The wait is over: San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics have finalized a pending 3-year deal that is set to send shockwaves throughout MLB…..Read more

A year ago at this time, Giants manager Bob Melvin convinced Bryan Price, his longtime friend, pitching coach and fellow Cal baseball alum, to put on a major-league uniform again. If it were for anyone except Melvin, and if it were anywhere except San Francisco, Price wouldn’t have said yes.

After one season with the Giants, Price has changed his answer. He informed the team last week that he would not return as pitching coach for the 2025 season.

“The chance was too great to pass up, but I also knew going in that it would be for the short term, a year or two,” Price, a San Francisco native who grew up in Mill Valley, Calif., and pitched at Cal, said in a phone interview. “It was a chance to get to work with a dear friend again in the city in which you were born. That was a brass ring I had to grab and I’m really glad I did. I hoped I could make a positive impact on the pitchers there.”

Price narrowly missed playing with Melvin at Cal but they formed a friendship when their MLB coaching careers overlapped for six seasons with the Seattle Mariners and Arizona Diamondbacks. Additionally, Price served as a pitching coach in Cincinnati, where he also managed from 2014-18, and for a season in Philadelphia, before joining the San Diego Padres as a senior advisor to Melvin in 2022-23.

Price (left) and Melvin with Seattle in 2004. (Ben Margot / Associated Press)

Price, 62, had been hesitant to take another coaching job after he had walked away from the Phillies following the pandemic-shortened 2020 season despite having two more years on his contract. But Melvin’s offer and the opportunity to represent his boyhood team was too intriguing to resist. The Giants offered Price a two-year contract when he was hired a year ago but he asked for a one-year deal instead.

“I felt bad about leaving in Philadelphia and still do,” Price said. “So I wanted to go year by year and see how it goes. And after 40 years in the professional game, spending a lot of time away from home is part of the sacrifice you have to make when you’re younger and trying to cut your teeth, trying to get to the major leagues and stay.

At the time, the sacrifice feels like it’s worth it. As you get older and you realize you’re closer to the end than the beginning, there’s a greater appreciation for time with family and the things you want to do in your life. That was my initial pull to leave (Philadelphia) after 2020 and it’s very similar this year.”

Price’s job in San Francisco came with unexpected challenges. First-half injuries to Blake Snell, Tristan Beck and Keaton Winn left the Giants scrambling to cover three-fifths of their rotation. The planned second-half bounce from rehabbing veterans Robbie Ray and Alex Cobb did not materialize.

The bullpen wasn’t in the same state of flux as the rotation despite leading the NL in innings. It’s especially impressive given their workload that relievers finished strong while posting a 3.13 ERA (second in the NL behind Milwaukee) over the final two months.

But the Giants also made a fairly dramatic change at closer when they optioned right-hander Camilo Doval, a 2023 NL All-Star, to Triple A in early August. Doval, whose walk rate spiked this past season, spent fewer than 10 days with Sacramento before he returned in a setup role to right-hander Ryan Walker, who is likely to enter spring training as the incumbent closer.

“The bullpen was the strength of our club,” Price said. “They did the heavy lifting and answered the bell time and time again. I was really proud of the bullpen and how they continued to compete even when we were out of it.” The pitching story of the Giants’ season, though, was the abundance of youth.

The plan didn’t call for the Giants to lead the National League in innings pitched by rookies, but that’s how the season played out. Despite Logan Webb leading the NL in innings pitched with 204 1/3, the Giants’ 536 1/3 rookie innings were second only to Oakland and amounted to more than 37 percent of the team’s total volume. It was also the most innings thrown by rookies in a Giants season since 1975.

Not surprisingly, the overall pitching performance lacked consistency. Although the pitching numbers improved in the second half, largely because of Snell’s dominant, 12-start run that began July 9, the Giants finished the season with a 4.10 ERA that ranked 19th among 30 major-league clubs. Leaning on so much inexperience meant that the Giants slipped in an area that had been crucial to their pitching philosophy; one season after they allowed the fewest walks in the majors (403), the Giants issued the 10th most bases on balls (526).