaerts, Joe Musgrove, and Yu Darvish for Logan Webb and Thairo Estrada.
- How would all this even work?
Melvin, one of the highest paid managers in MLB, is under contract for $4 million in 2024, per multiple reports. San Diego granting the Giants permission to interview him essentially rolls back their public commitment.
If the Giants poach Melvin, the Padres would likely expect some sort of compensation in return. That could be as simple as San Francisco paying his salary. Or it could involve a trade — like Boston agreed to in 2012 for John Farrell and Tampa Bay executed in 2002 for Lou Pinella.
But because the Padres don’t appear to have much leverage, any assets exchanged likely won’t be significant.
- What’s the timeline on San Francisco’s hiring process?
The team has always aimed to have their next manager in place for when free agency begins — five days after the end of the World Series.
The Giants have reportedly interviewed Alyssa Nakken, Kai Correa, Mark Hallberg and Stephen Vogt. It’s unclear if any of them have yet to be invited back for another round of the process.
The Giants’ request to talk with Melvin came early last week, per ESPN. Given the clear mutual interest and the goal of filling the role within the next few weeks, negotiations could advance quickly.
Unless the Giants still want to wait for some candidates to finish up in the playoffs — namely Rangers offensive coordinator Donnie Ecker — SF may make the hire expeditiously.
- Would Melvin spark a fanbase’s dwindling enthusiasm?
The Giants franchise could use a face lift.
Oracle Park attendance increased by just 216 fans per game on average, a plateau while much of the rest of the league saw substantial increases. SF attendance dropped from 12th to 17th in the league.
The reasons for San Francisco’s box office issues are nuanced, but it became clear in 2023 that something intrinsic was missing. Part of that came from the manager’s office.
For a number of reasons — some fair, many silly — a loud faction of Giants fans never resonated with Gabe Kapler.
Melvin is regarded as a player’s manager and a popular skipper for the media to work with. His deep Bay Area ties will play in a proud market. He doesn’t shy away from getting ejected to stick up for his players (one video compilation of his A’s ejections spans over 14 minutes). Personality-wise, he’d be a departure from Kapler.
Melvin played for Roger Craig and the parallels between him and Bochy would be easy to sell.
Most fans don’t go to the ballpark to root for the manager. But a presence like Melvin certainly wouldn’t hurt. The only question may be would he generate as much excitement or intrigue as a first-year manager like Vogt or Jason Varitek, whom San Francisco reportedly was granted permission to interview.
- Is Melvin a better candidate than the field?
At least compared to the coaches the Giants have reportedly interviewed, Melvin is certainly the most qualified.
Melvin has been a big-league manager for the past 20 years and has worked in a variety of different situations. He knows the National League West and understands the Giants franchise as well as anyone. He’s one of seven skippers to ever win Manager of the Year in both leagues.
Veteran infielder Tony Kemp called Melvin “one of my favorite managers of all time,” and players around the league who have played for him would provide similar endorsements.
At least publicly, the Giants have only considered first-time managers. It’s impossible to know exactly how a coach like Mark Hallberg would compare in style and effectiveness to Melvin. But their resumes are incomparable.
Unless Craig Counsell — whose contract is up — becomes available, Melvin is probably the most formidable option.
- Could Melvin help the Giants get over the top in free agency negotiations?
Zaidi has made it clear that he’ll value a manager who can be an “effective recruiter.” Melvin’s track record of working with superstar players should fit the description.
Three of the Giants’ top free agent targets — Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Jung Hoo Lee — are from Asia. Melvin could pitch them on his experience working with Ichiro Suzuki in Seattle and Darvish and Kim in San Diego.
As Baggarly noted, Kim was teammates with Lee and Yamamoto, and shares an agent with Darvish. Ichiro is Ohtani’s all-time hero.
It also wouldn’t hurt that Soto, who is set to hit free agency next year, has a relationship with Melvin.
In free agency, money talks more than anything — and certainly more than who’s managing the team. But maybe Melvin could nudge a player in one direction.
- What could hiring Melvin mean for SF’s incumbent coaches?
If the Giants move forward with Melvin, they’d likely give him wide latitude to fill his bench. That would leave the Giants’ 2023 coaching staff in even more uncertainty than they’re already in.
Still, there’s value in continuity. The likeliest coaches to remain with the Giants would likely be the same ones involved in the manager search: Correa, Nakken and Hallberg.
The Athletic reported that only Correa and hitting coach Justin Viele are under contract for 2024 for the Giants. Pitching coach Andrew Bailey is believed to want to move closer to his family on the east coast and catching coach Craig Albernaz could be up for a promotion elsewhere.
SF’s offensive struggles last year will probably make it tough for Viele, Dustin Lind and Pedro Guerrero to survive a regime change. Antoan Richardson and Nick Ortiz’s statuses are unclear.
Melvin could pluck coaches from lower in the Giants’ organization or from his prior stops. One Padres assistant, Mike Shildt, would be an awkward fit, especially for SF’s first baseman. Matt Williams, Melvin’s current third base coach, would make a lot of sense given his history with the Giants.
- What would hiring Melvin say about the Giants organization?
Hiring Melvin wouldn’t be at all shocking at this point, but it would reveal that the front office and ownership group are serious about returning to competitiveness right away.
Because Zaidi and Melvin have a prior working relationship, it would continue a trend of Zaidi gravitating towards familiarity in his decisions — although that’s not unique to him. How much power in terms of in-game management and roster decisions Zaidi is willing to cede to Melvin would remain a topic to watch.
Melvin would represent a manager with wide appeal; baseball lifers would view him as a return to “old school” principles, progressive fans would appreciate his malleability, Giants die-hards would appreciate that he once caught Mike Krukow and shared an infield with Will Clark.
Poaching Melvin would be much more than just fan service. But it would reflect the organization hearing fans’ grumblings loud and clear.
