SAN DIEGO — The Giants formed a handshake line on the infield at Petco Park following their 8-1 victory Wednesday afternoon. There were additional handshakes and hugs in the clubhouse after players showered, dressed and prepared to scatter for the winter. Every season is a bonding experience and team photos are like snowflakes. Even for those players who are assured to have a locker in Scottsdale next spring, they know they will not return to the same group. The physical breaking of those bonds, even when goals were unrealized, can be a time of bittersweet reflection.
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This group of players became the first team in Giants history to finish 81-81, which doesn’t qualify as an achievement unless you give them credit for this: no team in 97 years had gotten to .500 when they were eight games under with 16 to go. The Giants had quite the finishing kick while winning 12 of their last 16, and while there was plenty of dissent within the clubhouse this season, their effort in Wednesday’s finale — another clean bullpen game and a two-homer afternoon from rookie David Villar — did not indicate a team that had tumbled into dissension.
The Giants also became just the fifth team in major league history, and the first since the 2012 Phillies, to fail to post a winning record in a full season one year after winning 100-plus games. That’s not the kind of distinction they envisioned when the 99-day lockout ended in mid-March. Reaching .500 on the final day of the season was merely making the best of an unsavory situation.
But for all the badly struck notes, Giants manager Gabe Kapler does not take this coda for granted. He and his coaching staff approached this season with the same active management style and attention to detail as they did in last year’s 107-win season. For a host of reasons — health and bullpen regression among the most prominent — the results weren’t nearly the same.
But if last year served as proof of concept, what should Kapler and his staff take away from this season? In what ways do their philosophies need to change and in what ways do they need to stay the course?
A few hours prior to Wednesday’s finale, Kapler sat down with The Athletic to reflect on the big picture and his place in it.
So much of your job is to evaluate performance. What’s your self-evaluation for the job you did this season?
One of the areas where I may have missed the mark and where I’d be critical of myself is I don’t think our players came into camp at their best in some cases, and I take responsibility for that. I don’t think we can ever be fully responsible for what players do in the offseason, but I feel that’s an area we can improve so that’s an area where I’ll be self-critical. You’ve heard me talk about how important this upcoming offseason is.
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Is that criticism warranted when the 99-day lockout last winter prevented any contact with players?
My job is to be creative and to be out in front of things. It’s an area where we may not have been as competitive as we need to be. The offseason isn’t on camera, right? But you’re still competing. It’s something I’m still sorting through, but maybe other coaching staffs were just better in the offseason between 2021 and ’22.
This is your fifth season as a major league manager. You’ve made one playoff appearance. In the other four years combined, you’ve managed a total of just 17 games when your team was eliminated. What have you learned from those four seasons when a handful of wins would have made the difference between .500 and the playoffs?
That’s so big and broad. I know you want me to go wherever my mind goes, but every one of those years feel wildly different. From coaching staffs to personnel to my own personal development, they don’t feel similar in any way. But we’ve talked in spring training about winning each moment, right? I’ll be more critical in general of myself because I feel like there were moments I wasn’t able to win. There are day-to-day conversations that I can be more patient in, more empathetic in, or be more direct in raising the bar a tiny bit more. There’s also a delicate balance between offering support and raising the bar. If you’re raising the bar too much, challenging too much, pushing too much, you’re likely making people walk around feeling uncomfortable. And if you’re providing too much positive support at every turn, it can come off as condescending at times. One area I think I can be better is in my conversations with (Giants president) Farhan (Zaidi), being a better listener and teammate. I can always be a better listener.
Seems to me that it’s often a struggle to find that balance on an organizational level. How many times has a team hired a firebrand to replace someone who is viewed as too player-friendly or permissive?
Which hasn’t really happened here, right?
That’s true. Dusty Baker, Felipe Alou and Bruce Bochy all had different styles but you wouldn’t call any of them a firebrand.
That’s not a thing for me, generally speaking. I feel I’m pretty positive with our players and staff. Sometimes I could be more vocal on their behalf.
With umpires? Your views on this are pretty clear.
I feel strongly it’s not productive. Arguing with an umpire is never going to help, in my opinion. If you make someone feel defensive, they are less likely in my opinion for the next borderline call to go your way. But there are times when I have to bring intensity to that moment. Maybe I can do that a little more. Maybe I can bring it up in my exit interviews and ask where guys stand on that.
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A great Tim Flannery quote kept coming up for me this season: “There are two people in this game: those who are humbled and those who are about to be.” What part of this season was most humbling for you?
Personally, I’ve been humbled by baseball, like, at every possible turn from the time I was 5 years old. I got my ass kicked a lot of times as a player. No matter what I’ve done in baseball, I’ve always felt humbled by the game. What are the moments from this year? It’s interesting. We got off to such a good start, but I never felt we were in the best position. I don’t think we played that good in April. We just had a good record. I mean, I always feel the other team is good and we’re going to be challenged in every single game. This was true last year, too. I don’t ever go into a game, a series, a season, feeling overconfident. You have to have a really f—ing good roster to do that. And I’m not saying anything about our roster. I’m just saying you have to be really good to have that confidence, because baseball is such a weird game.
You used 152 lineups in 162 games. Brandon Crawford was your only player who made 100 starts at a specific position. Then again, during all the wild success last year, Crawford and Buster Posey were the only players who made 100 starts at a position. And you used 136 lineups. Continuity seemed to be an issue this season yet it wasn’t last season. How do you view that?
