Kurtenbach: Buster Posey successfully navigated SF Giants through his first real crisis in the most ironic way

SAN FRANCISCO The Giants needed a shakeup First-year president of baseball operations Buster Posey tried patience and positive reinforcement but as the Giants offensive struggles reached their third week unabated it was undeniable that San Francisco s clubhouse had become just a bit too settled with not scoring runs So after Tuesday s loss to the Padres which was a th straight contest where the Giants scored four runs or fewer Posey decided that enough was enough A few tough cuts were made and chosen new faces were brought in to start on Wednesday And after back-to-back wins where the Giants scored a staggering nine total runs including a previously believed-to-be-impossible six in Wednesday s championship you can t say the moves didn t work But it s funny Posey might have successfully navigated his first real situation as the Giants man in charge but he did it in a way that dare I say was downright Farhan Zaidi-like The mix-up for the sake of a mix-up was a Zaidi special during his six-plus seasons in Posey s chair It s how we ended up with Forever Giants like Justin Smoak Skye Bolt Yermin Mercedes A J Pollock and Trenton Brooks And in all likelihood Daniel Johnson and Dominic Smith will be part of that club of guys who will only be remembered as excellent Immaculate Grid plays baseball vagabonds who were scooped up in a hurry to set up camp in San Francisco for a sparse games or a scarce weeks There s nothing wrong with that You have to do what you have to do Even if it s deeply ironic Related Articles Kurtenbach The SF Giants next two weeks will tell us where they stand in the NL Kurtenbach The SF Giants desperately need offense Buster Posey should look at these four trade-deadline targets The SF Giants needed a stopper Logan Webb didn t deliver Could this right-hander s spot in the SF Giants rotation be in jeopardy Verlander still winless as SF Giants bullpen blows lead in loss to MLB s last-place unit Posey is new to his gig in every way He has never been a day-to-day personnel man and now he s in charge of the entire roster Grace was fair and necessary as he navigated these uncharted and unquestionably choppy waters He still demands time to get his sea legs under him But as Posey figured out his roster all six levels of it he could try to impart his principles and beliefs onto the big-league roster at least Posey pushed trust belief and steadiness He required a great clubhouse first with the belief that a great baseball group would naturally arrive from that surroundings Lofty goals to be sure but it s what Posey knew And after years of players not knowing when at-bats would come or even how long they d be in the big leagues amid Zaidi s constant tinkering and the club s platoon-first mindset the change was seriously welcomed in that clubhouse And you can t argue with the early returns on the new tactic The Giants won tight tournament after tight meeting Maybe the Buster magic was still working Until it wasn t There will hopefully be another time and place for all of those things Posey espoused But the issue for the Giants was that they moved away from platoons and constant competition for at-bats without making wholesale changes to last year s roster Specific of these guys still need to be platooned I can see Smith and Casey Schmitt as a nice lefty-righty combo at first base Jerar Encarnaci n and Mike Yastrzemski might make a nice platoon too With apologies to the Giants marketing department for all the promotional material that features Yaz And you already know Zaidi would have ascertained a left-handed hitting second baseman by now to spell Tyler Fitzgerald who mashes lefties but is middling against righties Perhaps Posey will look into that now that the pretense of the campaign has been lost Either way Posey was pushed to abandon or at least suspend his ideals in the sake of winning games Such a move was inevitable but it undoubtedly came sooner than anyone with the Giants requested And it will maybe work for a bit and then Posey will have to try something else to tide the squad over for a while Just like Zaidi did Related Articles Robbie Ray builds on strong May leads SF Giants to series split vs Padres SF Giants respond to roster shakeup with comeback win over Padres SF Giants designate Wade add veteran first baseman Smith in flurry of moves Doval records rare blown save as SF Giants fall to Padres in innings Posey changes tune on top prospect Eldridge amid SF Giants massive slump This isn t to defend Zaidi s work at the helm of the roster He had to go the Giants were spinning their wheels as an organization and while the issues were unquestionably coming from places higher than Zaidi he wasn t helping progress things Posey for all his naivety in his new role is at least empowered by ownership After all he is ownership However this shift does highlight how tough the Giants grand poobah gig is Even without a bunch of big crooked numbers going on the board the new-look Giants had enough hitting to beat their rap the last two games claiming contests that were as much must-win as any two games can be in early June Only time will tell it s baseball after all the majority of macro of sports but the Giants have seemingly righted a ship that was steering off program And it couldn t have come at a better time As much as I pushed the unit s weekend opponent the Braves as dangerous and talented that was before Atlanta allowed seven runs in the top of the ninth on Thursday to lose - to the Diamondbacks The Braves might be cooked The Giants once again might be cooking But we can take a moment to laugh about it How d Posey work his way out of the first big jam of his nascent personnel career He did what Zaidi would have done And after years of complaining about this way of doing business I don t think anyone minds now