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Farhan talked to @knbrmurph this morning. 6:45 in, he admits two ways he (and Kapler) screwed up.
1. They didn& #39;t seek advice from "advocates" during the process. "we were just thinking about what we needed to do, rather than what the right thing was." https://omny.fm/shows/murph-mac-podcast/11-13-farhan-zaidi-discusses-why-giants-hired-gabe">https://omny.fm/shows/mur...
1. They didn& #39;t seek advice from "advocates" during the process. "we were just thinking about what we needed to do, rather than what the right thing was." https://omny.fm/shows/murph-mac-podcast/11-13-farhan-zaidi-discusses-why-giants-hired-gabe">https://omny.fm/shows/mur...
2. "We asked the victims if they wanted to go to the police, and we thought that was enough. In the conversations we& #39;ve had, we understand that was woefully insufficient ... we needed to do whatever we could to provide more support."
Correct me if I& #39;m wrong, but a huge part of the furor has to do with needing five years to reach these conclusions. It& #39;s not about cancel culture or making sure Kapler never works again. It& #39;s about honestly owning an egregious judgment lapse. Not sure if that happened before this
Kapler& #39;s old blog really didn& #39;t give that same vibe. It was more of a "Whoa, I didn& #39;t know about the sexual assault part, and once you realize that, you can see how I handled everything properly." That was a big part of the problem.
Kapler might strike a similar tone as Zaidi did today, and it might come from the heart. But it& #39;s hard to believe these are conclusions that would have been reached without fans/media continuing to talk about it. It would have five years in the past, without any lessons learned.
So two points: The first is that if all the attention made two people realize exactly how they screwed up in a way that they wouldn& #39;t have without the attention, that& #39;s the best possible argument against the, "He apologized! Move on!" crowd. Everyone needed to be loud about this.
Second, it& #39;s still hard to believe that Kapler is worth this! That any manager is worth this. If you can guarantee a championship with a crystal ball, you can make a cold, ruthless business argument, but the offseason after the Baer fiasco?
My guess is that everyone& #39;s heads were so buried in their work that they were only tangentially aware of how big of a deal this was. @extrabaggs detailed an awkward 30 seconds of silence in his piece https://theathletic.com/1374240/2019/11/13/the-gabe-kapler-era-in-san-francisco-will-begin-not-with-a-fresh-start-but-with-opening-old-wounds/">https://theathletic.com/1374240/2... that indicates there was no razor-sharp response ready
Which kinda undercuts the we-talked-to-some-advocates-and-realized-how-we-screwed-up argument. Because if they had properly done that due diligence, they would have instantly had a better version of "That sucked. We learned from it. We should have learned more from it years ago."
Instead, it gave off a real, "Whoa. People are still furious. Be careful, let& #39;s think about how to approach this" vibe. The response should have been *locked* *down* a day before the press conference. (Maybe I& #39;m wrong about that and reading too much into the pause, dunno.)
