Farhan Zaidi fired by Giants; Buster Posey named president of baseball ops

After six underwhelming seasons, the Giants have decided to move on from president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi. Franchise legend and part-owner Buster Posey has been named the club’s new president of baseball operations, with Bob Melvin also expected to stay on as manager.

The Giants announced that Zaidi has been dismissed with a guaranteed year left on his contract after falling short of the playoffs for the third consecutive year. San Francisco finished fourth in the National League West with an 80-82 record in 2024 and went 453-417 overall in the Zaidi era (2019-24), which yielded only one winning season and one playoff appearance, both of which came during the club’s franchise-record 107-win campaign in 2021.

“We have made the decision to part ways with Farhan Zaidi,” Giants chairman Greg Johnson said in a statement on Monday. “We appreciate Farhan’s commitment to the organization and his passion for making an impact in our community during his six years with the Giants. Ultimately, the results have not been what we had hoped, and while that responsibility is shared by all of us, we have decided that a change is necessary. While these decisions are not easy, we believe it is time for new leadership to elevate our team so we can consistently contend for championships. I wish Farhan and his family nothing but the best moving forward.”

Johnson, Posey and Melvin are expected to discuss the new direction of the Giants during a 10 a.m. press conference on Tuesday at Oracle Park.

It marked the second straight year in which the Giants have made a significant leadership change, as they also dismissed manager Gabe Kapler following the club’s September collapse in 2023.

The Giants entered this season with higher expectations after bringing in Bob Melvin to serve as their new skipper and committing over $320 million to six free agents — Jung Hoo Lee, Blake Snell, Matt Chapman, Jorge Soler, Jordan Hicks and Tom Murphy — and taking on an additional $74 million by acquiring Robbie Ray from the Mariners. The additions cost two Draft picks and pushed the Giants’ payroll over the luxury-tax threshold for the first time since 2017, but it wasn’t enough to keep the club in contention this year.

Lee, a former KBO star who landed a six-year, $113 million deal last December, suffered a season-ending left shoulder injury in May, leaving the Giants without their dynamic center fielder and projected leadoff hitter. Snell, the reigning National League Cy Young winner, didn’t sign until mid-March and initially struggled to overcome his shortened spring, landing on the injured list twice with a left groin strain and recording a 9.51 ERA over his first six starts of the year.

Hicks, a converted reliever, helped keep the Giants’ rotation afloat by recording a 2.33 ERA over his first 11 starts, but he wore down as the innings began to pile up and ended up shifting back to the bullpen in late July. Soler recorded a .749 OPS with 12 homers over 93 games, but he failed to consistently drive in runs and ended up being dealt back to the Braves midway through the first year of his three-year, $42 million contract.

The most successful acquisition proved to be Chapman, who earned a six-year, $151 million contract extension in September after leading the Giants with 27 homers and a 7.2 bWAR — the second-highest mark in the National League behind Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani — in his first year in San Francisco.

Chapman’s extension seemed to suggest the Giants still trusted Zaidi to negotiate the second-richest deal in franchise history, though Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic later reported that the deal was ownership-driven and got over the finish line with Posey’s help.

Zaidi was tasked with turning the Giants into perennial contenders when he was tapped to replace Bobby Evans in November 2018. By hiring him away from the Dodgers, the Giants hoped to close the gap with their archrivals in the NL West and return to the prominence they enjoyed in the 2010s, when Posey led them to three World Series titles in five seasons.

While Zaidi excelled at finding value on the margins, unearthing key pickups like Mike Yastrzemski, LaMonte Wade Jr., Thairo Estrada and Darin Ruf and hitting on bounce-back candidates like Kevin Gausman, Carlos Rodón and Alex Cobb, his rosters featured a glaring lack of star power following the Giants’ failed free-agent pursuits of Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge and Ohtani.

The empty courtships often forced Zaidi to pivot to Plan B, resulting in regrettable contracts for free agents like Tommy La Stella, Mitch Haniger, Anthony DeSclafani, Murphy and Soler. His analytical approach — which was exemplified by Kapler’s frequent use of platoons and openers — also irked fans, who longed for more lineup continuity and players who they could connect to.

While the Giants have graduated a core of homegrown players such as Patrick Bailey, Heliot Ramos, Tyler Fitzgerald, Grant McCray, Kyle Harrison, Hayden Birdsong and Landen Roupp in recent years, several other top prospects (including former first-round Draft picks Joey Bart, Hunter Bishop and Will Bednar and top international signee Marco Luciano) haven’t developed as expected.

First baseman Bryce Eldridge, the Giants’ No. 1 prospect, is viewed as a rising star after reaching Triple-A Sacramento in his first full pro season, but San Francisco’s farm system came in at No. 23 overall in MLB Pipeline’s latest rankings.

Posey, the 2012 NL MVP and a seven-time All-Star catcher, helped usher in the most successful era in Giants history after he was drafted with the fifth overall pick in 2008. He retired following the Giants’ remarkable 2021 season and joined the Giants’ ownership group in September 2022. The Giants are hoping the 37-year-old will be able to lead a similar rise now that he’s poised to shift from the face of the franchise to the face of the front office.

“As we look ahead, I’m excited to share that Buster Posey will now take on a greater role as the new President of Baseball Operations,” Johnson said. “We are looking for someone who can define, direct and lead this franchise’s baseball philosophy and we feel that Buster is the perfect fit. Buster has the demeanor, intelligence and drive to do this job, and we are confident that he and Bob Melvin will work together to bring back winning baseball to San Francisco.”