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San Francisco Chronicle​

Did Giants' Bob Melvin just get the one thing in sports you don't want?

Now that skipper Bob Melvin and his coaching staff have been given a vote of confidence, we can all stop talking about chopping blocks and hot seats, and get back to simply enjoying San Francisco Giants baseball, right? Just kidding. There's nothing that will suck the confidence out of a manager and his coaches and fans faster than the Dreaded Vote of Confidence, or DVOC. People in baseball stopped falling for the old hidden-ball trick a century ago, but we still fall for the DVOC. The Wall Street Journal did a study several years back. Over a three-year period, of NFL coaches given a vote of confidence, 20% of them were fired within a month. I am not saying that Buster Posey, the Giants' president of baseball operations, is using the DVOC as a distraction, to fend off media and fan criticism, and to buy time while he and his ownership council debate Melvin's fate, and that of his coaches. I am saying that if I was Melvin, I wouldn't pay more than a month ahead on my pickleball club membership dues. Posey announced Tuesday that the Giants were picking up the 2026 option on Melvin's contract. At the time, the Giants had lost 12 of 16 games. Posey said if anyone was to blame for the slump, it was him, since he built the roster. 'So I felt like … this was a good time for me to show my belief in Bob and his coaching staff,' Posey said. Posey was in a tough spot. He had two options. One: Remain silent while the sharks circle Melvin and his coaches, especially hitting coach Pat Burrell and third base coach Matt Williams, thus forcing Melvin to face questions about his lame-duck status the rest of the season. Two, the option Posey chose: Pick up Melvin's option and issue the DVOC. Actually, there was a third option: Show real confidence by extending Melvin's contract beyond next season, and extending into next season the contracts of the coaches, whose contracts apparently expire after this season. If Posey has confidence in Melvin's confidence in his coaches, why not show those fellas some extension love? Posey was in a lose-lose-lose position. He did his best to raise spirits, but I hope he's not disappointed if we curb our enthusiasm. Picking up Melvin's contract for next season, for about $4 million, is not a big risk. It means that if the Giants convert their June swoon into a July oh-my and August disgust, and Buster and the brass do decide to fire Melvin, majority owner Charles Johnson will have to dig into his couch cushions for spare change. One positive aspect of the DVOC is this: no more excuses. If Melvin's lame-duck contract status, and that of his coaches, was putting pressure on everyone, including the players, they should feel a little freer now. No more, We suck because we're trying too hard to keep the skipper and the coaches from getting fired. But, aside from a brief, manufactured feel-good announcement, has the situation really changed? Why should there not be heat on Melvin, and on Williams and Burrell? If the Giants' hitters were performing above expectations, if Willy Adames was hitting 35 points above his lifetime average, wouldn't Burrell be getting praise, probably deserved? But the hitters, overall, are performing below expectations. Maybe the very concept of hitting coaches is flawed. Do any of them make any real difference? When the Giants traded for Rafael Devers, he almost immediately huddled with Barry Bonds, who is considered a genius-level hitting guru, and who knows every secret of left-handed power-hitting at Oracle Park. Bombs away! Yet, in Devers' first 15 games as a Giant, he hit .203 with two homers, striking out 25 times. As for Williams, any third base coach can run into an unlucky streak, but if Williams' stay/go calls continue to backfire, do we all just pretend to ignore them? What makes a good or not-so-good baseball coach is a mystery to most of us, and all we know is what we see. Team general managers seem to feel the same way, otherwise why do coaches get fired, and why do they almost always get fired when the players under them are struggling? The Giants' players seemed happy with the announcement that Melvin's option was picked up. Maybe that's the one good thing coming out of this. If Posey's DVOC takes even a tiny bit of pressure off the players, frees 'em up to play, then Buster Ballgame did his job as a team boss. Maybe Posey's DVOC was the right move. It came with a lot of boilerplate — from Posey, Melvin, the players — meant to show solidarity and confidence, and a lack of amateurish panic. It was part theater, and it was dramatic enough to shine a ray of sunshine and hope on a struggling team. But the Giants better make the playoffs.