Want the latest Bay Area sports news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here to receive regular email newsletters, including “The Dime.”
By acquiring superstar Rafael Devers in a stunning trade with the Red Sox, Buster Posey pulled off the transaction heard ‘round the baseball world and put the entire industry on notice that the Giants are going for it in 2025.
Giants fans are thrilled with Posey’s latest addition, and so is the team’s chairman of the board, Greg Johnson, who praised Posey and explained his part in negotiations in an exclusive interview with The Standard.
Johnson also addressed Posey’s and manager Bob Melvin’s performance so far this season, the upcoming trade deadline, and the increased payroll.
John Shea: You hired Buster Posey after last season to take the organization in a new direction and bring it back to prominence. What do you think of Buster Posey now?
Subscribe to The Dime
News, gossip, and inside-the-locker-room access for Bay Area sports fans, every Friday and Monday.
Greg Johnson: I think he is exceeding my expectations. Just the confidence that he exudes and also knowing the baseball environment and pushing for this kind of deal. Most people would have said, “Why even bother pushing this before the trade deadline?” He kind of worked an opportunity. For somebody who hasn’t done this a lot, I give him a lot of credit for how he kept the pedal down and kept it urgent with timelines. You never want to be the cover bid in a process that just draws out until 10 more teams are involved. It was, “We are ready to get it done.”
Buster commended you and ownership for playing a key role in acquiring Devers. How did that play out?
He would call me and say, “You need to call their owners right now and tell them this isn’t just two heads of baseball jawing here. If you want to get a deal done, the Giants are ready to do it.” When he asked me to do that, I made a few calls to the owners there. I’ve known (Red Sox president and CEO) Sam Kennedy for a while and kind of told him where we were and told him we’re not going to be around that much longer. I felt at the time what they were asking for exceeded what we thought was reasonable, and I think we were willing to be beyond reasonable if we want this player. I think (Posey) had the good sense to have me get involved with a few key points to push the ball along when he felt it was kind of slowing down.
In terms of the timetable, when did you speak with Sam? Buster had said he reached out to Craig Breslow a few weeks ago.
Multiple times. I talked to him at the (owners’) meetings (in early June) in New York, and I talked to him this week. Just put the message in that we’re serious. It’s not just chatter. Nobody wants to do all this work and then say, “Oh, now we’ve got to sell it to our owners.” We wanted to let the other owners know “these guys are serious. They want to get something done.” That changes the urgency. Buster was very smart to recognize that point. That goes back to his sense. He’s got a good nose for how people think and operate. It’s one of his strengths.
What does Rafael provide the Giants not just on the field but off the field with marketing and PR and maybe becoming face of the franchise?
We’ve got a lot of faces of the franchise right now.
Buster’s one of them?
Absolutely. Willy Adames and Matt Chapman and Logan Webb are all faces of the franchise. Like anything, you’ve got to come in and do the job, and I think Rafi’s track record tells us we’re pretty comfortable he’ll get that done. I think from everything we’ve heard, despite what you read about the noise coming from Boston about him with ownership, in my discussions, it was kind of a two-way street. I think they could have done things better. For whatever reason, that relationship was a little tattered. You’ve got your marquee guy not in the best place. I’m sure that’s what pushed them to make the change. But from everything we’ve heard about him, he is a high-energy, dedicated guy that just wants to play every day. Everything we’ve heard in our initial meetings with him, it was, “Skipper, tell me where to play, and I’m out there, and I’ll play it.” That’s the answer we were hoping for.
Do you see Buster continuing to upgrade the roster up until the July 31 trade deadline?
I think we’re always open to anything that can improve the team, but we feel very good about the team right now.
You had stated at Buster’s introductory news conference in October that he had a three-year arrangement as president of baseball operations. So through 2027. Do you see a longer-term relationship with Buster in this role?
Why not? I think he was a little apprehensive just with his young family. He just came off a career that was all-consuming time-wise, and he probably would have liked to take a little time. But I think he also found that it isn’t a 24/7 deal, so he can spend time with his family and take time off. I think he’s found that there’s a balance here. You can make it all consuming. Football is completely all consuming. Baseball might be a little different.
The Giants seem to be $17 to $18 million below the first luxury tax threshold of $241 million (according to Sportico). How does the payroll look with Devers added to the roster? You said at today’s news conference you don’t set a payroll number every year.
We set a range. There will be years you’re going to be below. There will be years you’re going to be above out of just need. We didn’t come into this year anticipating we’d be signing Rafi Devers. You need to be opportunistic about payroll.
When looking at players with contracts into their late 30s, including Willy Adames and Matt Chapman and now Devers, who’s signed through age 36 — which is far younger than the end of long-term contracts of some superstars on other teams — how do you see the value of these contracts playing out?
The biggest concern that we had, it’s not about the next three or four years, it’s a question of having, say, five guys on long-term deals. Is that a smart baseball decision? The good news for us, most of those guys will not go into (age) 40 or 39 or 38. In a perfect world, you never do it. But that’s the market. You can’t have too many of those on a team. We don’t want to be a team that’s not competitive every year with eight high-paid people with contracts through age 38 and 39. There are teams in that category, which is a tough position. You have to look at where we have young people who we think could fill that gap with a lower cost over time, and you have to build that out.
Does any of the revenue for the Mission Rock project across McCovey Cove go toward payroll?
Hopefully some day it will. It’s not there yet. It’s not anywhere even in an incremental amount. It’s still in the cost-and-building phase. But it’s not a drag. It’s not hurting payroll at all. Hopefully the idea is it will help in maybe two years. Everything is incremental.
Bob Melvin’s contract runs through this season with a team option for next year. How has he done, in your mind? It seems Buster is giving him autonomy to write up the lineups and manage the games.
Bob’s great. I think he’s enjoying it. That’s always been my philosophy at work: Your job is to get the best person in that position and let him do their job. I think that’s where we agree 100 percent. You might disagree sometimes. You can’t be accountable if someone’s looking over his shoulder and saying, “Are you sure you want to do that? Maybe you should do this differently.”
Is the mindset, even more so now with Devers aboard, playoffs-or-bust?
We all want to make the playoffs. I never say bust. We’re in a tough division, as you know. I think we just improved the team that had been competitive already in this division. Like every fan, we all want to make the playoffs.