San Francisco Giants president Buster Posey hired former catcher Benito Santiago and ex-teammate López to undisclosed roles in baseball operations, his first personnel additions since taking over the front office in September. The moves, announced without formal titles or reporting lines, mark a break from the org-chart formality that defined the Farhan Zaidi era.
Posey became president of baseball operations four months ago after ownership removed Zaidi following a third consecutive playoff miss. The Giants finished 80-82 in 2024, averaging 29,371 fans per game at Oracle Park, down 8% from 2023 and the lowest non-pandemic attendance since 2009. Santiago, 59, caught parts of 20 major-league seasons and played 58 games for the Giants in 2001. López's role and timeline with the organization were not disclosed.
The hires matter because they telegraph method. Posey is building a front office on trust networks, not search-firm calibration. Santiago brings no recent front-office experience but carries four decades of catching knowledge and existing relationships with Latin American scouts. López's familiarity with Posey's playing tenure suggests he'll work close to decision-making, not in a satellite analytics pod. This is the opposite of the Zaidi model, which prized Ivy League credentials and SQL fluency. Posey is betting that legibility—knowing who will pick up the phone, who can read a room in the Dominican, who won't leak—outweighs marginal gains from hiring the sharpest spreadsheet operator available.
The timing is deliberate. Posey is staffing up two months before spring training and three months before the Giants need to decide whether to extend $44 million in arbitration to pitcher Logan Webb, who becomes a free agent after 2025. Webb is the franchise's most tradeable asset if Posey concludes the competitive window has closed. Santiago's presence suggests the Giants are staying in player-development mode rather than flipping assets for prospects, because catching development doesn't matter in a teardown. López's hire, depending on his actual role, could signal Posey is building a pipeline back to players he trusts—former teammates who might take his call about free agency or who can vouch for the org to agents.
The Giants have $63 million committed to just three players in 2025—Webb, third baseman Matt Chapman, and outfielder Jung Hoo Lee—giving Posey flexibility to reset payroll or chase mid-tier free agents. The front office now includes senior advisor Pete Putila, formerly the Houston Astros' general manager, who joined in October. Putila ran the Astros' day-to-day baseball ops for two seasons and has deep ties to quantitative decision-making, creating an interesting tension with Posey's relationship-first hires.
Watch for additional hires in amateur scouting and player development before the February 12 start of spring training. If Posey adds former Giants from the 2010-2014 championship core, it confirms he's building a closed-loop culture rather than importing outside perspectives. The Giants' next pitching coordinator hire will clarify whether Posey plans to rebuild or retool; a veteran instructor suggests the former, an analytics-forward hire suggests he's chasing 2026 contention. Chapman's camp has until mid-January to negotiate an extension before arbitration filings, which will set the Giants' payroll baseline.
Santiago's last public baseball role was as a spring-training guest instructor. Now he has a year-round office.
The takeaway
Posey's first front-office hires bypass credentials for relationships, signaling a culture reset over analytical optimization.
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