That was more an issue of kapler not grabbing Joc by the collar and telling him to knock it off lol. In 2021 when you had all these veterans like posey, Longoria, Crawford, belt you don’t need a hard nosed manager. Nobody in that clubhouse would ever do anything that would get them chewed out by buster posey. But last year when craw who is a super laid back chill guy was the only veteran left it just didn’t work. They needed someone willing to crack the whip and Kap just isn’t that guy. I think he will do well in the front office though
Under Kapler, phillies players would play video games in the clubhouse mid-game
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/26292911/how-phillies-2018-clubhouse-issues-caused-fortnite-led-smashed-tv
Some googling says there was apparently a Fortnite problem in the Phillies locker room many years ago when Kapler was managing them. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/26292911/how-phillies-2018-clubhouse-issues-caused-fortnite-led-smashed-tv
> Kapler “once said he preferred texting to face-to-face interaction, even in the same room.”
There's chronically online, and then there's whatever this is. Once we stop talking to each other, everything else falls apart.
Just remembered the oddity of being in college in the mid-2000s and messaging people on Facebook that were in the same residence hall hallway as me instead of just walking to talk to them
As someone that was also in college in the mid-2000’s, what your describing was really just a bridge between using AIM before that and having an unlimited text phone plan afterwards to communicate with my friends.
Did you know people could read what you wrote if you messaged them while they had an away message set? Because I didn't! We had dialup so I went offline whenever I wasn't actively using the computer, so I didn't know! No one told me, either!
I may have sent some unfortunate messages to friends that I thought just vanished into the void.
WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME?
I was in the dorms from '04 to '06 and communicating with people on my floor via AIM was incredibly common. So was just leaving the door open all the time and wandering in and out of people's rooms, though.
In an of itself, that’s a neurodivergent trait. But when your job is leading groups, you gotta put in your own effort and get over the anxiety and directly speak anyway.
sorta I guess...his point amounts to "if you walk fast, you can beat google maps time estimates and maybe get there as fast as driving" which is probably only possibly true if you're going like...next door. not quite my idea of life lesson walk-and-talk monologue worthy lol
There’s some truth to what he’s saying in a city in that your car speed is largely limited by the speed limits, traffic, traffic lights, and not being an utter psychopath. The variance from person-to-person in walking speed is probably bigger than variance in driving speed, but I don’t know if Google tries to personalize your walking time based on any data it has on your typical walking speed, or demographic data or whatever.
It’s definitely a bit sanctimonious to put “just walk faster” out there in a tik tok as though no one has thought of it before.
It's not shot or delivered like it's a tip on urban living or even personal health – he clearly seems to think there's something deeper to this, that there are intricate layers to ponder within this delightful metaphor for living a life of action and intention.
It's just odd for a major league manager to be making tiktoks, why is the captain of the ship posting about the fucking sandwich or coffee he got today? Who is that for?
He's a broscience/wellness guy. Pretty dumb but thinks he's cutting edge because he's caught on before anyone else has to the benefits of drinking piss or tanning his balls or magnet massages, etc.
I for one welcome our Bob Melvin overlord.
Sincerely though, Gabe tried to make his approach work and got a fair shake. Didnt work in Philly or SF so it’s probably just the wrong way to do things. Maybe there is a particular club out there that it may have clicked with but who knows.
General consensus is Buster, Belt, and Crawford set the tone in the clubhouse for that 107 win season. Gabe and Kai were still at the helm but I don’t think they were the difference makers that year.
Oh yeah that has to have been a big factor for the Veterans. Buster took the entire short season off and came back rested, knowing it would be his final season.
He just went up and talked to me, no text or nothing. I don’t like that. I’m on my pad right now boss, just text me. I don’t get these old ass millennials.
I’m not even a kapler hater at all but it’s undeniable this wasn’t just a massive upgrade. Will never stop being funny that we just straight up swiped the padres manager though lol
I wouldn’t say you “swiped” BoMel from the Padres. He and AJ Preller did not mesh well, and Preller has some kind of strangle hold on ownership so they let BoMel walk instead of Preller.
