A humbling moment for Farhan Zaidi, a pivotal time for the Giants (2024)

SAN FRANCISCO — With a sigh or two, Farhan Zaidi squeezed through as many cameras and reporters that could fit into the Giants’ dugout, sat down and for 25 minutes on Friday afternoon explained the firing of his friend Gabe Kapler, accepted personal responsibility, and repeatedly acknowledged that he has to start doing things differently.

Yes, that’s about as close to baseball purgatory as the Bay Area can put together these days.

Zaidi seemed somber, chastened, introspective and maybe more than a little bit changed, though we’ll see on that last one. He looked like somebody who thought he had most of this figured out and would conquer the world alongside his hand-picked manager … but just had lived through the last few months realizing that none of this was true. Then spent the last few days deciding that he had to fire his friend.

That can change a person, even a recent MLB executive of the year.

“I guess it’s not a new lesson, but the game’s humbling,” Zaidi said. “And it’s unpredictable. That’s not to absolve responsibility. But when we finished .500 last year, we had a lot of players we were excited about. We had a really good rookie crop that’s contributed a lot. And it’s hard to put all those pieces together and make sense of being here and having the conversation we’re having now.”

Zaidi did not want to be there, obviously — discussing his failures and making promises to be better. But he went through it good-naturedly. And he clearly understood that he’s a little lucky he wasn’t fired along with Kapler and that somebody else wasn’t sitting there having to explain it all.

There are just a few days left in the Giants’ season. Next season can’t be anything like this one. Or else there will be further consequences very similar to this one. To that point, every word and intonation from this session made it all too clear: Giants ownership, starting with chairman Greg Johnson, realizes that fans have largely tuned out this team and its reliance on dowdy platoon players, its lack of interest in a full starting rotation, and Zaidi’s constant and confusing stream of mediocre players added to and subtracted from the roster nearly every day.

Whether he was faced with an ultimatum or just a very strong suggestion from ownership, Zaidi has agreed to listen to other ideas and generally run a more traditional, fan-friendly baseball shop. Which is what you have to do when you enter baseball purgatory.

“I know I have to think about things differently,” Zaidi said. “I know we as an organization have to do things differently. And a lot of those things are difficult, starting with the move today.”

Kapler wasn’t doing a terrible job. He’s the same guy who led this team to 107 wins in 2021. He was Zaidi’s pick in November 2019, over some internal and external questions, because Kapler’s smart and because he’s an extremely willing vessel for Zaidi’s ideas. Because Kapler shared most or all of those ideas. They were so close that they operated almost like a single entity in Giants’ decision-making.

That wasn’t a problem early on in their Giants’ tandem tenure. You usually want the manager and head of baseball operations to be on the same page. It worked beautifully in 2021. It wasn’t all bad in 2022 or even this season. But when it started to come apart this summer, Zaidi and Kapler were too similar to get this turned around. Too bland. Too much the technocrats. Too diffident and too arrogant about their formulas. When the numbers didn’t work, they didn’t have much else. Which just cost Kapler his job.

And Zaidi survived. It’s the right move, I believe because Zaidi is so good at building the bottom half of a roster. If he can just figure out how to land a couple of stars, and if ownership gives him the money to spend, Zaidi can build a monster franchise. He’s more at fault than anybody for what happened this season, but Zaidi’s also more capable of transforming this into something very good than anybody the Giants could find to replace him. I can’t say the same thing about Kapler and the managerial position.

But now Zaidi has to hire a different kind of manager, somebody with his own views and his own stature in the game. Somebody like Bob Melvin, if the San Diego Padres move on from him, or several other potential candidates. The new manager can’t just be a Zaidi cipher. Can’t be strictly a numbers guy. Has to connect with players and fans. Has to have some backbone. Has to be able to question some things that Zaidi wants to do. Has to have his own constituency and own way of doing things. Which will lead to debate. Maybe some disagreement. That might get bumpy, but it will be better than what happened this season.

Sometimes it seemed like Zaidi and Kapler were just working too hard to out-smart everybody, including the fans. Which is not the best way to win over fans.

“I don’t think we want to rule out strategies that can help us win games, but we want to have the most winning team and the most compelling product that we can,” Zaidi said. “That’s where I think we have to evaluate pulling back on those things. I think it’s gotta be on the table.”

And later, when I asked Zaidi if he’s had specific conversations with Johnson about his job and ownership’s vision:

“We’ve had a lot of conversations about how we get back to where we want to be and we need to be,” Zaidi said. “We want to have a product that our fans are excited about, a product that our fans come to the ballpark to see. And I recognize that. I think that’s what ownership wants to see. …

“From the ownership standpoint and from my standpoint, it’s our responsibility to change the narrative around this team. We want people to feel good about it and excited about the team. We’ve had a lot of conversations about that. … I’ve gotten support to do what we need to do but shouldn’t suggest that the board’s happy or that Greg’s happy about how the team has played the last couple years, because nobody is.”

But that raises three questions:

Can Zaidi, heading into a potential lame-duck contractual year, truly change the way he assembles a roster and runs a team?

Will he be able to hire a good, independent-minded manager, and will the new tandem work well together?

And is this what’s best for the Giants, anyway? Can Zaidi be his best if he’s anything other than his fullest self?

We can’t know the answers yet. But for the Giants, the unknown is better and, frankly, more interesting, than anything that happened the last two seasons. And if all of this elevates Zaidi’s executive consciousness, after watching his career flash before his eyes, that will be something to behold.

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(Photo: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)

Tim Kawakami is Editor-in-Chief of The Athletic's Bay Area coverage. Previously, he was a columnist with the Mercury News for 17 years, and before that he covered various beats for the Los Angeles Times and the Philadelphia Daily News. Follow Tim on Twitter @timkawakami