There will be one person and one person only making the final decision on the Giants' lineups for the 2025 MLB season.
And that's manager Bob Melvin.
While the process, as it is for every major league coaching staff, can be a collaborative discussion, Melvin has complete autonomy on final lineup decisions, as new Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey confirmed Thursday on KNBR 680's "Murph & Markus."
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"No I won't," Posey said when asked if he will be providing Melvin lineups. "Bob's been doing this for 30 years. It'll be something we discuss. Bob and I have talked about this already. He wants to have dialogue around it, but ultimately he's standing in the dugout and he's getting a read on his players better than I can have not being around them all the time."
The question was asked because of the unconfirmed rumors surrounding former president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi's involvement in lineup construction, with some, including former Giants first baseman Will Clark, claiming that Zaidi made the lineups and his decisions trumped Melvin's.
Posey, meanwhile, will present Melvin and his staff with the resources available to best formulate decisions regarding the team's lineups, including the use of analytics, but will allow his manager to use them as he sees fit and already has discussed the process with Melvin.
"And look, we're going to use analytics, and I've already talked to BoMel about this, is 'Hey, how do we want the flow of this to be? Do we want it to be let's let the projections spit out what we think it should be, you look at it, and then you write the lineup? Or you look at the lineup, and then we look at the projections? Ultimately, I'll leave that up to him," Posey explained.
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"But my sense is, I want my manager that's using his years and years of experience to write the lineup. Let's look at what his see and feel are telling him to do, and then let's look and see what the models are spitting out. And if there's one that's glaring, there's an outlier and 'Hmm we really should look at this' then we'll have a discussion around it."
Posey believes Melvin serves an important role as the Giants' leader and deserves to have complete control over the decisions that impact the team's performance on the field.
"But ultimately, I do want to leave it to him," Posey added. "Again, I just think it's important for him to have that autonomy and for the guys on the field to know that hey, this is the guy that's leading the charge for us, and we're going out there to battle for him, and he's got our back through all of this."
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