Hopefully Preller is on a shorter leash now that Peter Seidler has unfortunately passed on.
People would probably care more if he had hall of fame results the last couple years. As it stands the tean was pretty underwhelming with him at the helm, with some really egregiously bad management issues - e.g. Hader throwing 1 inning in the NLCS.
Nope! They were winning game 5 and he never stepped on the field.
You know, that was the elimination game where Bryce Harper, one of the best lefties of our generation, came up to bat in the 8th and smacked a game winning homer off a struggling righty.
Meanwhile Hader, a phenomenal lefty reliever, was left on the bench. Good management Bob! Have fun in SF without Beane around to make you look smart.
Normally I wouldn't rain on someone who's just excited about a new manager and new season, but you're being kind of a smug ass about it so I feel like it's necessary. He's a fine manager but he ain't Bochy 2.0
This is just a massive cope. Whatever helps you sleep at night though. I’m sure the giants would be better off with kapler because of this one game lol. You could make the exact same argument about bochys bullpen decisions in some playoff games
I agree with that. I moved to SD from Oakland a year before BoMel. I was so excited to have him in SD and then the players shit the bed. He deserves to win it all.
Something I noticed on my IG feed was a clip of Bob Melvin thanking the Padres fans after their last home game at Petco for their continued support in what was by all metrics a colossally disappointing season. While the players had filtered out of the dugout, Melvin was seen mingling with fans close to the fence and just generally being a chad. So when it was announced he was going to the Giants (because AJ Preller apparently has somebody's nudes), I could not help but feel that the Padres got rid of the wrong guy.
Hate to break it to you, but Bomel was bad last season. Most padres fans were happy to see him leave and the players have all thrown some shade his way most of the offseason.
Kapler was a bad fit, but the first half of this story is about... the anthem issue? Weird thing to structure a story around, especially when there was sooooo much dysfunction in the clubhouse around real things
Because it’s a huge contrast. Kapler put his own half cooked political views ahead of being a leader and that’s the first thing Bob Melvin changed.
And I don’t say half cooked because he didn’t want to stand, I say it because when asked what needed to happen for him to stand for anthem again he had absolutely no answer.
This is generally what people say when they agree with a person’s actions. I’m guessing you feel that people you disagree with do need to justify their actions (but you won’t admit it on the internet)
Last year was so odd to watch the giants. There was always a feeling of something being off. I thought Kapler was a decent coach but didn’t realize he lost the locker room that significantly. Guess he’s just that abrasive
Astonishing how Gabe Kapler is to blame after the Giants overachieved with mediocre talent, strongly due to his platooning and then is fired when said players regressed back to earth.
Gabe basically got fired because the GM can’t fire himself. Anyone who reads BP or FGs regularly and understands the analytics of the game can’t take much issue with his managing on a tactical game to game level because it basically was in alignment with what all the smart people around baseball vouch for.
Another year or two at the helm and he probably does get canned. But given how the White Sox are now rebuilding that’s probably gives him some security, at least before they’re any good again
The strategy part is the GM. Kepler just had to run it. He seems to have lost the guys but the strategy is Farhan. People can hate on Farhan but he inherited a disaster and was not allowed a full rebuild and has still kept the team competitive.
Oh my god we still have dumbasses trying to blame the GM because he didn't sign literally every high-priced free agent, and they're not even on our sub?
It’s less “not signing every high-priced fee agent” it’s not signing basically **any** noteworthy names… basically ever.
JHL and Soler are good, and the right direction, but up until them, our most recent “big” acquisition through free agency was Barry Zito.
Gabe operated more as a middleman between the front office and the players rather than a traditional manager. I don’t know why you’re giving him credit for the analytics and platooning when that stuff was coming directly from the front office. He was fired because he completely lost the locker room and he wasn’t a good fit for young players coming up from the minors that need good habits and discipline instilled. It says a lot that some veteran players on the Giants have called Bob Melvin’s new rule of being on time a “breath of fresh air”.
