As a whole, the San Francisco Giants’ organization struggled throughout 2017.
The Major League team finished at 64-98, but the Giants’ AAA affiliate, the Sacramento River Cats, also finished in last place in the Pacific Coast League. The Giants’ AA-affiliate, the Richmond Squirrels, didn’t quite end up in the cellar, but their fifth place finish in the Eastern League wasn’t much to celebrate.
Richmond, it turns out, fared better than both of the Giants’ A-affiliate, High-A San Jose and Low-A Augusta, as both teams finished in last place in their respective divisions.
Though Minor League standings are hardly the only indicator of a farm system’s health, it didn’t come as a surprise Friday when San Francisco announced it hired former Giants’ infielder David Bell as its Vice President of Player Development.
A 12-year Major League veteran, Bell played for seven different Major League franchises, and has continued his career in baseball as a coach with the Chicago Cubs, and most recently, as the St. Louis Cardinals’ bench coach.
“There’s so much experience,” Giants’ general manager Bobby Evans said on a conference call on Friday afternoon. “He (Bell) came into baseball drafted out of high school at the age of 17, went through the development process level by level. Learned a lot from his own experience but then ultimately had a very successful Major League career and then went into, at the end of his career, began coaching first as a AA manager for a number of years, then as a AAA manager and then a big league coach at third base, then hitting coach, assistant hitting coach and then recently as a bench coach. So his experience is just so strong and encompassing so many different aspects of the game.”
The diversity in Bell’s experience played a critical role in his hire, as the Giants are hopeful that Bell will be able to create positive change throughout San Francisco’s farm system.
To hire Bell, Evans asked longtime organizational veteran and the former head of player development, Shane Turner, to accept a new role within the franchise. Turner spent four seasons in his previous role, which he earned after serving for six seasons as the Giants’ Coordinator of Minor League instruction.
“I talked to Shane at the end of the Minor League season and asked if he would consider a new role in baseball operations serving as a special assistant to baseball operations,” Evans said. “So he began serving in that role and helping us in playoff coverage and just getting a chance to look at the pro scouting side a little bit. He’ll have a variety of roles going into next year that will help us in a number of different areas, just sort of big-picture relative to what we’re doing on the baseball side including the Major League side. In so doing, began a search process for a new head of player development. Ultimately came to the conclusion after interviewing David, but we went through the process, we requested permission, that he was the perfect fit.”
Evans said Friday that he doesn’t want the organization’s goals for the Minor League overhaul to leak to the public, but the Giants’ general manager is hopeful that Bell’s hire will allow the franchise to enhance more players’ potential throughout the farm system. Evans mentioned that Bell has a strong base of experience in coaching and a background from his playing days that’s easy to relate to for young athletes, which should make him a natural for offering players’ both mental and physical help as they mature.
“There’s a lot of internal goals that are hard to speak to publicly,” Evans said. “But we always want to make sure that we’re getting the most out of a players’ talent and ability and making sure that we’re providing an environment where he has every opportunity to get better and putting around him not only in terms of staff or from a medical, player development or coaching side, but also the resources that are going to help him get the most out of what he has to offer. But it’s hard to speak specifically because a lot of it is just internal.”
Bell told Derrick Goold of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he was leaving a great job to join the Giants’ organization.
“The bottom line was this is a new challenge, a great challenge,” Bell said. “I have a passion for being on the field, but player development has always been something important to me and to have an impact on this scale — it’s the right time to grab this opportunity.”
The Giants are at a critical juncture in time when the franchise may soon need to rely on more of its drafted and homegrown talent to fill out the Major League roster, because the organization cannot continue paying a luxury tax. As a result, San Francisco needs more of its players to transition successfully from the Minor League level to the Major League level, and that was a significant issue for the Giants in 2017. While certain players like Chris Stratton and Kyle Crick blossomed, many such as Ryder Jones and Christian Arroyo failed to make successful adjustments.
Moving forward, Bell is tasked with building the farm system’s depth, while overseeing all aspects of the Giants’ Minor League operation. He’ll report directly to Evans.
“We look at a lot of the success we have that’s helped us produce championships at the big league level and you know, we have obviously been challenged not only in 2017, but more recently trying to get some of these guys to the big league level and you want to offer every opportunity to get better,” Evans said.