Buster Posey reveals what he anticipates Bruce Bochy’s role will be with Giants originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
LAS VEGAS — On Monday, the Giants announced that Bruce Bochy has returned to the organization as a special advisor to the baseball operations department. That means that technically, Buster Posey is now his former manager’s boss.
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Of course, the president of baseball operations doesn’t view it that way. When he thinks of their relationship these days, the main thing that stands out is something else.
“When I was a player I never looked at Boch as a friend, because we kind of had that clean line of, ‘I’m the player, you’re the manager, you’re making the decisions and I’m going to go run through a wall for you,’” Posey said on Thursday’s “Giants Talk.” “I think post-playing, I consider Boch a friend. He’s somebody that I could pick up the phone and ask (about) any baseball-related issues.”
At the start of his second year in charge, Posey already has made that call a couple of times. Bochy was consulted as the Giants went through the process of hiring new manager Tony Vitello, and as that was being settled, Posey had another question. When Bochy parted ways with the Texas Rangers after three seasons — and a championship — he was never in consideration to take over for Bob Melvin. But Posey made it clear from the start of the offseason that he wanted Bochy back with the organization.
At the General Managers Meetings in Las Vegas this week, Posey said he didn’t have to sell Bochy on a new job with the Giants. He knew his former manager was already excited about the possibility of returning.
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“I said, ‘I’m not speaking for you — you’re a Giant,’” Posey recalled. “He had some other options so I wanted to give him space to think about those and work through those.”
This is Bochy’s second stint as a special advisor. He had a similar role after retiring in 2019 and helped in various ways until taking the Rangers job. Posey said he’s looking forward to having Bochy around and “talking shop.”
“He’s mentioned if we want him to go see a certain player, he would do that,” Posey said. “We certainly want him in spring training and I think spending time around Tony. They’ve already spent a little time together. It would be really good. I’m fired up that we have Boch. He’s a fun guy to be around.”
As an executive, Posey has surrounded himself with people from his playing days that he trusts, hiring former Giants GM Bobby Evans and his agent, Jeff Berry, as advisors. Bochy will join Dusty Baker as advisors, which should be valuable to Vitello as he goes through his first season in professional baseball. Ron Wotus will remain in his role as an advisor to Posey and helper for the big league staff.
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Posey is also now leaning on former teammate Javier Lopez, who was in Las Vegas to sit in on meetings and help out. The Giants haven’t officially announced a title for Lopez — who will remain on the broadcast team — but that could be coming soon.
Travis Ishikawa, Dan Runzler, Ryan Vogelsong and Joe Panik are among the former Posey teammates who were helping in the minors even before he returned, and Posey has said he’s hopeful that more members of the championship teams get involved in some way. Brandon Crawford is an obvious choice, although he planned to take a full year off after retiring following the 2024 MLB season. There has even been some talk of getting Madison Bumgarner involved in some way, but for the moment, Lopez appears to be the only newcomer.
“I’ve talked to some of them,” Posey said of his former teammates. “It seems like they’re pretty content with what they have going on right now and I get it. When you have kids at home there’s certain things you don’t want to miss. It’s a big commitment. For me, our decision to move back to the Bay Area, I think, made this possible for me to do this.
“I don’t know if it would have been something I would do if we had not moved back to the Bay Area, so I certainly understand where they’re coming from.”