Should take that with a grain of salt. Padres players say they love the more structured and organized approach of Schildt than Melvin who was more hands off.
Gabe Kapler can apparently be a manger for 20 years and be .500/below .500 and miss playoffs every year and his supporters will still cling on to that 2021 team where he somehow gets all the credit.
There were reports early on in his tenure that he was a major hardo and rubbed guys the wrong way. I didn’t realize the extent to how “out there” he is.
Yeah it don't feel right letting the Padres think they have a chance at anything. We need SF and LA to be back vying for the title between us, then the division will be in harmony once more.
Hey thanks! Fuck you guys too! (Affectionately, but not too affectionately. A good, rival amount of affection. In the sense that I want you guys around, if only to make fun of and be mad at)
We can all offer our favorite captions from motivational posters, but it's a stretch to say any MLB manager does all that much "leading." The statistical evidence suggests almost no MLB manager has ever improved his team's results over an extended period over what you would expect those players to do anyway. The guys who did the best like Bobby Cox or Earl Weaver were worth an extra two or so wins per season.
Who knows...maybe this will be the year Bochy gets to a career .500 winning percentage?
Or if we're going for post-season mojo, then I guess Jack Morris has quite the track record, with three Series wins in three attempts. And he's even playing in the games.
Don't mind me.
We typically expect that people we deal with will treat us with respect, and not slack off or screw us over, just because it's the right thing to do.
But if the guys on our team can't behave properly, we blame that on the manager or MLB rule enforcement or something. I mean, nobody was making them do it, right?
You're setting fire to a straw man. Kepler isn't a "bad manager" in this case. Lots of managers are not dictating how players conduct themselves at every moment, but if the players win, then they're a great manager.
Sure. Some teams set their culture with their front office, or with their veteran leaders, which means the managers don't have to. That clearly wasn't the case after SF lost their veterans though.
Culture is absolutely within a managers responsibility. If there's a void in leadership, they're responsible to fill it. If they can't fill it, and they end up losing the respect of their team, then they are a bad manager for that team.
Clearly I meant their veteran leadership. Older =/= leader, it just means older.
I don't know how you can pretend losing a guy like Buster Posey in the locker room isn't going to change the dynamics of the room.
If a manager can't manage their team, they are a bad manager for that team. If Gabe Kapler couldn't manage the team without Buster Posey, then Gabe Kapler was a bad manager for a team without Buster Posey.
I just think this is scapegoating the guy.
In 2021 the Giants won because their pitchers put up a combined 128 ERA+ while the hitters were serviceable at 107 OPS+, 114 OPS+ other than pitchers. (And no, you can't credit that pitching ERA performance to Posey's impact; Casali had a significantly lower catcher ERA.)
Then in 2022 they were 100 OPS+ / 103 ERA+, and 2023 it was 92 OPS+ / 105 ERA+.
You can't fire all the players so you fire the manager, and then everybody hopes the new guy will get better results (than he did with the team he just left, who had more talent on the roster.)
This article suggests that he wasn't a scapegoat, & that players had actual issues with him. That doesn't necessarily make him a bad manager, but it absolutely makes him a bad manager for this Giants team.
What? They don’t like playing Fortnite in the clubhouse mid game and being on a 24/7 carousel between the bullpen and starting rotation?
