Since the Giants opened AT&T Park in 2000, the franchise has only known one pitching coach.
Dave Righetti.
He molded Matt Cain, shaped Tim Lincecum and helped raise Madison Bumgarner. He crafted a bullpen of misfits that included Javier Lopez, Jeremy Affeldt, Sergio Romo and Santiago Casilla and turned them into World Series champions.
In 2017 alone, a dreadful year in which San Francisco finished 64-98, Righetti revitalized Sam Dyson’s career and helped turn former first round draft choice Chris Stratton into a serviceable member of the Giants’ rotation.
And now, Righetti is gone.
Not gone from the Giants altogether, but gone from his familiar perch next to manager Bruce Bochy in the Giants’ home dugout.
Righetti joins bullpen coach Mark Gardner and assistant hitting coach Steve Decker as those who have been “reassigned” in the Giants’ great staff shakeup of 2017. General manager Bobby Evans wouldn’t comment on Saturday, but he also didn’t dispute reports that bench coach Ron Wotus and hitting coach Hensley Meulens will meet the same fate.
It’s the end of an era for a San Francisco franchise that’s always been weary of running World Series champions out the door, opting to hang on for too long rather than to give up too early.
Hanging on too long? All of that changed on Saturday morning.
Is it Righetti’s fault that Bumgarner fell off his dirt bike, or that Johnny Cueto was forced to arrive late to Spring Training and then developed blisters? Of course not. Was it Righetti’s fault that the Giants’ outfield defense was as bad as it’s been during his tenure as the team’s pitching coach? Nope. Could Righetti have fixed a lineup that produced the second-fewest runs in baseball, one that hit fewer home runs than every other team in the league? As if.
After 18 years as a pitching coach, Righetti is now a special assistant to Evans in the front office.
“Dave’s got a great mind for the game, he’s been a tremendous leader of our pitching staff, our success and has made a huge impact on our current staff as well as many staffs before him,” Evans said on a conference call. “I think the opportunity to work more closely with him in the front office is very much appreciated by me. If he stayed downstairs, he’d continue to be an excellent pitching coach, but the chance to work with him upstairs was very valuable to me.
Though his role wasn’t as prominent, Wotus actually served as the Giants’ bench coach for a year longer than Righetti oversaw the team’s pitching staff. While Righetti helped open AT&T Park, Wotus was on Dusty Baker’s staff as the bench coach in 1999 when the club closed Candlestick. It’s almost hard to believe Wotus lasted this long, simply because so many other front offices courted him as a potential manager. For more than a decade, Wotus has been discussed for openings on an annual basis, and at this point, it’s unclear whether he’ll ever receive that chance.
The 56-year-old’s career reminds me of Arizona Cardinals’ head coach Bruce Arians, who worked for decades as an NFL coordinator and assistant before finally landing his first gig and reviving a franchise at 60.
The years also flew by with Gardner and Meulens. The former, a Giants’ starting pitcher who transitioned to a role as the team’s bullpen coach in 2003 almost immediately after his playing days ended. The latter, a well-respected, but often criticized hitting coach who also won three rings on Bochy’s staff.
While the future is unclear for all four coaches, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported that Meulens is expected to remain on the Giants’ Major League staff. Evans said he wouldn’t “speculate” about other rumors, but he acknowledged the Giants have already interviewed at least one candidate for a hitting coach position.
Perhaps Meulens will shift duties and become the team’s bench coach, an enticing position that could make him the manager in waiting when Bochy retires or is eventually “reassigned.” But to speculate about Meulens’ future as a possible manager-in-waiting would be to ignore the fact that San Francisco’s upper management is clearly dissatisfied with the direction of the team.
The Giants’ direction, after a 64-98 finish, was pointed more toward a rebuild than a National League pennant. Apparently, that direction merited a new voice in the team’s clubhouse.
“Ultimately, a change for us in the clubhouse is really an opportunity to put a new voice with our pitching staff and try to keep pushing to the heights that we aspire as an organization and a club,” Evans said. “Changes sometimes are needed as much for the sake of that new voice as anything and I think that that was really the priority.”
No one will argue that after the past 15 months, change should be a top priority for the Giants. But the first steps Evans has taken to create change hardly show his ability to diagnose the root of the Giants’ problems.
This is a coaching staff that’s won World Series together, and molded championship rosters with one another. This year, they had little to mold. Righetti lost the top two starters in his rotation to the disabled list, and lost his closer to surgery. A pitching staff that wound up in the middle of the road wasn’t enough to overcome a lineup that failed to put fear in even back-end of the rotation starters.
On Saturday, the Giants formally announced Righetti won’t be back in the dugout next season. They’d be best served to ensure the roster, much like the coaching staff, looks different, too.