The Giants are overhauling their front office, hoping to hire a new general manager and possibly other executives as well. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle detailed some of the most recent developments on Monday. Notably, the club has asked the Athletics to talk with assistant general manager Billy Owens. Other candidates include Jeremy Shelley, the Giants’ current assistant general manager, and old buddy Bobby Evans. However, Slusser adds that the club intends to conduct a thorough search that could take weeks, implying that the list of potential candidates would include many persons not specifically identified here.
For most baseball organizations these days, the general manager is the second-highest level of decision-making, with the position of president of baseball operations being reserved for the top dog. That will be the case with the Giants, but perhaps this GM position will be more essential than others in the league.
Buster Posey was recently named POBO and will be the club’s top decision-maker, but he arrived at the position in an unorthodox way. Many presidents are hired after years of working for teams in scouting or analytics, gradually rising through the ranks. Posey last played three years ago and will retire after 2021. He later joined the club’s ownership group purchasing a minority share in September of 2022 and getting a seat on the board of directors.
Posey appears to have been rather active in that role. Back in January, Taylor Wirth of NBC Sports Bay Area reported that Posey and righty Logan Webb were collaborating to bring free agents to San Francisco. Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic reported last month that Posey had taken the major position in Matt Chapman’s extension discussions, despite the fact that Farhan Zaidi was still the POBO at the time. Posey was handed Zaidi’s position shortly after, and the team chose to reassign GM Pete Putila and give the title to someone else to help Posey.
Despite Posey’s obvious hands-on involvement as a partial owner, his remarkable track record and rapid rise may indicate that he need a general manager with extensive experience in the day-to-day operations of running a baseball team.
Evans clearly qualifies, as Giants fans are well aware. He joined the Giants in 1994 as a minor league administrative assistant and progressed through different positions, including director of minor league operations in 1998, director of player personnel in 2005, vice president of baseball operations in 2009, and general manager in 2015. The Giants had plenty of success in that time, winning titles in the even-numbered years from 2010 to 2014, but their results declined in the seasons to come and Evans was fired after the 2018 campaign as the club pivoted to Zaidi.
Since then, Evans has emerged as a candidate for various front-office positions, but has yet to land one. In 2020, he interviewed for the Astros’ general manager position, which ultimately went to James Click. Evans also interviewed for the Angels’ GM position before 2021, which went to Perry Minasian. When the Astros unexpectedly parted ways with Click after winning the 2022 World Series, Evans was interviewed again, but Dana Brown eventually took his place. According to Slusser, Evans has worked for a variety of philanthropic groups during his time with the Giants.
Though he has been in the bush for a few years, Posey may bring him back to San Francisco. It’s unclear whether he’s being considered for the GM position or another advising post. In any case, he and Posey are undoubtedly well acquainted from their overlapping time with the organization, as Posey was drafted in 2008 and reached the major leagues for the Giants in 2009. The fact that Evans is now a candidate to work with Posey again, albeit under different circumstances, implies that the two had a positive relationship during that previous period.
It could be a similar issue for Shelley. According to his MLB.com bio, he has been with the Giants for almost 30 years, so his time with the team overlaps with Posey’s time as both a player and a partial owner/board member. Shelley began as a baseball operations intern in 1994 and advanced to administrative assistant in the baseball operations department in 1996. He later became director of baseball operations in 2006, senior director of baseball operations/pro scouting in 2009, and vice president of pro scouting and player evaluation in 2013.
It would be different for Owens, who has been with the A’s for more than 20 years. According to Bill Ladson’s MLB.com report from last year, Owens began his career with the A’s in 1999 as a minor league hitting instructor. He then became a scout, then a scouting coordinator. By 2010, he had been made director of player personnel, and five years later he was promoted to associate general manager.
This isn’t the first time his name has surfaced for a job outside of the A’s. Like Evans, he was a candidate for the Angels’ general manager position, which went to Minasian in late 2020. That same offseason, he was considered for a GM role by the Mets, but Jared Porter got that spot at that time.
