Buster Posey did what had to be done: He fired Bob Melvin.
It wasn’t a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the Giants’ volatile path to mediocrity in the 2025 season. Even Melvin wasn’t shocked.
“It is what it is. We’ll see what the next day brings,” Melvin told reporters Sunday.
That quote was a perfect encapsulation of Melvin’s approach to managing: He was just along for the ride.
For all his harping of “playing the right way” and “being a team” did anyone see that in his Giants squads?
I saw the worst kind of baseball — the game played the wrong way. No one did the little things to lift up their teammates. No, it was a squad of independent contractors, all going on massive swings to try to get their own stats.
All the while, Melvin just took in the game from the best seat in the house.
He was a manager who was needed for one year but stayed for two.
He was, unquestionably, the perfect replacement for tightly wound micromanager Gabe Kapler.
But he was the wrong leader for the 2025 Giants — a team that was supposed to be a contender that, for every brief, fleeting moment of competence, would follow it by collapsing in on itself like a dying star.
When a team collapses like that as often as that, someone has to take the fall.
That someone is always the manager. It’s always easier to fire him than rebuild an entire team.
And Posey has made it pretty clear that he likes his team.
The 2025 Giants didn’t need a steady hand in the dugout. No, they needed a raised one — someone who could keep the hot streaks going just a bit longer and light fires under their rears when the cold streaks followed.
Melvin, even-keeled no matter the circumstances, was not that guy. He was just along for the ride.
So what do the Giants need in their next manager? They need a leader, not just a manager. They need someone who can connect with the players, who can motivate them and, most importantly, someone who can hold them accountable.
In short, they need someone hotter than Melvin, but steadier than Kapler.
Frankly, they need Posey in the dugout, but he already has a better job.
So they need his sentinel.
Two of the names that are being thrown around are the usual suspects: Bruce Bochy and Dusty Baker.
I don’t mean to be ageist, but now’s not the time nor the place for the old school.
The Giants could look to a guy like Mark Hallberg, the team’s first base coach, who is a former teammate of Posey’s at Florida State.
Or they could look outside the organization: Mike Calitri, the bench coach for the Philadelphia Phillies, is going to get looks because of his scouting background. Dodgers bench coach Danny Lehrmann will come with strong recommendations. Nick Hundley, a former Giants catcher, seems like the closest thing to a Posey in the dugout. He’s currently in the Rangers’ front office.
And the Giants need to get this hire right. Posey already botched his first two managerial decisions.
But Dieter, you might say, Posey inherited Melvin when he took over.
Indeed he did. And that was a choice. Posey was hired on Sept. 30, 2024 — if he wanted a different manager, he should have hired one. He chose to keep Melvin.
And Posey chose to pick up Melvin’s 2026 extension on July 1, another button push for the habitual button pusher.
That’s 0-for-2 in the course of a year.
I know he can go 0-3 — Posey is unfirable in his role — but he really shouldn’t, right?
This Giants team is at a crossroads. They’re invested in becoming something better than this mediocre crew they’ve been for the last two seasons — 81 and 80 wins — but don’t yet know how to get there.
And in their justified zeal to never be .500 again, there’s a chance the op
The Giants believe they have the right button pusher in the front office, but they need the right button pusher in the dugout and in the clubhouse.
This next managerial hire isn’t just about winning games; it’s about setting the tone for the Posey era of Giants baseball.
So Posey needs to get this right, not just for the team, but for his own legacy.