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Amidst a crazy week of NBA free agency movement across Bay Area professional sports, it would have been easy to overlook the fact that the San Francisco Giants have welcomed back their CEO, Larry Baer. As widely reported, Baer was caught on camera having a public physical altercation with his wife Pam back on March 1st, 2019. MLB swiftly served Baer a four-month suspension that finished on July 1st.
Senior writer for The Athletic Andrew Baggarly took time on Monday to shed light on the situation on the Murph & Mac show. Baggarly thinks it is very unlikely that Baer will resume his role completely as it was before his suspension. When Murph asked Baggarly if Rob Dean, the interm CEO for the Giants during Baer’s suspension, now has more power than Baer, Baggarly had this to say:
“Well, there’s two ways to read that,” Baggarly said. “One is to read it just on its face, which is ‘Wow, Larry is being completely circumvented’. They’re saying right there that Farhan and baseball operations is going to report to Rob Dean, not to Larry… but going back to nuance again, the Giants have been very collaborative over the years and when Larry has gone to these owner’s meetings, he’s gone with Rob.”
In recent years Larry Baer has acted as the main face of the Giants ownership group. After his suspension Baggarly said he expects that to change.
“I think that they’re definitely going to make him a little less front facing for awhile, at least”, Baggarly said. “Being the guy that is the ‘ribbon-cutter’ is something that Larry has liked to do. Maybe he’s done it a little too much. There have been other people that they need to help grow and help to take on some of that responsibility… but I don’t think that Larry is being completely frozen out by any means. I think that he is going to be given time to get back up to speed.”
Baggarly says Baer might have to give up some of his power, but he’ll still be a strong voice in the organization.
“I don’t think they’ve ever operated super top-down,” Baggarly said. “They’ve always been very collaborative and Larry, as the liaison to ownership, has always been the one to herd that cats. He’s always had to get all the owners on board and help them understand what’s happening and come up with a cohesive game plan. I still think there’s going to be a lot of that that he is going to help to do. Basically, there’s going to be more cooks in the kitchen now”.
As it stands today, Giants’ President of Baseball Operations Farhan Zaidi will continue to report to Rob Dean.
To listen to Baggarly talk about Larry Baer skip ahead to 04:20.