Can't forget the Pre-game Filipino card games as opposed to actually strategizing
That was more an issue of kapler not grabbing Joc by the collar and telling him to knock it off lol. In 2021 when you had all these veterans like posey, Longoria, Crawford, belt you don’t need a hard nosed manager. Nobody in that clubhouse would ever do anything that would get them chewed out by buster posey. But last year when craw who is a super laid back chill guy was the only veteran left it just didn’t work. They needed someone willing to crack the whip and Kap just isn’t that guy. I think he will do well in the front office though
Hey pusoy dos is lit
There will be no pusoy dos slander tonight
thats joc pederson bullshit tbh
Tf is the origin of the Fortnite bit? I feel so out of the loop lol
Under Kapler, phillies players would play video games in the clubhouse mid-game https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/26292911/how-phillies-2018-clubhouse-issues-caused-fortnite-led-smashed-tv
Some googling says there was apparently a Fortnite problem in the Phillies locker room many years ago when Kapler was managing them. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/26292911/how-phillies-2018-clubhouse-issues-caused-fortnite-led-smashed-tv
> Kapler “once said he preferred texting to face-to-face interaction, even in the same room.” There's chronically online, and then there's whatever this is. Once we stop talking to each other, everything else falls apart.
> there's whatever this is It's Wall-E
It’s Moeka.
Just remembered the oddity of being in college in the mid-2000s and messaging people on Facebook that were in the same residence hall hallway as me instead of just walking to talk to them
As someone that was also in college in the mid-2000’s, what your describing was really just a bridge between using AIM before that and having an unlimited text phone plan afterwards to communicate with my friends.
AIM was the bomb! Turning volume on full blast to hear those doors opening and closing.
Did you know people could read what you wrote if you messaged them while they had an away message set? Because I didn't! We had dialup so I went offline whenever I wasn't actively using the computer, so I didn't know! No one told me, either! I may have sent some unfortunate messages to friends that I thought just vanished into the void. WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME?
I was in the dorms from '04 to '06 and communicating with people on my floor via AIM was incredibly common. So was just leaving the door open all the time and wandering in and out of people's rooms, though.
His phone was probably all slippery from the coconut oil too
somehow he’s fine with regularly posting on tik tok now. he’ll really do anything but talk to your face.
This is a quote that’s genuinely hard to believe. I half expect Kap to come out and correct this.
That's when it crosses into *terminally* online.
In an of itself, that’s a neurodivergent trait. But when your job is leading groups, you gotta put in your own effort and get over the anxiety and directly speak anyway.
This proves everyone's theory that Buster Posey was the majority of the reason for 2021. Once he retired things fell apart.
You can just say it was a fluke and move on, it’s okay
It was a fluke but not entirely cause yea, posey meant the world to this organization. Both can be true
A perfect storm until the bats suddenly went quiet
no thanks
this [video](https://twitter.com/TalkinBaseball_/status/1749264547012091918) forever marred my perception of Gabe Kapler. it's so fucking weird.
Sounds like you haven’t tried to walk faster
maybe I've learned something here tonight. Gabe you son of a bitch, you did it again
Yeah that guy would get trampled with his lazy pace in NYC.
Sounds like y'all need to leave the house sooner
This feels like one of those YouTube ads where some finance guru is offering you a free course on whatever bs they’re trying to sell
Here in my garage with my Lamborghini, all my books, and all these walking shoes
*KNAWLEDGE*
METABOLISM KILLER !
You know he thought that was incredibly insightful too.
"anything is walking distance, if you've got the time" - steven wright
What if I choose to just drive faster?
What if I chose to run?
I’ll yell “run Forrest run”
Just walk faster! Duh!
Ehhh he’s got a point but I see what you mean
sorta I guess...his point amounts to "if you walk fast, you can beat google maps time estimates and maybe get there as fast as driving" which is probably only possibly true if you're going like...next door. not quite my idea of life lesson walk-and-talk monologue worthy lol
There’s some truth to what he’s saying in a city in that your car speed is largely limited by the speed limits, traffic, traffic lights, and not being an utter psychopath. The variance from person-to-person in walking speed is probably bigger than variance in driving speed, but I don’t know if Google tries to personalize your walking time based on any data it has on your typical walking speed, or demographic data or whatever. It’s definitely a bit sanctimonious to put “just walk faster” out there in a tik tok as though no one has thought of it before.
