More like Nick Fun-ley!
Wait, is it more like that? I can't even tell anymore, what with AI and blockchain and whatnot
Tuesday, Andrew Baggarly reported that Nick Hundley was the frontrunner for the vacant Giants manager position. Hundley was the Giants’ backup catcher in 2017 and 2018, and made himself extremely well respected in the clubhouse, especially to the starting catcher at the time, Buster Posey. Now that it’s Posey’s responsibility to hire a manager, where’s he looking? Right at Hundley.
Does Hundley have experience coaching or managing? Why are you even bringing that up? How dare you? Managers don’t need experience managing today. We’re not in the modern era of baseball anymore; this is the postmodern era. People used to think a bunch of things mattered, and now we know that they don’t matter, and the things that seem to matter today also don’t matter but in a different, more important way. The only thing that actually matters is increasing the value of your franchise in order to secure more favorable loans for real estate deals, because that’s the only way your team’s ownership group can make enough money to both field a competitive roster and also not look like poor suckers in front of their rich friends.
Anyway! Nick Hundley!
Since almost the first day Hundley was around in 2017, everyone in the Giants organization has viewed him as future manager material. They didn’t know it would be in San Francisco, of course, but his preparation, understanding of the game, and clubhouse presence all combined to make people think, “Yeah, he’s the whole package.” That certainly wasn’t lost on Buster Posey, for example, who had wanted him back in 2019, though the team went a different way.
But now, Posey’s in charge, and according to every source, Hundley’s the guy he wants in the dugout. He wants Hundley’s focus and drive; he wants Hundley’s leadership and ability to relate to players; he wants Hundley’s will to win and competitive spirit. He wants someone who he feels he can work well with, and there’s enough history to know that Hundley certainly fits the bill there. Presumably he wants a close working relationship like the one Brian Sabean had with Bruce Bochy, where two people with similar philosophies can propel each other to greater heights.
Buster Posey also keeps hiring his friends though?
I don’t want to make this seem like a situation where Hundley is too much of an institutional Giants man to bring any change to the organization. Hundley was only with the team for two seasons as a player, out of the 12 he played. Since retiring, he’s worked for the MLB office, and then as a special assistant to Chris Young with the Rangers. Unlike, say, Zack Minasian and Randy Winn, he doesn’t have an overly Giants-centric view of baseball, and anytime you can add diversity of experience to an organization, that’s a good thing.
But doesn’t it seem unlikely that the best man for every job is Someone Buster Posey Knows And Likes? His special assistants are all Giants people, and his top front office brass are all Giants people, and now he’s going to hire his friend as manager. It’s not that Nick Hundley is a bad choice, it’s that he’s a comfortable choice. This is an organization that has felt complacent for too long, peripatetic Farhan Zaidi moves on the fringes of the 40-man roster aside, and now it’s an organization that seems satisfied with The Guy I Already Know.
At some point, you need to shake things up. For all of the issues I had with Farhan’s time in charge of the team, his two GMs — Scott Harris and Pete Putila — were both highly respected hires from other organizations, who brought new ideas and new energy to San Francisco.
Where is that energy now? It doesn’t necessarily have to be the GM, but someone has to challenge the group’s consensus. Someone has to bring in the perspective from outside, to say, “They did this smart thing in my last organization. Can we do something like that here?” A manager can do that, and maybe Hundley will, but is that the culture of the organization? Or is it, “We know what we’re doing and we want everyone to point towards that?”
Again, this doesn’t necessarily reflect poorly on Nick Hundley. But as a symbol of the Giants’ priorities and Buster Posey’s priorities, it seems worrying. Hundley might be a great manager. He might even turn the job down! I don’t want to speculate on his abilities or priorities in a new job he’s never had before, and if everyone says he has the skills and mindset for it, great, let’s see. It worked for Stephen Vogt!
The issue is this: Everything the Giants are doing is The Same. The Same, The Same, The Same, and everyone can see that they need to be Different. There’s a huge gap between them and the Padres and Dodgers, and you don’t close a huge gap by staying the course. But Posey believes in the course. It’s a great course to him. I don’t know that any manager would be able to change that by himself, but if that guy does exist, it seems unlikely that it’s Nick Hundley.