Giants manager Bob Melvin calls 2024 his 'hardest year' as San Francisco barrels toward fourth-place finish

Melvin's first year on the job has not quite gone according to plan

By Matt Snyder Sep 9, 2024 at 1:35 pm ET• 3 min read

The San Francisco Giants are headed toward missing the playoffs for the seventh time in the last eight seasons. They haven't won a playoff series since 2016 -- if you count winning the one-game Wild Card a "series" -- and haven't been past the divisional round since 2014. 

Given the stature of the franchise and the top-10 payroll, this has to be pretty disappointing. Plus, the Giants added a veteran and well-respected manager this past offseason in Bob Melvin. To be sitting right now at 71-73, 7 1/2 games out of a playoff spot likely isn't acceptable to Melvin, either. 

In fact, he called this the "hardest year" he's ever had as a manager.

"My first year in Seattle was really hard because I was a first-year manager," Melvin told The Athletic. "And we won 93 games. My first year in San Diego was tough because I had come from Oakland, where I'd been for 11 years, and it was a completely different deal there. And we went to the NLCS. So you get inspired by coming to a new place. Now, here it was completely different, because this is San Francisco. This is the signature team in the Bay Area. This is everything I've dreamed of coming in here. And so for it not to go well -- and my expectation was that it would go well -- makes it probably the hardest year I've had.

"Last year was hard in San Diego because of what we accomplished the year before. But this year was more personal because it's San Francisco. So in that respect, this has been a very difficult year for me. Now, it's not over. There's still a lot to accomplish with some of the younger players and the guys that we have leading into next year. But there are nights when it's very uncomfortable for me."