Buster Posey hired former Giants outfielder Cody Ross and former Giants outfielder Hunter Pence into baseball operations roles this month, filling two front-office positions with teammates from the organization's 2010-2014 championship window. Ross joins as a special assistant. Pence takes a player development role. Both report into the baseball operations structure Posey now controls as president.

Posey took over as president of baseball operations in late September after Farhan Zaidi was dismissed following six seasons without a playoff appearance. The Giants finished 80-82 in 2024, third in the NL West, 16 games behind the Dodgers. Posey inherited a front office built on analytics depth but lacking connective tissue to the clubhouse. His first personnel moves have been relational, not statistical.

Ross played for the Giants from 2010 to 2011, hitting the decisive home run in Game 1 of the 2010 NLCS and batting .350 in that year's World Series. He retired in 2016 and has spent the past eight years coaching high school ball in New Mexico and running youth camps. Pence played in San Francisco from 2012 to 2018, made three All-Star teams, and retired after a brief 2020 stint. He has been visible in the Giants alumni circuit and on NBC Sports Bay Area broadcasts. Neither held a front-office role before this month.

The pattern matters because Posey is building leverage inside a franchise that operates by committee. The Giants are owned by a 28-member investor group led by Greg Johnson, and major decisions—manager, payroll, extensions—move through a consensus process that slowed Zaidi's rebuild. Posey does not have unilateral authority the way a traditional GM does. He has instead assembled a network of voices he knows will align when he needs votes. Ross and Pence give him two more.

The titles are vague, which is the point. Special assistant roles in baseball operations can mean advance scouting, can mean pro personnel, can mean sitting in the draft room, can mean showing up when a free agent needs to hear from someone other than the spreadsheet. What they reliably mean is access. Posey now has former teammates embedded in player development, in the front office, and in the alumni relations structure that touches ownership. When the Giants sit down to debate whether to guarantee $200 million to a 29-year-old shortstop, the room will be louder with people who played the game the way Posey did.

The risk is insularity. The 2010-2014 Giants built a culture around defense, preparation, and pitching—all of which won titles and none of which has aged into the current game. The roster Posey inherited is built for contact and gaps, not for launch angle and three-true-outcomes. Ross and Pence were not analytics-forward players. Their expertise is tone, not process. If Posey is surrounding himself with voices that reinforce his instincts rather than challenge them, the Giants will continue to oscillate between veteran sentiment and competitive mediocrity.

Posey is also hiring quickly, which suggests he is preparing for a winter where he needs to move. The Giants have $40 million coming off the books with the departures of Blake Snell and several arbitration-eligible players. They have not signed a marquee free agent to a deal longer than three years since Posey became president. If he intends to change that, he will need internal alignment before he walks into Scott Boras's office. Ross and Pence are not the people who will build the financial model. They are the people who will nod when Posey says the model is wrong.

Watch for coordinator-level hires in the next 45 days—hitting coach, assistant GM for pro scouting—and whether those come from outside the organization or from the Giants' minor-league system. Watch also for whether Posey elevates any of Zaidi's lieutenants or whether the front office becomes a monument to 2010. The Giants' winter meetings delegation will be the tell.

The Giants open spring training in 89 days. Posey has filled two roles with people who will take his call at any hour. Whether that makes the team better or just makes the president more comfortable is the question the 2025 season will answer.