SAN DIEGO — The Giants understand it will take time for many of their skeptical fans to warm up to the idea of manager Gabe Kapler.
So here is a simple strategy to win over a few of the skeptics:
Tell fans to stop thinking of Gabe Kapler, manager. Tell fans to start thinking of Gabe Kapler, farm director.
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Because when the Giants announced the hiring of Kapler’s young and unconventional coaching staff on Wednesday, it became abundantly clear that their major-league operation will be treated less like an arena for finished players and more like another level of development.
“Player development continuing at the major-league level is a theme that we’re seeing around baseball right now,” Kapler said. “And it’s one that I think we’re all heavily invested in.”
The Giants are all-in on development now. They spent the past month vetting and interviewing major-league coaching candidates, and when they released the names of eight new hires, Kapler and a front office headed by president Farhan Zaidi demonstrated a clear preference for innovation over experience and science over stature.
Six of the eight new coaches never played a game in the big leagues. Two of them never played a game in the minor leagues, either. When third-base coach Ron Wotus reports for his 23rd major-league camp with the Giants this spring, he will share a coaches room with eight men who have a combined 7 1/2 years of experience on major-league coaching staffs.
Never trust anyone over 40. That’s how the saying goes, right? Kapler and the Giants took it to heart. Pitching director Brian Bannister, 38, is the oldest among the eight new hires. Co-hitting coach Justin Viele, 29, is the youngest.
Bannister and new pitching coach Andrew Bailey, who was an All-Star closer with the A’s during an eight-year major-league career, are the only new hires who played in the major leagues.
And what about the bench coach, a critical voice of reason and source of wisdom who will ensure that Kapler doesn’t flub a double-switch or call for a reliever who hasn’t warmed up?
Well, the Giants didn’t exactly hire from central casting. They are going with former Cleveland Indians minor-league defensive coordinator Kai Correa, a 31-year-old with no professional playing background or major-league coaching experience. Correa is highly respected for his work on the clinic circuit; he’s also just two years removed from coaching at the University of Northern Colorado.
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“He has a lot of experience coaching. It’s just nontraditional,” Kapler said. “If you can teach, you can teach. If you can coach, you can coach. And whether that person is 35 years old or 20 years old, connecting to the players is really about preparation and showing them that you can help them and care a great deal about them. Essentially, that’s how we hired — to check those boxes.”
Kapler did not consider boxes that would more commonly appeal to veteran players, who tend to trust coaches who can relate to them because they went through the major-league grind.
That’s your first clue that the Giants not only plan to go as young as possible in 2020 but also plan to aggressively promote minor-league players such as catcher Joey Bart, outfielder Heliot Ramos and others who display a modicum of readiness in the upper minors.
“Development is going to have to happen at the major-league level for us going forward,” Zaidi said, “and this coaching staff is a reflection of the research we did and the guys that would be able to achieve that for us.”
In that context, it makes sense why Zaidi was so sure that Kapler was the right choice to manage — so much so that he convinced the rest of the organization to absorb the public relations hit to make what most vocal fans most assuredly would perceive as an underwhelming if not infuriating hire.
Because as checkered as Kapler’s record might be as a manager, he has a sterling record as the leader of a player development staff. He was a smashing success under Zaidi with the Los Angeles Dodgers in three seasons as their farm director. Zaidi credits many of the staffing additions and policies that Kapler put in place for creating a modern player development system that has become a model for the industry.
Clearly, Kapler thought more like a farm director and less like a manager while filling out his major-league coaching staff. He didn’t seek out candidates from the usual hiring pools. He targeted pitching and hitting directors with a background in biomechanics. He focused on candidates who could mesh perfectly with Michael Schwarze and Jack McGeary, the two embedded analysts who will return in their clubhouse roles and sat in on interviews with coaches.
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The Giants recruited Dustin Lind, a 31-year-old with no professional playing experience and a background in physical therapy, away from the Seattle Mariners’ major-league staff to be their director of hitting. The new hitting coach, Donnie Ecker, is a 33-year-old who was a first-year assistant hitting coach with the Cincinnati Reds last season. He will share duties with Viele, who served as a hitting coach in the Dodgers’ minor-league system.
The Giants promoted minor-league pitching coach Ethan Katz, 36, to serve as Bailey’s big-league assistant. And they hired one of the Tampa Bay Rays’ minor-league field coordinators, 37-year-old Craig Albernaz, to be their bullpen coach and lead catching instructor.
