After meeting with at least three internal candidates for their vacant managerial post, the San Francisco Giants reportedly widened their search Monday to the first potential successor to Gabe Kapler from outside the organization.
Stephen Vogt, the popular ex-catcher, was set to meet with club officials Monday, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Vogt, 39, was raised a Giants fan in the Central Valley and was considered manager material for years before he retired in 2022 after 10 big-league seasons — seven in the Bay Area and three with Farhan Zaidi. But, having only hung up his cleats last year, it would be a quick ascension to one of only 30 available jobs in baseball’s top uniformed post.
That gives him something in common with the three internal candidates reported to have interviewed — bench coach Kai Correa, third base coach Mark Hallberg and assistant Alyssa Nakken — whose only major-league coaching experience came on Kapler’s staff the past four seasons.
In his first post-retirement venture, Vogt, a two-time All-Star with the A’s, served as the Seattle Mariners’ bullpen coach this past season.
While the search is only just getting under way, previous coaching experience won’t be the be-all and end-all. In fact, when he was asked how he felt about hiring a first-time skipper, the Giants’ top baseball decision-maker didn’t dismiss the idea and quickly pivoted to a more important qualification, in his mind.
“We are open (to it),” Zaidi said. “I would anticipate that we interview a couple people that don’t have managerial experience.”
In the absence of experience, Zaidi said, the Giants would value “somebody who can be an effective recruiter.”
“Like every organization, we want to build the brand of players wanting to come here and play here, and I think the manager is a big part of that,” he said. “There are guys who don’t have managerial experience but maybe they just ended long playing careers and they have relationships and they can be effective recruiters and be sort of attractive leaders for players.”
Somebody such as a recently retired catcher? Somebody widely respected by his peers? Somebody such as … Stephen Vogt?
He reportedly got his shot Monday, and time will tell if he’s invited back for a second round. Either way, a variety of candidates should parade through Oracle Park this month. Managerial searches can be valuable, if for no other reason than as a focus group of sorts, a chance to hear contrasting opinions and styles for how to operate an organization, and how it’s perceived from the outside, so it’s wise to cast a wide net.
Zaidi said he needs to “rethink everything.”
These folks have some ideas.
Some may still be coaching their current teams in the playoffs (Donnie Ecker? Joe Espada?), some may have managerial experience (Craig Counsell? Buck Showalter? Mark Kotsay?) and others, like Vogt, may not (Mark DeRosa? Rodney Linares?). They won’t include Padres manager Bob Melvin or Rangers bench coach Will Venable, two rumored candidates who both said they will remain with their current clubs. (Venable is viewed as the successor to Bruce Bochy, and Espada may be similarly difficult to pry away from Houston as the presumed next-in-line to Dusky Baker.)
How much should past experience matter?
Take this year’s postseason field, for example.
The ongoing ALCS showdown between Bruce Bochy and Dusty Baker is surely conjuring all sorts of emotions for Giants fans. Envy, regret, nostalgia chief among them. The two managers to precede Kapler in San Francisco were hired by their current clubs for the Hall-of-Fame résumés they have built over the past three decades. But every other postseason club? They went in different directions.
Ten of the 12 playoff teams were led by someone whom, at one point, they made a first-time manager, an even larger swath than the league-wide sample.
Across MLB, only eight teams this season — including Kapler’s Giants — were helmed by managers with previous experience. They won fewer of their games (.486 winning percentage) than teams run by first-time skippers (.505). But the latter group runs the gamut from Rob Thomson, a baseball lifer who found instant success with the Phillies after being given his first opportunity to manage at age 58, to his opposition in the NLCS, Torey Lovullo, finally seeing the dividends of a rebuild in his sixth season with the Diamondbacks, to the Kotsay (A’s), Matt Quatraro (Royals) and Pedro Grifol (White Sox), who all oversaw 100-loss clubs in their first seasons.
That group also includes David Ross, another recently retired catcher, widely respected by his peers, in the same mold as Vogt. Even Ross waited three years between retiring as a Cub and taking over as their manager. He’s four years in and still seeking his first playoff win. Between his playing and coaching career, Ross, 46, worked as a commentator for ESPN, the same role Aaron Boone held before the Yankees plucked him off the airwaves and made him their manager.
DeRosa, who managed Team USA in the World Baseball Classic, hosts a show on MLB Network. He also owns a World Series ring from the two seasons he played for the Giants (and the claim to one of 17 different Opening Day left fielders since Barry Bonds).
Boone has worked out all right for the Yankees, with back-to-back 100-win seasons in his first two years at the helm and five postseason appearances in six seasons. Success doesn’t always come so easily, though. Terry Francona seems destined for Cooperstown now, but his plaque will likely make little mention of his first managerial escapade (four losing seasons in Philadelphia). Then again, Alex Cora won it all with the Red Sox in 2018 when he had never managed before.
No matter which direction he goes, Zaidi was right about one thing.
“There’s no template,” he said.