This story was excerpted from Maria Guardado’s Giants Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
LOS ANGELES -- The Giants lost one of the primary members of their pitching infrastructure on Friday, when Brian Bannister officially left the organization to become a senior advisor to pitching for the White Sox.
Bannister, 42, had served as the Giants’ director of pitching since November 2019 and emerged as a valuable resource for pitchers across all levels of the organization, offering feedback on everything from mechanical tweaks to analytics to pitch design. Along with pitching coaches Andrew Bailey and J.P. Martinez, Bannister helped turn San Francisco into an attractive destination for pitchers who were looking to rebound, with Kevin Gausman, Carlos Rodón and Alex Cobb among the team’s recent success stories.
“He’s the think tank behind it all,” Cobb said. “I think a lot of the success that you guys have seen, all the reclamation projects that have happened, myself included -- he’s seen diamonds in the rough and understood how to incorporate what he saw in the dude. … It’s a huge loss.”
“It’s a tough one,” added left-hander Kyle Harrison. “He’s a smart dude. He knows his stuff. He’s going to help them out in Chicago. Definitely a tough guy to lose. He definitely helped me out in my Minor League career.”
Manager Gabe Kapler said the Giants will spend the next several weeks considering whether to hire a new director of pitching or backfill the spot by asking someone on the current staff to take on more responsibilities.
“We’ll miss Banny,” Kapler said. “Such a great contributor for us for several years. One of the things that stands out about Banny and his skill set is he can diagnose problems very well. He thinks critically about how to fix those problems. He was a great resource to our Major League pitching staff, but also to our Minor League system. I’m happy for him, though.”
Bannister’s departure could hint at greater changes coming for the Giants, who have faded from the National League Wild Card race after going 7-13 in September and 6-26 over their last 32 road games. Chairman Greg Johnson has reportedly said he expects both president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and Kapler to return next year, but the late-season collapse could force the organization to consider overhauling this offseason.
“From a coaching staff perspective, we have to figure out ways to motivate better and to bring the best out of the players that we work with,” Kapler said. “We have to be accountable for that, too. I have to be accountable for that, too. There’s a constant looking back, looking forward.
“What can we learn from the last two weeks, the last month, the last several months? How can we apply those lessons right this minute? What action steps can we take? What conversations can we have? How can we scale some of those messages and use each other as force multipliers, get those messages out and motivate a little bit better? It’s not too late to make these small process adjustments right now.”