Gabe Kapler, Giants culture are the scapegoats for mediocrity

As the SF Giants head toward their sixth playoffless season in the past seven years, the franchise fired manager Gabe Kapler on Friday afternoon before the final series of the season. It's hard to call the firing of a manager by an underperforming .500 team surprising, but few thought Kapler would be the first coach to be let go this season.

Prior to Kapler's hiring in 2019, I wrote an editorial at Around the Foghorn arguing that hiring Kapler would inhibit building the right culture. When the news broke, I was writing a piece about some major contradictions I had seen in Kapler's managerial strategy, particularly how I thought it impeded player development.

So, if anyone should have agreed with the move, it was me.

Kapler had some noticeable limitations as a manager. I think the Giants can probably upgrade this offseason, and that could help turn things around if it comes alongside some other significant changes. Without knowing what those other moves are, however, I'm not convinced it will move the needle.

One could argue Kapler made decisions that cost the Giants wins this season. Sean Manaea and Tristan Beck sure looked good enough to justify a permanent spot in the starting rotation, which might have solidified a pitching staff that faded as the season went on. There's a bullpen decision here, a different platoon or pinch-hit decision there, and probably a game or two that a defensive substitution could have changed.

However, where would the Giants be this season if he had done all that right?

Sure, the narrative would be better if San Francisco had avoided a September collapse and snuck into the playoffs as an 84-win team. Kapler would likely still be employed, and the front office would be gearing up for a run at Shohei Ohtani with a better chance of success.

But the Giants did not hire president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi to play second-fiddle to the Dodgers in the National League West. They hired him to turn the division into a war between two juggernauts. There was a glimpse of that in 2021 when it looked like the Giants and Dodgers' storied rivalry was headed for a new golden age. But that never came to fruition.

"I think there was just a little, kind of fend-for-yourself atmosphere that kind of fell into place," Outfielder Mike Yastrzemski told reporters about the team's culture on Friday after news broke of the firing. "I don't know where it came from, but it kind of just took over where everybody could do their own thing, and it felt like it wasn't an entire group effort or a sense of unity."

Yet, much like ace Logan Webb's comments earlier in the week, Yastrzemski did not point fingers at Kapler for the clubhouse's shortcomings.

"Everybody can have their opinions, but Kap was a great guy and he truly did care about every guy in this clubhouse and that's something that you can't take away from him," he said. "It's unfortunate that this is kind of the nature of the beast is that he wears the burden of our performance."

"I think it's getting a lot more attention than it probably deserves right now," outfielder Austin Slater told reporters. "What happened inside the clubhouse, the managing style, this is just what happens when you lose baseball games. We severely underperformed the last month and a half, two months, honestly, probably since the All-Star break... So all-around, there's not one point on the team, one group to blame. It was just overall bad baseball."

And frankly, I find it hard to disagree with Slater.

Would a different culture have made Mitch Haniger healthy and hit 35 home runs? Would a different culture have made Michael Conforto an All-Star this season? Would Ross Stripling's back injury have been healed with better vibes?

Was culture the reason Casey Schmitt and Patrick Bailey fell off after their hot starts? Or was it the fact that both of them had been below-average hitters at Triple-A and simply regressed to their true current talent levels?

"It's your jobs to report on what's happening," Slater directed at the media around him. "And I think a lot of things get attention that don't necessarily deserve it when, at the end of the day, it's the performance on the field that slipped away."

Andrew Baggarly recently wrote a well-reported scathing indictment of the Giants' clubhouse, which did not reflect well on Kapler or team leadership.

Some Giants players noticed small but telling signs in the clubhouse this season. The blaring, postgame victory playlist is a staple in most clubhouses. At some point, though, someone decided that it would be appropriate to play Bob Marley music in the clubhouse after losses.

At least one unnamed player vocalized frustration with the decision to play music after losses to Baggarly. Still, I do not believe players were less motivated because reggae filled the clubhouse instead of silence after a defeat.

Given how many times the Giants pulled off impressive late-game comebacks and bounced back from losing streaks with equally impressive winning streaks, there's a world where that gets spun as the stress-free atmosphere that helped the team avoid giving up with a different performance in September.

Outfielder Mike Yastrzemski, second baseman Thairo Estrada, and infielder Wilmer Flores are among those who sought to refocus a clubhouse that has included too many ho-hum reactions to losing along with a near-zealotry to Pusoy, a Filipino card game that Joc Pederson and some other Giants players appear to find more compelling than studying the night’s opposing starting pitcher.

It's hard for me to ignore the fatphobia that has fueled the discourse around designated hitter Joc Pederson on social media. Pederson has not lived up to his 2022 performance, but his overall production, including measures of athleticism like sprint speed, arm strength, and runner runs (a Statcast metric for baserunning), is right in line with his career numbers.

From 2020-2022, Pederson posted a .784 OPS (113 OPS+). In his age-31 season this year, Pederson has a .773 OPS (113 OPS+). If Pederson has performed below expectations, those expectations were unfairly high.

The fact that Pederson had reached the playoffs every year of his career (and won two World Series) prior to joining the Giants also undermines any notion that he's a harmful clubhouse presence.

There's a fine line between accountability and an unproductive performative martyrdom that permeates sports. Of course, fans want their pound of flesh anyway. If they are upset by their favorite team's struggles, they want the players to be as miserable as them, even if it helps no one.

