Farhan Zaidi understands the criticism of his six-year tenure as Giants president of baseball operations.
He was fired after yet another underwhelming 2024 MLB season, and he spoke to The San Francisco Chronicle's Shayna Rubin for the first time publicly since his exit.
"The autopsy is never pretty, and for me, it’s not productive to respond to all the narratives that are out there," Zaidi said in a phone conversation with Rubin. "I’ll say that during my time in the organization, I gave the job my complete commitment and did it with no ulterior motives or agendas. Always tried to treat people with respect and be a good ambassador to the Giants community.
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"Beyond that, people are passionate about the Giants and professional sports, and there will always be a discourse on those things. And that’s the nature of the beast."
One hot-button topic that arose after Zaidi's exit was San Francisco's lineups, which became increasingly controversial after Giants icon Will Clark, who serves as a special assistant with the team, spoke about it on a recent podcast.
Clark claimed Zaidi made up the team's lineup and "had his fingers in everything."
“[Manager] Bob Melvin would want this guy in the lineup, that guy in the lineup and Farhan would trump him," Clark said on the podcast. "You set yourself up, because that’s Melvin’s job."
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But Zaidi clarified to Rubin how the lineups were decided.
"I recognize there are a lot of lingering frustrations from what was a disappointing season," Zaidi told Rubin. "I mean, for me in my 20 years in baseball, this past year was probably the most disappointing season given the expectations we had coming into the year with the offseason we had and how it played out.
"But one thing that’s always been important to me in my time in baseball, and certainly my six years with the Giants, is having strong collaboration between different parts of the organization. Whether it be between player development and the front office or the clubhouse and the coaching staff and the manager and front office. I certainly believe that was the case this past year."
Melvin also spoke with Rubin and acknowledged that Zaidi was "passionate" about the lineup, but the collaborative dynamic wasn't unlike anything he previously had been around in his baseball career.
Zaidi and Melvin, whose relationship dates back well before their Giants union, stated they both had a say in the lineup crafting process -- something that was important to both of them.
“I have a longstanding relationship with Bob. I think we understand each other really well," Zaidi told Rubin. "Because of the circumstances of when and how he was hired, it was really important that our relationship worked well. So I saw his feedback very regularly throughout the season about whether the front office dynamic with him and the coaching staff was working.
"Based on the feedback that I got from him I feel confident that it was working well. We certainly talked about the lineup and game strategy as most effective front office and manager partnerships do. There was always an exchange of ideas that if one of us felt strongly about something or the other because of our history, there was a lot of respect for that. But ultimately, I felt as the manager it was his role to have final say on lineups.”
With a year remaining on his contract, the Giants parted ways with Zaidi and hired franchise great Buster Posey as his replacement.
Melvin expects to also collaborate with Posey and new general manager Zack Minasian on the lineup in 2025. Posey even said he and Melvin already have discussed it, agreeing on mutual dialogue around the lineup but Melvin will have the final say.
"Bob has been doing this for 30 years," Posey told KNBR during an interview last week. “Bob and I have talked about this already. He wants to have dialogue around it. But ultimately he’s been in the dugout and [is] getting a read on his players better than I can, not being around them all the time.
"We’re going to use analytics. I’ve talked to BoMel about this, ‘How do we want the flow of this to be? Let’s let the projections spit out what it should be, look at it, then you write the lineup? Or you write the lineup and then look at the projections?’ Ultimately, I’ll leave it up to him. I want my manager that’s using his years and years of experience to write the lineup."
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