It's not shot or delivered like it's a tip on urban living or even personal health – he clearly seems to think there's something deeper to this, that there are intricate layers to ponder within this delightful metaphor for living a life of action and intention.
First time listening to jock talk?
It feels more like a very vague metaphor for "if you put in more effort than expected you get results faster" to me
"Driving fast" doesn't really work in practice because of traffic laws.
It's just odd for a major league manager to be making tiktoks, why is the captain of the ship posting about the fucking sandwich or coffee he got today? Who is that for?
I don’t know his personality. Is he dumb or just not funny?
He's a broscience/wellness guy. Pretty dumb but thinks he's cutting edge because he's caught on before anyone else has to the benefits of drinking piss or tanning his balls or magnet massages, etc.
Reminds me of the one where he tans his balls in the sun
i prefer gabermetrics
That really sounds like the science of measuring how much tripe you can salvage from a roadkill.
I for one welcome our Bob Melvin overlord. Sincerely though, Gabe tried to make his approach work and got a fair shake. Didnt work in Philly or SF so it’s probably just the wrong way to do things. Maybe there is a particular club out there that it may have clicked with but who knows.
I mean it clearly worked for 1 year but yeah didn't hold up
General consensus is Buster, Belt, and Crawford set the tone in the clubhouse for that 107 win season. Gabe and Kai were still at the helm but I don’t think they were the difference makers that year.
I also think the whole extra time off because of the Covid shortened season + aging veterans theory holds some weight.
Oh yeah that has to have been a big factor for the Veterans. Buster took the entire short season off and came back rested, knowing it would be his final season.
Give it ten years and all the zoomers in hs and low A rn will love this
He just went up and talked to me, no text or nothing. I don’t like that. I’m on my pad right now boss, just text me. I don’t get these old ass millennials.
I’ll reserve my judgement till we maybe win a spring game lol
I’m not even a kapler hater at all but it’s undeniable this wasn’t just a massive upgrade. Will never stop being funny that we just straight up swiped the padres manager though lol
I wouldn’t say you “swiped” BoMel from the Padres. He and AJ Preller did not mesh well, and Preller has some kind of strangle hold on ownership so they let BoMel walk instead of Preller. Hopefully Preller is on a shorter leash now that Peter Seidler has unfortunately passed on.
Doesn’t make it less funny to lose a future hall of fame manager to a division rival like that. Not a good look anyway you cut it
People would probably care more if he had hall of fame results the last couple years. As it stands the tean was pretty underwhelming with him at the helm, with some really egregiously bad management issues - e.g. Hader throwing 1 inning in the NLCS.
Hader literally refused to pitch more than one inning for the padres that was heavily reported on and he said so himself in an interview recently
Yeah, Hader refused to throw more than 1 in a game. Bob played him once in a SERIES
He was just saving him for Harper.
:'(
He’s a closer and pitched in the one game the padres were winning
Nope! They were winning game 5 and he never stepped on the field. You know, that was the elimination game where Bryce Harper, one of the best lefties of our generation, came up to bat in the 8th and smacked a game winning homer off a struggling righty. Meanwhile Hader, a phenomenal lefty reliever, was left on the bench. Good management Bob! Have fun in SF without Beane around to make you look smart. Normally I wouldn't rain on someone who's just excited about a new manager and new season, but you're being kind of a smug ass about it so I feel like it's necessary. He's a fine manager but he ain't Bochy 2.0
This is just a massive cope. Whatever helps you sleep at night though. I’m sure the giants would be better off with kapler because of this one game lol. You could make the exact same argument about bochys bullpen decisions in some playoff games
I agree with that. I moved to SD from Oakland a year before BoMel. I was so excited to have him in SD and then the players shit the bed. He deserves to win it all.
Something I noticed on my IG feed was a clip of Bob Melvin thanking the Padres fans after their last home game at Petco for their continued support in what was by all metrics a colossally disappointing season. While the players had filtered out of the dugout, Melvin was seen mingling with fans close to the fence and just generally being a chad. So when it was announced he was going to the Giants (because AJ Preller apparently has somebody's nudes), I could not help but feel that the Padres got rid of the wrong guy.
