Gabe Kapler was fired by an MLB team for the second time in four years Friday when the Giants let him go.
But the conversation he had with Farhan Zaidi in the decision's aftermath was productive, San Francisco's president of baseball operations told reporters.
"I spoke to him for an hour. I did not expect that it would be that long of a conversation," Zaidi said Friday. "I guess I wouldn’t expect any different from him, but he made it really easy for me, whether he should have or not. He wanted to talk a lot about what my thoughts were, what my feedback was. We had a lot of back and forth.
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“It wasn’t really a personal conversation. It was really professional about what had happened and what he thought we could do better, what I thought we could do better."
Kapler posted his first public statement since being fired to his Instagram on Saturday, reflecting on his Giants tenure as a whole -- what went wrong, what the team accomplished and more. He said he's looking forward to the future, and it's clear from his conversation with Zaidi that Kapler will look to learn from his time in San Francisco.
"I really appreciated that conversation," Zaidi continues. "He’s really all about the work and trying to get better, so I don’t think it surprises anyone that knows him that he was looking for feedback right away, even in a moment that had a lot of gravity to it. I thought it was a really good conversation.
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"He had time to talk to some people in the clubhouse and say goodbye to people, which was important. I’m sure he’s going to do that in the coming weeks as well. I don’t want to speak too much for him, but I will say that he was a total consummate pro."
Now, the Giants' search for a new manager is underway, with the goal of hiring that person before the start of the offseason in early November. And as Zaidi enters the final year of his Giants contract in 2024, he certainly hopes to get those conversations right, too.
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