In a live KNBR interview, Giants minority owner Buster Posey backed chairman Greg Johnson a day after he talked himself into a public relations headache.
At Bob Melvin’s introductory press conference, Johnson answered a question about whether the ownership group views the competitive balance tax as a spending limit, by expressing hesitancy to dip into the luxury tax for more than a year.
“When you look at the luxury tax, one year you can go past that if you have to,” Johnson said. “I don’t think it’s something we want to do for a long period. I think if you look at the teams that have jumped up in free agency, they didn’t really have great years this year, with spending. So I’m not sure there’s a direct correlation there. But we plan on being active, and if we have to go through that, we will go through that. But we also represent a group that hopefully our goal is to somewhat break even, which is somewhat a challenge in this business. But everybody, I can tell you, from the ownership side: the goal is to win. And we’re doing everything we can.”
As the Giants are the fifth most valuable franchise in Major League Baseball, per Forbes, and are run — like any other professional sports franchise — by billionaires, those comments didn’t sit well with many fans. It’s understandably difficult to hear owners describing a business in which team valuations consistently skyrocket as “challenging.”
The Giants’ current ownership group purchased the franchise for roughly $110 million in 1992. The team is now worth about $3.7 billion, an increase of over 3,000%.
Posey, who joined the Giants’ C-suite last year after retiring, backed Johnson on Thursday morning on The Murph & Mac Show.
“I’ve gotten to know Greg really well, and one thing that I’ll say about Greg — and I think sometimes stuff, whichever way it comes out, gets taken out of context,” Posey told Murph & Mac. “Greg, first and foremost, loves the San Francisco Giants. And I know wholeheartedly that it’s his intent to put a championship team on the field. There’s no doubt in my mind about that whatsoever.”
Posey was involved in the hiring process and is optimistic Melvin can help usher in the next era. Yet that can only happen if the franchise commits to consistent spending like the big market team they are.
Posey doesn’t seem too concerned about the ownership’s dedication to that.
“I don’t know if that helps people who were maybe upset or concerned about that, but there’s no question in my mind about where Greg’s intent is,” Posey said. “The rest of the ownership’s intent is. Look, it’s about — I think Bob said it in his interview yesterday — the Giants are the city, the city is the Giants. And we understand that. We understand just how impactful the right group of players on the field can mean to this city. And that’s something that is discussed a lot. How are we going to create that environment? How are we going to create a product that is going to bring the fans and create those joyous memories that 50 years from now, people are going to be able to share with their grandkids. So no, wholeheartedly believe Greg is 100% on board with trying to put the best team out there to not only win, but have fun. Those teams in the (2010) to 16-17 years were fun teams. There’s a lot of different ways you can do it, a lot of personalities you can do it with.”
Listen to the full interview above. You can listen to every KNBR interview on our podcast page at knbr.com/podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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