Giants to replace general manager as part of front-office changes

The Giants held a press conference Tuesday to allow new new president of baseball operations Buster Posey to address the media. During that session, Posey announced that general manager Pete Putila will be given a new role and the franchise will be hiring a new GM. Maria I. Guardado of MLB.com was among those to relay the news on X. Chairman Greg Johnson reported at the conference that Posey will retain his seat on the club’s ownership board and has a three-year contract to serve as the POBO (X
links from Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic).

Putila was hired as the club’s general manager going into the 2023 season, working under then-president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi. He got that gig on the heels of a long run with the Astros. He started with Houston as an intern in 2011, eventually moving up to director of player development and then assistant general manager before jumping to the Giants.

It’s difficult to assign blame and/or credit to someone in Putila’s shoes, who had a notable position on the Giants’ decision-making pyramid for the past two years, but on a staff that involved input from dozens of people. Regardless, it’s not terribly surprising that Posey is looking to find his own lieutenant, as opposed to just inheriting one from the previous regime.

Posey is coming into his gig in fairly unusual circumstances. Many of the people who lead baseball operations departments work their way up the ladder through scouting or analytics channels, gradually getting promotions and moving to more important positions. Posey took a different route, as he was on the field as a player as recently as 2021. Less than a year after announcing his retirement in November of 2021, it was announced in September of 2022 that Posey was joining the club’s ownership board.

At that time, Posey said that he wasn’t “taking on any type of front office role” and that it would be more of a “hey, let me know where I can help and I’ll help there” approach with his new position. It seems that his role and influence have grown in the past two years. It was reported a couple of weeks back that Posey took a leading role in the Matt Chapman extension negotiations, and now he has been given the POBO role with a three-year contract.

Though the club clearly has lots of faith in Posey, and he surely has confidence in his own abilities to handle this role, it’s possible that his second-in-command could play a notable role in helping him deal with any parts of the job that he hasn’t fully tackled yet. As such, he probably wants to pick someone that he feels best suits that particular requirement or simply someone that he has a good working relationship with.

For Putila, it seems like he will remain with the club for now but in a changed role of some kind. Prior to joining the Giants, he had interest from other front offices. He was a candidate for Pittsburgh’s general manager vacancy that eventually went to Ben Cherington, for instance. If he has interest for other such vacancies going forward, there would be little standing in the way of him pursuing those now. Clubs generally allow their employees to interview for positions with other teams as long as a promotion is involved, so Putila shouldn’t have any obstacles if another club views him as a possible future GM or POBO.