They still must hire a first-base coach as well as one more person who will serve in a quality control capacity with a title to be determined. Kapler stressed that one of the two remaining hires will be a native Spanish speaker. The rest of head athletic trainer Dave Groeschner’s staff could undergo some changes as well. And while Shawon Dunston is a candidate to return as one of the club’s two video replay assistants, those roles have not been finalized, either.
The Giants considered what would have been a history-making hire for the quality control position. They interviewed Rachel Balkovec, a 32-year-old with two master’s degrees in kinesiology — believed to be the first time a major-league team has interviewed a woman for a uniformed big-league coaching position. But Balkovec, who has experience in hitting instruction as well as strength and conditioning, will return to the minor-league coaching position that she had accepted last month with the New York Yankees.
“I’ve known Rachel for a really long time; Farhan has known Rachel for a really long time,” Kapler told NBC Sports Bay Area. “I think it was four years ago or so that we first became familiar with her work as a strength coach. Rachel is super dynamic, incredibly smart, incredibly confident, and I have no doubt in my mind that she’s going to make a big impact in baseball for many years to come.”
Kapler said that during his playing career, he did not see a correlation between coaches who connected with players and coaches who had long playing careers in the big leagues.
“What I did recognize as a common denominator,” he said, “was a high degree of preparation and a high degree of care and a willingness to put the player first at all costs.”
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Kapler, of course, was hardly the typical player. What about Buster Posey, Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Jeff Samardzija, Johnny Cueto and any other veteran who isn’t traded off the 40-man roster this offseason?
Simply put: They’re expected to get on board. And they are expected to consider themselves as developing players, too.
“Very much so,” Kapler said in a resolute voice. “There’s not much I feel more strongly about. There’s evidence all over the place in Major League Baseball about players who reinvent themselves or take major steps forward and reestablish their value at the major-league level.”
Kapler cited the example of Bryce Harper, who signed a $300 million contract with the Phillies prior to last season and credited outfield coach Paco Figueroa with helping him improve his defense and baserunning.
“A lot of successful major leaguers want to get better, and in some cases, they don’t know how,” Kapler said. “In some cases, it’s because coaches haven’t approached them. They don’t want to break something that is working well. But I think those days are gone, and I think players crave having coaches approach them and ask them to make changes.”
That’s an endeavor that requires a certain tact, though. And perhaps Kapler lacked for some during his media session on Tuesday.
Asked about Crawford, Kapler said the shortstop has been “at times a plus defender up the middle” — a less than charitable description for a three-time Gold Glove Award winner. Kapler continued by saying that Crawford, whose metrics have slipped in each of the past three seasons, can be a plus defender again, but “we want him to be consistent with his pre-pitch routine” at shortstop, noting a tendency to alternate springing off his left or right foot while anticipating each pitch.
Hoo boy, you might be thinking. That’s going to be a fun conversation. Let’s talk to the three-time Gold Glover about his pre-pitch routine.
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Yes, Kapler the major-league farm director still has to manage the actual games, and on that score, it’s understandable for Giants fans to be wary of his lack of success in two seasons managing the Philadelphia Phillies. The mistakes he made in the first weeks of the 2018 season were visible and well documented. It is all too easy for fans to view his departure from orthodoxy as something to fear and not to applaud.
You want a steady hand at the dugout rail, and Kapler is better known for shaking things up. Giants fans might feel a heck of a lot better if he weren’t just fired from the same job in another city — and surrounding himself with an ultra-inexperienced coaching staff won’t appear to provide much of a check or balance to his unconventional approach.
Other fans, of course, will continue to stand in judgment of Kapler’s acknowledged mishandling of two instances of alleged assault involving Dodgers minor leaguers during his tenure there.
Even if the most important part of Kapler’s job will tack nearer to Dodgers developer than Phillies skipper, he is still the manager in San Francisco and will be scrutinized as such.
And he will have to manage one more thing that you don’t often find at Triple A and below: big-league egos, some of which belong to players who own World Series rings.
That will be a developing situation, to be sure.
(Photo: Gregory Bull / AP)
Andrew Baggarly is a senior writer for The Athletic and covers the San Francisco Giants. He has covered Major League Baseball for more than two decades, including the Giants since 2004 for the Oakland Tribune, San Jose Mercury News and Comcast SportsNet Bay Area. He is the author of two books that document the most successful era in franchise history: “A Band of Misfits: Tales of the 2010 San Francisco Giants” and “Giant Splash: Bondsian Blasts, World Series Parades and Other Thrilling Moments By the Bay.” Follow Andrew on Twitter @extrabaggs
