The Giants made a handful of notable moves on the coaching staff and in the front office. The club announced the hirings of former big leaguers Javier López and Curt Casali as front office advisors. They’re adding another longtime MLB player in the dugout, as newly-signed reliever Sam Hentges tells reporters (including Shayna Rubin of The San Francisco Chronicle) that Jesse Chavez will be the new bullpen coach.
Chavez, 42, jumps into coaching a few months after the end of his playing career. He announced his retirement in July after being waived by the Braves. Chavez became a staple on MLBTR pages for a series of transactions that tended to land him back in Atlanta. He made four MLB appearances this year, reaching the big leagues for an 18th season.
A long reliever for the majority of his career, Chavez posted a 4.27 ERA in 657 appearances. He pitched for nine teams overall. The Giants were not one of them, but he spent four seasons in the Bay Area with the Athletics. He’ll replace Garvin Alston, who held the role for the past two seasons. San Francisco had arguably the sport’s best bullpen for the first few months of the 2025 season. Trades of Tyler Rogers and Camilo Doval and a late-season Tommy John surgery for new closer Randy Rodríguez leave them with a lot of work to do this offseason.
As for the new advisors, both have ties to the organization. Casali caught in the big leagues for parts of 11 seasons. He had separate stints in San Francisco from 2021-22 and again to close his career last year. He was in camp with the Braves this past season but retired after the team announced he wouldn’t be on the Opening Day roster. He jumped into front office work with the Reds and now heads back to San Francisco.
López was a longtime reliever who spent his final seven seasons in orange and black. He was an effective left-handed specialist for the 2010, ’12 and ’14 World Series teams. López was obviously a longtime teammate of president of baseball operations Buster Posey. He retired in 2017 and has remained adjacent to the organization as a color analyst for NBC Sports Bay Area.
San Francisco also made one notable personnel move that does not involve a former big leaguer. They promoted vice president of analytics Paul Bien to assistant general manager. He joins Jeremy Shelley as the club’s assistant GMs, who work underneath Posey and general manager Zack Minasian. Bien, a UCLA graduate, has been in the organization since 2012. His background is in data and technology, and he has worked alongside the scouting/player development groups as well as providing analytic information to the MLB staff.