Zaidi clarifies Giants lineup controversy with Melvin after firing originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Farhan Zaidi understands the criticism of his six-year tenure as the Giants’ president of baseball operations.
He was released after another underwhelming 2024 MLB season and spoke publicly with Shayna Rubin of the San Francisco Chronicle for the first time since his departure.
“An autopsy is never pretty, and it’s not productive for me to respond to all the stories that are out there,” Zaidi said in a phone interview with Rubin. “I will say that during my time with the organization, I was fully committed to the job and did it without ulterior motives or agendas. I always tried to treat people with respect and be a good ambassador for the Giants community.”
“Plus, people are passionate about the Giants and professional sports, and there’s always going to be debate about those things. And that’s the nature of the animal.”
One of the hot topics that came up after Zaidi’s departure was San Francisco’s lineup, which became increasingly controversial after Giants icon Will Clark, who serves as a special assistant with the team, talked about it on a recent podcast.
Clark claimed that Zaidi made up the team and “had a hand in everything”.
“[Manager] Bob Melvin would want this guy in the lineup, that guy in the lineup, and Farhan would trump him,” Clark said on the podcast. “You set yourself up because that’s Melvin’s job.
However, Zaidi clarified to Rubin how the lineups were decided.
“I realize there’s a lot of lingering frustration from what was a disappointing season,” Zaidi told Rubin. “I mean, in my 20 years in baseball, this last year was probably the most disappointing season because of the expectations we had going into this year with the layoff we had and how it turned out.
“But one thing that’s always been important to me throughout my time in baseball, and certainly during my six years with the Giants, is strong collaboration between different parts of the organization. Whether it’s between player development and the front office or the clubhouse. coaching staff, manager and front office, I certainly believe that was the case last year as well.”
Melvin also spoke with Rubin and acknowledged that Zaidi was “passionate” about the lineup, but the dynamic of the partnership was unlike anything he’d encountered before in his baseball career.
Zaidi and Melvin, whose relationship dates back long before they joined the Giants, said they both had a say in the lineup creation process — something that was important to both of them.
“I have a long-term relationship with Bob. I think we understand each other really well,” Zaidi told Rubin. “Given the circumstances of when and how he was hired, it was really important that our relationship work well. So I saw his feedback very regularly throughout the season on whether the front office dynamic was working with him and the coaching staff.
“Based on the feedback I got from him, I’m confident it worked well. We certainly talked about the lineup and game strategy the way the most effective front office/manager partnerships do. There was always an exchange of ideas that if one of us I felt strongly about something or something because of our history, there was a lot of respect for that, but ultimately I felt that as a manager it was his job to have the final say in the line-ups.”
After one year of his contract, the Giants parted ways with Zaidi and hired the great Buster Posey as his replacement.
Melvin also expects to work with Posey and new general manager Zack Minasian on the 2025 lineup. Posey even said that he and Melvin have already discussed it and agreed to have a dialog around the lineup, but Melvin will have the final say.
“Bob’s been doing this for 30 years,” Posey told KNBR during an interview last week. “Bob and I have already talked about it. He wants to have a dialogue about it. But in the end he was in the dugout and [is] read his players better than I can when I’m not around them all the time.
“We’re going to use analytics. I talked to BoMel about it, ‘How do we want it to go? Let the projections spit out what it should be, look at it and then write the lineup. Or do you write the lineup and then look at the projections?’ In the end, I’ll leave it up to him. I want my manager to build the lineup, using his years and years of experience.”
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