SF Giants announcer felt like players 'checked out' late in season
Long time SF Giants announcer Dave Flemming believes former manager Gabe Kapler's firing was the front office's "more drastic" answer to an incredibly disappointing end to the 2023 season. He joined the latest episode of The TK Show with Tim Kawakami to talk off-season happenings, saying "I think this [managerial] change would not have happened if the last month hadn't been so disappointing."
"It wasn't just losing those games, it was the way they lost them... I know how hard those players work day to day, but it had the feeling of a group that had kinda checked out. And that's... a bad look," Flemming said. "I think that just triggered the need to do something a little bit more dramatic than 'Hey we're gonna maybe think about a coaching change.'"
Flemming noted that he personally was sad how it happened, as Kapler was good to him and good to work with, and that as a manager, he "tried his tail off." But Flemming also suggested Kapler's dedication could have created an atmosphere in the clubhouse that ended up costing him his job.
"That coaching staff worked harder than any I've ever been around, and maybe sometimes to their detriment. In a weird way, that might have been a negative in the end, just, the sort of, the tone that was set in the clubhouse maybe needed to be a little different."
Bob Melvin, who will succeed Kapler, has replaced much of that coaching staff with his own from prior roles. Despite that overhaul, he's not unfamiliar with President of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, who was the assistant general manager of the Athletics for the first four years of Melvin's tenure there as manager. For that reason among others, Flemming noted the Giants "can't get a better fit than Bob Melvin."
Flemming shared that he believes Kapler and Zaidi will remain on good terms. Flemming believes Melvin will have a different perspective on the game than Zaidi, and to approach roster building differently as well.
"Farhan [Zaidi] said one thing [about Melvin] that I thought was really interesting...it was almost along the lines of '[There] may be a little more creative tension between the manager's office and the front office,'" Flemming said. "I think in a weird way there was too much synchronicity between Gabe [Kapler] and Farhan [Zaidi], they saw the game so similarly... But I do think it can be healthy if the manager and the president...have some disagreements on how to run the roster and the team."