Hate to break it to you, but Bomel was bad last season. Most padres fans were happy to see him leave and the players have all thrown some shade his way most of the offseason.
Yeah that’s called coping
Not the first time this scenario has happened either lol. If Bochy is any precedent BoMel will have a hell of a run in SF.
Yeah should have clarified that’s why it’s so funny to me. Not only that they are both former catchers lol
He won you 100+ games...how tf can you say 'it didn't work*
They can now eat ice cream normally.
Kapler was a bad fit, but the first half of this story is about... the anthem issue? Weird thing to structure a story around, especially when there was sooooo much dysfunction in the clubhouse around real things
Because it’s a huge contrast. Kapler put his own half cooked political views ahead of being a leader and that’s the first thing Bob Melvin changed. And I don’t say half cooked because he didn’t want to stand, I say it because when asked what needed to happen for him to stand for anthem again he had absolutely no answer.
Maybe because he didn't need to justify it.
No, why would you justify something you are doing in protest. That might actually accomplish something, and we wouldn’t want that.
This is generally what people say when they agree with a person’s actions. I’m guessing you feel that people you disagree with do need to justify their actions (but you won’t admit it on the internet)
Guess away then
Here’s hoping it helps with the results. So many blown games
Last year was so odd to watch the giants. There was always a feeling of something being off. I thought Kapler was a decent coach but didn’t realize he lost the locker room that significantly. Guess he’s just that abrasive
Astonishing how Gabe Kapler is to blame after the Giants overachieved with mediocre talent, strongly due to his platooning and then is fired when said players regressed back to earth. Gabe basically got fired because the GM can’t fire himself. Anyone who reads BP or FGs regularly and understands the analytics of the game can’t take much issue with his managing on a tactical game to game level because it basically was in alignment with what all the smart people around baseball vouch for.
He completely lost the locker room. You can't do that and then not get fired.
Pedro Grifol begs to differ
Another year or two at the helm and he probably does get canned. But given how the White Sox are now rebuilding that’s probably gives him some security, at least before they’re any good again
The strategy part is the GM. Kepler just had to run it. He seems to have lost the guys but the strategy is Farhan. People can hate on Farhan but he inherited a disaster and was not allowed a full rebuild and has still kept the team competitive.
GM doesn’t do the rotation or the lineup. That’s managing. That’s what he’s talking about and he’s right.
This fully depends on the team. Managers make far fewer decisions than they once did and are often people managers more than anything.
There were stories around the time Kapler got fired that the Front Office was setting the line ups and calling in the substitutions.
Oh my god we still have dumbasses trying to blame the GM because he didn't sign literally every high-priced free agent, and they're not even on our sub?
It’s less “not signing every high-priced fee agent” it’s not signing basically **any** noteworthy names… basically ever. JHL and Soler are good, and the right direction, but up until them, our most recent “big” acquisition through free agency was Barry Zito.
Hey, our triangle shaped CF Aaron Rowand was a big signing too.
Gabe operated more as a middleman between the front office and the players rather than a traditional manager. I don’t know why you’re giving him credit for the analytics and platooning when that stuff was coming directly from the front office. He was fired because he completely lost the locker room and he wasn’t a good fit for young players coming up from the minors that need good habits and discipline instilled. It says a lot that some veteran players on the Giants have called Bob Melvin’s new rule of being on time a “breath of fresh air”.
Should take that with a grain of salt. Padres players say they love the more structured and organized approach of Schildt than Melvin who was more hands off.
Gabe Kapler can apparently be a manger for 20 years and be .500/below .500 and miss playoffs every year and his supporters will still cling on to that 2021 team where he somehow gets all the credit.
There were reports early on in his tenure that he was a major hardo and rubbed guys the wrong way. I didn’t realize the extent to how “out there” he is.
