As the Giants search for their next manager, their most legendary one is moving on.
Brucy Bochy, who returned to the dugout for the Rangers this year, is advancing with Texas to the American League Championship Series.
With the three-game sweep of the top-seeded Baltimore Orioles, Bochy has moved into fifth place in all-time postseason wins among managers, with 49. He could become the first manager in the championship series era to take three different franchises to the World Series.
Under Bochy, Texas went 90-72 in the regular season. They haven’t yet lost in the playoffs, upsetting Tampa Bay in the wild card round and then the Orioles. Baltimore hadn’t gotten swept in a series all year — until the ALDS.
Bochy managed the Giants from 2007 to 2019, when he retired and got replaced by Gabe Kapler. He became the greatest manager in franchise history, leading the Giants to all three of their San Francisco-era World Series championships.
The Giants fired Kapler with three games left in the 2023 season, perhaps giving fans even more fuel for frustration as their favorite skipper keeps winning.
There has been some revisionist history surrounding Kapler and Bochy, though. The Giants and Bochy moved on after three straight losing seasons from 2017 to 2019. After trying to extend the championship window with aggressive trades for 2016, the franchise was left with a barren farm system and aging roster. Bochy, with his contract expiring, health issues to tend to and a new front office regime entering, retired.
Under Kapler, the Giants went 295-248, including the franchise-record 2021 season. He often got the most out of suboptimal talent, but the strategies he used to do so frustrated many fans.
Bochy and Kapler are opposites in nature, but aren’t as different as many think in terms of in-game management (remember Bochy’s frequent bullpen moves?). There’s old school and analytics, but often those philosophies arrive at the same destination — putting your players in positions to succeed against a favorable matchup.
Kapler managing the Rangers’ roster would look a lot different than how he managed the 2023 Giants.
Where Bochy separates himself, though, is in leadership style. His innate ability to connect with players and empower them is impossible to quantify, but is perhaps unparalleled. One of the reasons the Giants have moved on from Kapler is because they want to shake up the clubhouse dynamics that clearly worsened as the team spiraled this season. Who knows if Bochy could have prevented that?
“(Bochy) is just a calming presence, and the team vibes with that,” Rangers pitcher Max Scherzer told Fox Sports.
What’s undeniable is Bochy knows how to win in October. And in his first season out of retirement, he has the Rangers peaking at the right time.
