Breaking: The First Managerial Firing As Season Winds Down

It sounds hard to believe, but the San Francisco Giants haven't fired a manager in 38 years. Until now. With three days remaining in the regular season, the Giants have handed Gabe Kapler his walking papers.

The Giants announced that they have fired manager Gabe Kapler. This is the first time the organization has relieved a manager of duties since they replaced Jim Davenport with Roger Craig with 18 games remaining in the 1985 season.

— Andrew Baggarly (@extrabaggs) September 29, 2023

The firing comes, as they often do, just a few weeks after he received a vote of confidence from the team, as Giants chairman Greg Johnson said that both Farhan Zaidi, the Giants’ president of baseball operations, and Kapler would be back in 2024. But it was Zaidi who recommended the ouster of Kapler. 

The 48-year-old spent four seasons at the helm in San Francisco, and led the Giants to a rousing 107-win season just two years ago. But they dropped to .500 in 2022, and are sitting now at 78-81 this season. Kapler had a 295-248 record over four seasons leading the Giants.

The firing is incredibly the first in San Francisco since Jim Davenport was let go in 1985. Roger Craig took over for him and stayed until 1992 after which he retired from managing. Dusty Baker, Felipe Alou and Bruce Bochy, who followed leading up to Kapler, all left either because their contract expired (Baker and Alou) or because they "retired" from managing (Bochy, in 2019, though he's since come back and is managing the Texas Rangers). 

Photo: Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports