After 18 seasons that produced three World Series titles and a handful of the most successful pitchers in San Francisco Giants’ history, Dave Righetti is out as the team’s pitching coach.
The man who tutored homegrown stars like Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum and revitalized the careers of dozens of other middling pitchers is moving to a front office role with the club after being reassigned by Giants’ general manager Bobby Evans.
On Saturday morning, Evans discussed Righetti’s tenure as the Giants’ pitching coach, and also explained the type of coach San Francisco needs to hire to ensure a smooth transition for the organization’s cherished arms. Because Righetti held his role for 18 seasons, and bullpen coach Mark Gardner served in his for 15, Evans said one of the top priorities San Francisco has in its search is to find experienced candidates who will enter AT&T Park with new viewpoints.
“I think you’re going to look for, you’d love to get, it’s hard to go from the experience that we’ve had, leadership that Rags and Gardy have had to not having guys with experience,” Evans said. “So that’s, we’re going to still value that experience. I think that we’ll be creative and open, the talent pool out there of pitching guys whether at the Minor League level or at the Major League level is quite broad and there’s a lot of different strengths that coaches have and experiences that coaches have and those experiences being in different organizations and their specialties or their preferences or relative biases being different can potentially speak into what we’re doing and help get the most out of our pitchers in a different way.”
Evans didn’t admit that Righetti’s coaching points have grown stale, but he did indicate the Giants aren’t limiting the types of perspectives they’ll consider in their search. Though the Giants made Righetti’s reassignment official on Saturday, Evans said that he initially discussed the idea of shifting Righetti’s responsibilities with the coach in September, and that San Francisco has already begun the interview process.
“I think that again, you can’t take anything away from what Gardy and Rags have contributed and accomplished here,” Evans said. “But by bringing in new people, they’ll be coming in with new perspectives, maybe new priorities, maybe new strategies, a new way of looking at things and we’ll be open to all of those candidates and try to get the best combination.”
Though the Giants may still consider a promotion from within, Evans said the franchise is primarily looking at candidates outside the organization which aligns with the viewpoint Evans projected that San Francisco needs new blood in its clubhouse.
One of the qualities the Giants may also prioritize is finding a pitching coach driven by analytics who can relate to players in the same way Righetti and Gardner were able to over the past several years. As an organization, San Francisco is considered to be among the teams that have adopted an analytics-based approach more slowly than its peers, but a new hire may change that.
“I don’t want to take anything away from Gardy and Rags because they’ve always been responsive to information that we’ve been able to gather analytically,” Evans said. “But yeah, there are candidates we’ve already interviewed that have been dealing in more the analytical world for longer. I think that’s one perspective that will be in front of us, those kind of candidates for sure.”