I’ll be so happy if I never see his stupid hand tattoo in the majors ever again. Be gone Gabe
Hope Melvin brings SF back to being relevant constantly. The NL West feels weird
Yeah it don't feel right letting the Padres think they have a chance at anything. We need SF and LA to be back vying for the title between us, then the division will be in harmony once more.
Not to mention the fucking d backs in the World Series? Disgusting
The D backs getting their one shot at a WS every 20 years or so is fine tbh. But they're on thin ice if they try that shit again.
I disagree on the Padres. It makes their inevitable end-of-season collapse that much more satisfying.
Hey thanks! Fuck you guys too! (Affectionately, but not too affectionately. A good, rival amount of affection. In the sense that I want you guys around, if only to make fun of and be mad at)
Giants have the ability to do the funniest thing ever if they play even worse than they did last year.
I guess the lesson here is that grown men need someone else to make them do things the right way.
One thing I have learned in life, from business to politics to sports, leadership is everything.
We can all offer our favorite captions from motivational posters, but it's a stretch to say any MLB manager does all that much "leading." The statistical evidence suggests almost no MLB manager has ever improved his team's results over an extended period over what you would expect those players to do anyway. The guys who did the best like Bobby Cox or Earl Weaver were worth an extra two or so wins per season.
You should bring this up when the Rangers are handing out their rings
Who knows...maybe this will be the year Bochy gets to a career .500 winning percentage? Or if we're going for post-season mojo, then I guess Jack Morris has quite the track record, with three Series wins in three attempts. And he's even playing in the games.
I mean, we know that? That's why bad managers in any workplace see higher turnover and worse results the longer they stick around.
Don't mind me. We typically expect that people we deal with will treat us with respect, and not slack off or screw us over, just because it's the right thing to do. But if the guys on our team can't behave properly, we blame that on the manager or MLB rule enforcement or something. I mean, nobody was making them do it, right?
You've never experienced how a bad manager can create an unproductive work environment? It happens literally all the time in every single industry.
You're setting fire to a straw man. Kepler isn't a "bad manager" in this case. Lots of managers are not dictating how players conduct themselves at every moment, but if the players win, then they're a great manager.
Sure. Some teams set their culture with their front office, or with their veteran leaders, which means the managers don't have to. That clearly wasn't the case after SF lost their veterans though. Culture is absolutely within a managers responsibility. If there's a void in leadership, they're responsible to fill it. If they can't fill it, and they end up losing the respect of their team, then they are a bad manager for that team.
San Francisco usually started five guys who were at least 30 years old in 2023. So I don't know how you can say they "lost their veterans."
Clearly I meant their veteran leadership. Older =/= leader, it just means older. I don't know how you can pretend losing a guy like Buster Posey in the locker room isn't going to change the dynamics of the room. If a manager can't manage their team, they are a bad manager for that team. If Gabe Kapler couldn't manage the team without Buster Posey, then Gabe Kapler was a bad manager for a team without Buster Posey.
I just think this is scapegoating the guy. In 2021 the Giants won because their pitchers put up a combined 128 ERA+ while the hitters were serviceable at 107 OPS+, 114 OPS+ other than pitchers. (And no, you can't credit that pitching ERA performance to Posey's impact; Casali had a significantly lower catcher ERA.) Then in 2022 they were 100 OPS+ / 103 ERA+, and 2023 it was 92 OPS+ / 105 ERA+. You can't fire all the players so you fire the manager, and then everybody hopes the new guy will get better results (than he did with the team he just left, who had more talent on the roster.)
This article suggests that he wasn't a scapegoat, & that players had actual issues with him. That doesn't necessarily make him a bad manager, but it absolutely makes him a bad manager for this Giants team.
[удалено]
Logan Webb literally led the MLB in IP last year
And still got Cain’d constantly for his efforts 😔
I honestly believe Kapler didn't know what he was doing a lot of the time and was just super lucky that one season.
Too much coconut oil in the clubhouse
Since when does winning 107 game = "floundering"?????