Why would that be? Why would it be seen as a strength last year and a detriment this year? What are the reasons for that? The way I would study that is to look at the best teams in baseball and figure out how much change they’ve had over the last couple years. I think it’s nice when you have a lineup that you can run out there every single day. But openly and honestly, I love the challenge of putting the puzzle pieces together, especially on the position player side. There are a lot of ways to skin a cat but I really like our platoon system and I really appreciate, like, just rolling out a ton of lefties against a righty at the end of a game. It’s fun.
So will you always have an active management style regardless of personnel?
Yeah, but look, that’s how our roster is built. It’s a joint effort. I have to enjoy working with mix-and-match types of rosters because that’s what we have here and that’s what we’re going to have here.
Are you saying the Giants will continue with a heavily matchup-based philosophy for the foreseeable future?
Well, you stabilize with some everyday players. But we will always be a team to some degree or another that is mixing and matching with platoons.
Is that because you view last season as proof of concept?
Not necessarily. I know we can make it work. I feel very confident about that. But I think last year was unique in a lot of ways. I wouldn’t say, “That’s the model. Let’s go try to replicate 2021.” Because every season is different. To use a food analogy, the smallest change to the spice changes the whole flavor profile.
What about fans who are salivating for more everyday players?
I think it’s something we’re working on. I don’t want to go back and say, “Hey, we did it in ’21 and it worked, right?” Guys had career years and we’ve talked about that. But I think there’s a lot of value in not trying to tear down a system but to add pieces that complement the system. I don’t mean tiny little marginal pieces all the time. We are very active in making strong, impactful changes that change some of the structure and some of the foundation and core ingredients — but also still seeking out the marginal roster advantages.
That sounds like the Dodgers model.
I don’t want us to try to replicate ’21 and I don’t want us to try to be the Dodgers. Just, like, be a really good version of the San Francisco Giants. That will be plenty. We have plenty of intellectual firepower. We have plenty of financial power. We have the ingredients we need to build a perennial winner and World Series contender.
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How much tougher was it to get buy-in to your active management style when the team wasn’t winning consistently?
Our guys were still pretty good this year. I’m still confident about that. I don’t feel like we had a lot of really unhappy dudes in that way. Not to say that I see everything.
Zack Littell had some words for Gabe Kapler as he was leaving the mound and the two went down the tunnel to talk about it 👀 pic.twitter.com/SaaBjLP7zt
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) September 13, 2022
There was the incident with Zack Littell during the pitching change last month. There was Carlos Rodón kicking a bat in the dugout.
The Littell one was a little more visible. The other moments of frustration happen in every clubhouse in every season with every team. I will say this: bullpen management is different because when things are going well, everybody is comfortable and everybody’s put in a position to succeed. When things are not going as well, that’s when you’ll have bullpen guys who are, like, “I’m not pitching enough,” or “I’m pitching too much,” or “I want to be pitching in this other spot.” I think we had more of that this year. And that’s an area where we are always trying to improve our communication. We really want to build resilient, flexible baseball players here. What that looks like is a guy who’s comfortable hitting in the 1 (spot), the 3, the 5 and the 7. Because it’s not just about how we start that day. We’re also strategizing against bullpen management on the other side to get as many matchups as we can. So you’re not a 3-hole hitter. You’re a baseball player who can hit anywhere in the lineup. You are not a second baseman. You can play second, center field, etc. If you’re a reliever who doesn’t want to open games, you are less valuable to us. And you’re less valuable in the industry. If you’re a starter who can’t come in behind an opener, you’re less valuable in the industry. Now, if you’re a starter who can start and go seven innings regularly over the course of a season, you’re extremely valuable. But if you can do that and have someone open for you, you’re the most valuable.
Don’t more players understand how the industry values them differently now?
Oh my gosh. This is the biggest transition that we need to make in the game. It’s, “If you let us protect you, if you allow us to put you in these positions, your numbers will be better. You will make more money. You will be more attractive to the industry.”
There’s another group you have to convince: the paying customers who might not like the aesthetics of openers, heavy platooning, etc.
That I am sensitive to. I certainly wouldn’t say that’s not a thing. That matters. If that makes the game less exciting, I think that’s an interesting conversation to have.
So what would you say to fans who are sick of platoons?
I would ask the question: When that platoon was LaMonte Wade Jr. and Darin Ruf at their best, was that satisfactory? And the flip side of that is, the same people who would say, “I don’t want to see more platoons” when the platoons don’t look very good are going to say, “I don’t want to see more of that everyday player” when that everyday player doesn’t look very good.
For someone who must build consensus, did your stance on the National Anthem make your job harder this season?
Probably. My main stance was I’m unhappy that we’re not doing a better job with gun control and gun safety. Wrote about it, talked about it publicly, still believe all those things. I understand that sometimes a strong statement like that doesn’t build consensus. I don’t have any issue with our players speaking up about the things they care about. Did everybody think the position I took was the one they would have taken? Of course not. But I don’t think it impacted my ability to do my job at all. And I will continue to keep my door wide open for players, staff, anybody else to talk to me about really important issues. I think it’s critical that while we stay almost solely focused around baseball, there’s room for conversations around things that are really important in the world too.
Some of your coaches are on expiring contracts. Do you expect everyone to be invited back?
At this point, my strong lean is to have everybody back. There’s some time for evaluation here, but that’s my strong lean right now.
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Any other takeaways from an 81-81 season?
I’m very much looking forward to getting ready for ’23. This is what happens at the end of the season. As a player, I remember it like it was yesterday. When you’re inching toward the end of a season that didn’t go very well, it was, “I can’t wait to get to the offseason because I’m gonna f—ing grind.” I’m getting after it this offseason. And I think that’s where I am now. I really can’t wait to work towards ’23. It’s going to include a s— ton of work but I’m really excited for it.
(Photo: Orlando Ramirez / USA Today)
