Giants fire Farhan Zaidi and shockingly replace him with franchise fan favorite

The San Francisco Giants announced that they're parting ways with president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi on Monday, according to Jeff Passan of ESPN.

The announcement of Zaidi's firing does not come as a surprise at all. Not only did the Giants make the postseason in only one of his six seasons with the club, but they had a total of one winning season in the six years.

The Giants hoped to get back on track this offseason, inking players like Matt Chapman, Blake Snell, Jung-Hoo Lee, and Jordan Hicks to new deals but wound up finishing with an underwhelming 80-82 record and without a postseason berth.

For a Giants organization that won three World Series in a five-year span not too long ago, their run under Zaidi had simply been unacceptable. Change was more than necessary, if not inevitable.

The shocking thing about the Zaidi news wasn't his departure - it was his replacement. According to Bob Nightengale of USA Today, Zaidi's replacement is Buster Posey. Yes, that Buster Posey. Who could've seen that coming?

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Giants replace Farhan Zaidi with Buster Posey, which nobody could've seen coming

Posey played 12 seasons in the majors, all of which came with the Giants. He was an MVP winner, a 12-time All-Star, and played a huge role in all three of their World Series titles mentioned above.

He was one of, if not the best player on Zaidi's lone playoff team with the Giants back in 2021, making the All-Star team and winning a Silver Slugger award. That 2021 season was also Posey's last as a player.

He might've retired from playing, but Posey has been extremely involved with the organization since he stopped playing. In fact, he was as involved as a former player can possibly be by being a part of the ownership group of the team.

Posey happened to play a huge role in the Giants extending Chapman just weeks ago, promising that the team was committed to spending a ton and bringing a winner to the Bay Area. It turns out that he might've known first-hand exactly what was going to transpire.

Now that Posey is hired, the question is how effective will he be in this role? Posey obviously has all of those years of experience as a player, and knows the game better than just about anyone, but playing the game is different than being a president of baseball operations. He is the primary decision-maker now, and the fate of this organization is in his hands more than anyone else.

On one hand, trusting Posey with everything he has accomplished with this organization feels like a good thing. On the other hand, trusting someone with no front office experience to make the decisions feels like a recipe for disaster. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.