Above, left to right: Larry Baer, Bruce Bochy, and Roy Eisenhardt. Photo by Rikki Ward Photography.

This is a partial transcript of this program from February 4, 2015.

ROY EISENHARDT: Bruce, this year probably set a new paradigm for how teams go about winning the World Series. Take us through your rollercoaster ride and how you got to where you did.
BRUCE BOCHY: Well, Roy, it was a rollercoaster ride. In spring training I felt really good about this club – where the pitching was, and as far as our position players, we picked up [Michael] Morse, and so we had a power bat out there to help us out. As we started the season, we played as good as any team in baseball. We might have been the best team in baseball. Oakland and our club just took off. Oakland kept it going longer than we did, and we went the other way. We were the worst team in baseball. We had meetings – we tried everything to get on track.Really, the offense left us, but the pitching stayed consistent, so I was encouraged that we would come out of this, and it had to be sooner rather than later, because as we got down to the last two or three weeks, we were battling to get to the postseason.
That last road trip, we still felt we could catch the Dodgers. We started in Arizona; we took two out of three. Then we had to go to San Diego, then LA. It might have been three games [we were behind] at that time. [We thought,] “If we keep it close, we’ll put some pressure on them and maybe take the series if not sweep them there in LA.” Well, we ran into San Diego, and they just pummeled us. Their pitching was unbelievable; they had three starters that were on fire, and we got swept there. So then we were scrambling to get to the postseason.
We ended up winning 88 games. Milwaukee had their struggles, so we clinched early enough where we could rest some guys, including the big guy, [Madison] Bumgarner, which was the key to our postseason. We needed him for that game in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh’s home record was 51 and 30 – it was crazy, and we needed our horse to be fresh to go there. He got us off to a good start, and from then on we just rolled. Everybody did something to contribute. We went on to Washington, and we got a great effort by [Tim] Hudson and by [Yusmeiro] Petit in that huge 18-inning game, which helped turn that around. Of course, [in] St. Louis Bumgarner was leading the way again.
We played a team [in the World Series] that was on fire, too. Kansas City had swept the Angels, which was a really good team, and then Baltimore, so I knew this would be a dogfight.
It went to Game 7, and we had our big guy available. I just remember after we won the thing, the players embraced, the coaches and I embraced, and out there Buster [Posey] and I embraced. And at the same time, it was unbelievable, we pulled away and we said, “How in the hell did we do it this time?” Because it was an up-and-down thing, but it was really a neat moment.
EISENHARDT: You probably had the best DH [designated hitter] in the National League with Bumgarner. [Laughter.]
BOCHY: And I’m going to hear it all spring too, trust me. He was on me – I think it was August [when I heard], “I’m not going to hit ninth today, am I? [Laughter.] I’m going to hit fifth or sixth…” You know, this young kid, he’s a man-child. He takes a lot of pride – you know, he’s holding runners better, fielding his position a lot better, and he’s swinging the bat very well now. So that’s a lot of pride in a great athlete that wants to be good at everything.
EISENHARDT: When you brought him in in the seventh game, there was a bit of a tension there before things settled down. What do you think [would have happened] if Joe Panik hadn’t bailed you out on that ground ball up the middle?
BOCHY: Yeah, you look at plays that really are the turning points in games. That play [a diving stop to turn a double play in the third-inning] was as big as any play we had throughout the postseason. At that point – if he doesn’t make that play, I’m headed out to get [Jeremy] Affeldt and bringing in [Tim] Lincecum [next]. I’ve got to make a change, [with runners on] first and third [base], and he not only got an out, but he got two outs. You talk about Morse’s big hit and what Bumgarner did, but that kid Joe Panik with what was at stake – it doesn’t get any bigger.
LARRY BAER: One thing, Roy, that’s lost in that play is that Boch actually had a role in that play. You talk about getting two outs – do you remember how the second out was recorded? The second out was recorded on an umpire review. The second out [originally] was [for a play in which] the runner was called safe at first. And Boch went out and asked for a review.
EISENHARDT: [To Bochy] So you get a bonus in there? [Laughter.]
BAER: Hey, wait a minute!
BOCHY: It’s still in the mail. You know, actually that review – managers are getting help from inside the clubhouse. Shawon Dunston, he looks at it for us. They let us know if it’s worth reviewing.
EISENHARDT: You come off a year where you finish third or fourth or second or whatever, and it’s easy to figure out how you’re going to get that team motivated. How do you deal with coming off a year where you’ve won, and it’s your third time in five years, and you create that sense of freshness and newness and competitiveness all over again with these guys going into the season?
BOCHY: Well, these are things that we will talk about in spring training, at the Opening Day talk, as we get ready to open the season. You’re never more vulnerable to complacency than when you’re riding a wave of success, so you have to remind the guys: The target is on your back. But also when you’re in a situation like us, [where you win] three out of five years, hopefully you want more – you’re getting greedy, you’re getting hungry, and you want to be known as a dynasty. It’s getting back to what I talked about with the great players: they never feel like they arrive. They’re always trying to improve and get better. Teams should be the same.