The clubhouse did not transform from when it was riding high during the 10-game winning streak in June during its second-half collapse. The energy level was lower as more players found themselves slumping during the team's skid, but there were never any signs of quitting. Until they returned from a disastrous final road trip on Monday, there was no signal that the Giants had become resigned to missing the playoffs.

Webb spoke to reporters about the clubhouse accountability he saw early in his career, mentioning Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford, Brandon Belt, and Madison Bumgarner by name, as something he hopes to reinstill. But Posey, Crawford, Belt, and Bumgarner were all there during a postseason drought from 2017-2019.

Future Hall of Fame manager Bruce Bochy was at the helm for those three seasons too. The Giants even added other lauded locker room stars, like Andrew McCutchen and Evan Longoria. If they had the cultural antidote to underperformance, why did those teams perform so poorly?

In hindsight, the 107-win 2021 campaign was accidentally the perfect marriage of Zaidi and Kapler's ability to find a role for undervalued pieces with the previous regime's (under former general manager Bobby Evans and Bochy) belief in trusting proven players even as they age.

All-Star caliber seasons from Kevin Gausman, Logan Webb, Brandon Crawford, Buster Posey, and Brandon Belt formed the foundation for the 2021 Giants. That superstar bedrock enabled other players to thrive in platoons and more specialized roles. It's the exact model the Dodgers have followed this season around Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman.

Instead of using 2021 as a model, Zaidi seemingly prioritized the secondary contributors. The Giants let Gausman leave in free agency without attempting to retain him. They trusted that Crawford and Belt would replicate their 2021 success despite their advanced age and failed to capitalize on a free-agent class that featured players like Marcus Semien, Corey Seager, Carlos Correa, Freeman, and Kyle Schwarber, who could have filled open spots at second base or designated hitter while providing insurance for Crawford and Belt. Moreover, they made no significant upgrades to compensate for Posey’s retirement.

Since Zaidi was hired, the talent that he inherited in the Giants organization has produced seven different single-season performances with at least 4.0 fWAR. That's more than one All-Star caliber campaign per year spread across his five-year tenure. Four of the seven were by Posey, Belt, and Crawford. The other three were courtesy of Webb, who was coming off a breakout season that ended in the upper minors when Zaidi took over.

While Zaidi has shown the ability to add elite starting pitching (Kevin Gausman, Carlos Rodón, and Alex Cobb to a lesser extent) and solid secondary bats (Mike Yastrzemski, LaMonte Wade Jr., Darin Ruf, J.D. Davis, and Wilmer Flores), 2023 Willie Mac Award winner Thairo Estrada is the one position player acquired by Zaidi to record at least 3.0 fWAR in a single season with the Giants. A 3.0 WAR player is considered the rough value of an above-average everyday player.

Platoons and the pandemic-shortened 2020 season undeniably played a role, but it speaks to the franchise's failure to add game-changing bats. As Posey retired, Crawford faded, and Belt dealt with injuries, Zaidi was unable to replace those core pieces.

While the clubhouse environment has only recently come under a microscope, morale within the organization was low before the season started. There was already a mild exodus from the player development staff last offseason. Ironically, the only place where there seemed to be a consensus of positivity was among players on the big-league roster. Players were optimistic and seemed confident they could return to the playoffs.

From conversations with folks throughout the industry over the past year, one consensus has emerged, few organizations, if any, are as siloed as the Giants have been under Zaidi. The franchise has consistently added scouts, coaches, and analysts with excellent reputations. They have invested in staffing at the major and minor league levels more than most other teams as well.

Kapler was a source of frustration for some, with some of the complaints about him that emerged from his tenure with the Dodgers and Phillies returning, but he was never viewed in a vacuum. No one ever saw Kapler as an independent decision-maker from Zaidi.

Yet, when it was time to make big decisions, San Francisco never seemed to maximize the depth of perspectives. Whether it's been top selections in the draft, targets in free agency, trades, or even the 40-man roster, many felt shut out and like their opinions were not valued by team brass.

During his more than 25-minute conversation with the media on Friday afternoon, Zaidi seemed to acknowledge that has to change.

"Just being open and flexible to different ideas and different perspectives is something I'm going to have to take going forward and I think as an organization," Zaidi said.

Perhaps that was the ultimate reason Kapler had to go. As Zaidi and/or ownership realized they wanted new perspectives, Kapler's alignment with Zaidi's approach was no longer a positive but a missed opportunity for new ideas. If Zaidi has to change his approach, retaining a comparable perspective like Kapler becomes redundant.

Prior to Kapler's firing, the Giants were already heading toward an avalanche of staff departures this offseason as coaches looked for more stability elsewhere. Perhaps Kapler's firing and an internal hire that leads to a domino of promotions could prevent that, but Zaidi's emphasis on a need for outside voices makes that seem exceedingly unlikely.

The truth is, Gabe Kapler's firing as SF Giants manager had little to do with him. Few sports positions are more at the whims of circumstance than MLB managers. His firing was more about Farhan Zaidi's inability to add star power than Kapler's ability to manage a clubhouse. But, managers no longer run the modern corporate era of MLB. Front office executives, and their proximity to ownership, often allow them a longer leash. So now, as Zaidi heads into the final year of his contract, he knows that he'll be in Kapler's shoes next season without a significant improvement.