Bruce Bochy hangs up his uniform, poised for advisory role with Giants

Bruce Bochy managed 4,518 major league games over 28 seasons with the San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers. He understands the grind of a six-month season better than anyone.

Now he’s eager to advise a manager who will be tackling that assignment for the first time.

“I’m looking forward to getting back to the Bay,” Bochy, who is finalizing an agreement to return to the Giants in a special assistant role, said in a Wednesday phone interview. “And of course, I’m looking forward to getting back with the San Francisco Giants, seeing familiar faces and hopefully bring value any way I can.”

Bochy’s experience will be more valuable than ever now that the Giants are embarking on an unprecedented path following the hiring of University of Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello. It’s the first time in more than a century that a major league team is hiring a manager straight off a college campus with no professional playing or coaching experience.

Vitello will have Bochy as a resource. He’ll have special assistant Dusty Baker, too. Those aren’t merely two experienced major league managers. They are among the most accomplished managers in history. There’s a good chance that Bochy and Baker will be part of the same induction class in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 2027, when the next Eras Committee ballot cycle considers managers, umpires and executives from 1980 to the present.

One condition for enshrinement, of course, is that active managers are not eligible. This is where Bochy, who was replaced by Skip Schumaker after his three-year contract expired in Texas, makes an acknowledgment: He’s probably put the uniform on for the last time.

“I would say that’s where I’m at right now,” Bochy said. “I’ll add you don’t ever rule anything out. You don’t, you know? But I’m content with what I’m doing now. I certainly appreciate getting another opportunity to win a championship and I’m forever grateful for that. But I’m in a good place now. This is what I want to do. I want more time for myself and family but also to contribute to a game that I love.”

Bochy made his greatest contributions to the game in October while leading his teams to five pennants and four World Series titles — three in San Francisco from 2010-14 and then leading the Rangers to the franchise’s first championship in 2023. Beginning in 2010, Bochy rode the mother of all hot streaks while his teams, usually considered the underdog, dispatched 14 of 15 playoff opponents. Working with rosters that were far from flawless, Bochy demonstrated an uncanny ability to push the right buttons and put players in positions to succeed.

The Giants clinched the National League West on the final day of the regular season in 2010 before toppling the Atlanta Braves, Philadelphia Phillies and Rangers. They won six elimination games while getting past the Cincinnati Reds (managed by Baker) and St. Louis Cardinals before sweeping the Detroit Tigers in the World Series 2012. Bochy put the Giants on Madison Bumgarner’s back in 2014 when they won a wild-card game on the road against the Pittsburgh Pirates before carving through the Washington Nationals, Cardinals, and finally, the Kansas City Royals in a thrilling World Series that went the distance.

The Giants’ bullpen let them down in 2016 when the Chicago Cubs won three of four to capture an NL Division Series on their way to a championship, and Bochy stepped down in San Francisco after the 2019 season. But an opportunity to work with general manager Chris Young in Texas led to a breakthrough in 2023, when the Rangers dispatched the Tampa Bay Rays, Baltimore Orioles, Houston Astros and then pushed past the Arizona Diamondbacks to end a World Series title drought of more than 60 years when you count the franchise’s beginnings as the Washington Senators.

Bochy made a career of sizing up the opposing dugout, including his counterpart perched on the rail. He only needed to have a drink with Vitello and visit with him for 90 minutes at a Nashville, Tenn., restaurant on Oct. 26 to become convinced that Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey made a smart and inspired choice.

“I really like him, I do,” said Bochy, who lives in Tennessee during the offseason and had followed Vitello’s wildly successful program in Knoxville. “I enjoyed my talk with him. You hear about people, but you don’t know who they are until you talk to them. You can see a humility come out with Tony. You look at the road he went down before he became the head coach at Tennessee and he grinded pretty hard. He worked his tail off to get to this.

“I told Buster, ‘Hey, I get it. I see what you see.’ He’s impressive. He’s a baseball rat, you know? And he’s been doing this a long time. I know people are saying, ‘Well, is this going to work?’ But he’s been coaching since 2002. It’s not like he came out of a booth or the front office, or he hasn’t been on the field. He’s smart, personable, he’ll bring that energy every day. I really do commend Buster for thinking outside the box.”

Although their meeting was mostly an introduction, it didn’t take long before they started talking shop. Bochy shared some of his thoughts about bullpen management. He talked about some of the important themes and tones he wanted to strike in the first days of spring training.

“You have to adapt, but that’s true even if you’ve been doing it a while in the major leagues,” Bochy said. “Every year is different. You’ve got to adapt to every bullpen. Sure, there’s more games, but believe me, he’s smart enough to figure that out.

“With all the success he had, he could’ve run for mayor in Knoxville. He’s got a lot of confidence. You can see it in him when you talk to him. He’s all in on this challenge.”

What would Bochy’s advice be about relating to highly paid veteran players?

“The only advice I’d say is be yourself,” Bochy said. “He’s so likeable and personable. He’s worked with diverse players from all over the country at Tennessee. He’s had to work with a lot of different personalities. All that experience he’ll draw on and that’s going to work in the major leagues as well. So don’t change. Don’t try to be something you’re not.

“I think he’s going to be so good at that. He’s been in that dugout for a lot of games, so that’s not going to speed up on him. And hey, you learn on the job, too. He’ll have good people around him to help.”

Including two future Hall of Fame managers — even if Bochy is making no assumptions.

“We’ll see how that goes, but man, I know Dusty is going to be there,” Bochy said. “I’m not going to presume anything. It’s too sacred a place for me to be presumptuous.”

Giants chairman Greg Johnson told the San Francisco Chronicle earlier this week that the team was finalizing an agreement with Bochy to return.