SF Giants manager Gabe Kapler’s tea leaves do not look good

Any San Francisco Giants fans who are calling for someone to get fired after the team collapsed in the second half may get their wish.

Farhan Zaidi, president of baseball operations, did his every-other-week radio appearance on KNBR’s “Tolbert and Copes” show on Thursday, serving as an effective post-mortem for the season.

“I really appreciate the support from ownership and the plan to have both of us back,” Zaidi said. “Right now, our focus is just kind of getting through these last three games strong, finishing at .500.”

Zaidi continued, saying the organization had to look at “everything across the board.” And it seems as if the Giants’ second-half collapse — where the team fell from as high as 13 games over .500 to entering the final weekend needing to sweep the Dodgers to even finish at .500 — is weighing heavily on Zaidi.

“One hundred sixty-two games is a grind. We want our players to be comfortable being able to wash off those tough losses. But when you’re in do-or-die games, like we were in Arizona, you want them to feel different,” Zaidi said. “I think we’re really gonna have to ask ourselves if we were prepared to sort of elevate our level of focus in play for those games that really matter down the stretch.”

It’s the first public signal from the Giants organization that there may be a change coming in the organization. 

Zaidi and Kapler were both going to enter the final year of their contract in 2024 and were widely viewed as a package deal. As the season began, questions about contract extensions were typically met with an effective answer of: It’ll happen, but it’s not a rush.

Now, as the season has ended, clearly that is no longer the case.

Zaidi also addressed several issues that this current Giants team has, most notably the significant number of players on short-term contracts, with only Logan Webb under a guaranteed contract past 2025. Zaidi said the plan is to add more players who will be in the orange and black for the long term.

“We’re going to focus on guys who have a chance to be here for a long time,” Zaidi said. “We’re at a point now where we’re hoping for, and I think our fans are hoping for, continuity. So whether it’s guys coming from outside the organization that we’re going to have for a long time, or our own young players will have a chance to be in uniform for a long time, that’s gonna be a big focus of ours.”

Zaidi is clearly aware of the complaints of the fan base, saying he’s even been checking X, formerly known as Twitter, in recent days. He acknowledged that the 2023 Giants team was too slow and too old, leading to a lack of stolen bases and shoddy defense.

In the eyes of KNBR host Tom Tolbert, that was most obvious in getting swept by Arizona in last week’s two-game series in Phoenix. Zaidi noticed it, too.

“That was really a do-or-die series for us, so to see the contrast at a point in time where you’re in must-win situations, I agree with you,” Zaidi said. “It became really glaring. There were certainly a couple of moments in that series where it felt like their athleticism, in the outfield in particular, was just the difference.”

There are still players on this Giants team to build around, like their ace in Webb, who is considered a top NL Cy Young candidate. Earlier this week, Webb called out some of his teammates, saying the Giants have “got to make some big changes in here to really create that winning culture.”

When asked about those comments, Zaidi seemed to appreciate that his ace was willing to make his feelings public — and agreed with his general assessment, too.

“You want to feel like you have standards and we haven’t met the standards of the San Francisco Giants last few seasons,” Zaidi said of Webb’s comments. “He’s calling people out and people should feel called out. I should feel called out, because I’m responsible for the team and the success of the team and we haven’t been at the end of this year or last year where we want to be.

“When he says big changes, that can come in a lot of different forms. We need to rethink how we’re thinking about players, how we’re thinking about putting together the roster. Our players need to think about the culture that they are fostering. Our manager and coaching staff need to think about the culture we have in our clubhouse.”

Zaidi concluded: “I think we’ve got to rethink everything. So I’m glad he said that.”