Sports Time Radio

On Friday I was watching one of the sports channels I generally watch, and they had breaking news come across the bottom of the screen. It was the announcement that the San Francisco Giants had fired their manager Gabe Kapler.

I thought this was kind of odd move since the Giants only had three games left in the regular season and it seemed very strange that they just wouldn’t let Kapler finish out the year. I understand that teams sometimes fire a manager early so they can get a head start on other teams who will also be making changes at the manager spot, but three games before the end of the season isn’t much of a head start.

Kapler was in his fourth year as Giants manager. He took San Francisco to the playoffs in 2021. The Giants won the National League West with a record of 107-55, but they lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Division Series.

After that 2021 season Kapler was named national League Manager of the Year.

Kapler had an above .500 record as the Giants manager. He went 295-248 in his four seasons there. Besides the one division title the Giants finished 3rd twice under Kapler. This season it looks as though the Giants will end up in 4th place in the N.L. West.

As of right now no names have been associated with the Giants managerial position, but there could be a lot of qualified candidates available.

Terry Francona is retiring as Cleveland Guardians manager while Craig Counsell of the Milwaukee Brewers, Dusty Baker of the Houston Astros and Phil Nevin of the Los Angeles Angels are all working on contracts that expire at the end of this season. There is also the possibility that Buck Showalter who’s currently managing the New York Mets or Bob Melvin who’s currently the San Diego Padres manager could also be available this coming off season.

Whoever ends up as the next Giants manager should inherit a team with a lot of payroll flexibility. As of now the only San Francisco player signed past the 2025 season is starting pitcher Logan Webb.

Of course, this type of situation isn’t really new to the Giants or their fans. It seems as though every off-season San Francisco says that they’re interested in whoever the top free agents might be, but they never seem to end up signing them.

When Bryce Harper was a free agent, the Giants were said to be interested in him. Remember just last off-season the Giants thought they had a good chance to sign Aaron Judge because he was from the Bay area, but he didn’t sign with San Francisco. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that right after the announcement of the Kapler firing there was talk of how the Giants would be one of the teams trying to land coveted free agent Shohei Ohtani this coming off season.

It’s come to the point where you have to start to wonder if the Giants are really willing to sign one of the big-time free agents to a big money deal or if they just try to keep their name in the conversation to try and make their fans think they’re trying to improve the team.

Obviously, Ohtani will be far and away the biggest free agent name on the market, but he can only sign with one team. There are other quality player that will be on the free agent market very soon and will have to see how many of these players San Francisco ends up being linked to and if they actually manage to sign any of them.

Tomorrow ends the Major League Baseball regular season and there are just two wild card spots left to be decided. All we’re waiting to find out is who will be the third and final wild card teams in each league. As of right now the Houston Astros hold that spot in the American League while the Miami Marlins are in the third National League wild card spot.

It looks as though the Marlins are in a very good spot to claim that last National League wild card spot as they hold a 1 1/2 lead over both the Cincinnati Reds and the Chicago Cubs. That pretty much means that the Reds and the Cubs would have to win out while the Marlins would have to lose the remainder of their games for anything to change.

The Astros currently have a 1 game lead on the Seattle Mariners. Houston is wrapping up the season against the Arizona Diamondbacks while the Mariners are hosting the Texas Rangers. Both the Diamondbacks and the Rangers are still playing for something. Texas would like to win the American League west while Arizona would like to hold onto the second National League wild card spot.

With these two wild card spots still to be decided it should make the final two games of the regular season interesting at least for these teams and their fans.

Don’t forget to look for me on X, I’m @Burketime.