But it’s such a great group of guys with so much character. I’ve got Hunter Pence; he’ll be on them. Of course Posey’s a professional. They make my job a lot easier, because they’re going to come in and they’re going to want to do it again, and they take it personally when the oddsmakers put us where we’re at. And, [with] some of the comments, they look at that as a challenge.
EISENHARDT: Larry, the days of [when] you go out to the ballpark and watch the game and buy a beer are long gone. It’s almost an inversion between television and scoreboards – you can watch them on your cellphone now. How do you see, if you do, the prominence of the availability of these games on so many different delivery systems changing the way fans approach the game?
BAER: It’s interesting. I think it’s kind of a tale of two extremes in some ways, Roy, because what all of us had in our childhood – those of us who were baseball fans as kids – I don’t think that’s lost. I think there are still a lot of people that want to go to a ball game and sit for three hours. We play a lot of day games, which is great and can be a wonderful escape. You can be with a son or a daughter, or a parent or a grandparent, and you can enjoy that two and a half to three hours.
I’ll tell you a quick story. We were building Pac Bell Park [now AT&T Park] and we were talking to companies about naming rights. One was a Silicon Valley company, I won’t mention its name, but it was a very big Silicon Valley company at the time. They said, “We’re interested in putting our name on the ballpark, but we want to do ‘smart seats.’” I said, “What’s a smart seat?” Well, when you sit down, because we have so much technology out there, you’ll be able to plug in, and you’ll be able to push a button and get on your device at the time and you’ll be able to see a replay when you want. We said, “We don’t know if that’s a good idea or a bad idea. We’ll test it.”
We tested it with our fans and found that about 15 or 20 percent wanted it, and the other 80 percent said, “We go to the ballpark to get away from all of that.”
Then on the other hand, people are busy. People want to keep up with baseball and their team. Baseball is the most [trackable] of all the sports, in a good way. Fans are very tied into their team – it’s an everyday sport and it’s seven months long. The great thing about baseball is there are a lot of games and it’s information rich. When people are busy, to be able to connect in and find exactly what’s happening, how it’s happened, whether they’re at work or whatever, is great.
EISENHARDT: It’s like everything else – baseball has to adapt to the way the world is going, but you don’t want to lose the fundamental core of the game.
We all know the fact that Pablo [Sandoval] went to Boston. But the question that several people are wondering about is the nature, today, of economics in baseball and the way the system works: [What is] the cost of trying to keep a player versus investing in your farm system and bringing players up to fill a hole?
BAER: We have a good track record, but it’s not going to be perfect, and there’s no way you can get it to 100 percent. Once a player spends his first day in the major leagues, the clock starts and you have a six-year period where you can be retained by that team. The first couple of years [there’s] a controlled salary – you can pay the player the minimum. Then after that it’s an arbitration system, and then after six years the player is a free agent. There’s a lot of strategies you engage in to try and mitigate the effects of free agency, meaning signing players in that six-year period to buy out free agent years so you can keep them going forward.
We’ve done that with lots of guys. We did that with Matt Cain; we did that with Buster Posey; we’ve done that with Madison Bumgarner, thankfully, who’s signed through 2019, and a number of folks. When you get to your six, as we did with Pablo, and you don’t have him signed, you run into the potential peril of 29 other teams competing for the player’s services, and it puts the player at risk.
In the case of Hunter Pence, we were in that situation where he came upon his free agent year and he re-signed. We’ve done that with a number of folks. One of our strategies is to sign players that we like before we get to the end of the line and to buy out those free agent years. It’s something we tried with Pablo; we had negotiations at the beginning of last year and weren’t able to conclude them.
EISENHARDT: You have an organization that has been able to stay stable in a system that has the potential for so much turmoil. A lot of clubs can’t seem to handle it, and you do very well.
BAER: So much of it is the farm system, and it’s a credit to Brian [Sabean, the Giants’ general manager] and his staff, and Bruce and his staff. If you looked when we took the field last year in the World Series, the entire infield was homegrown: Posey, [Brandon] Belt, Panik, [Brandon] Crawford, and Sandoval.
BOCHY: You don’t see that very often. Our scouting has done an unbelievable job, especially [with] the pitching: Cain, Lincecum, Bumgarner – they’re your core. Those are the guys you have hopefully for long term, and they lead you the way. And Posey, those type of players.
EISENHARDT: Bruce, going back on to the field, your division looks tougher this year.
BOCHY: Oh, it’s gotten a lot tougher. It’s going to be more balanced than ever. Down south, the Dodgers have made some changes down there – they had their pitching and they’re still the team to beat, with their two big horses there [Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke]. I think you go further south to San Diego – they’re the ones who have really made a lot of noise this year. It seems like they’re determined to try and get their fan base back and get back to the playoffs. So they have signed some guys that are really going to provide some offense for them. The guy leading the way is [Matt] Kemp. The one problem they had was that they couldn’t score runs, but they’ve had pretty good pitching – their pitching is one of the top staffs in baseball. Now when you go down to their park, Petco [Park] is a pitcher-friendly park, probably more so than AT&T, so pitchers get their confidence going down there. Now you have to deal with a better offensive team.
Arizona made some changes; they’re going to have their first baseman [Paul Goldschmidt] back. Colorado, I’m not sure. I think they’re counting on Tulo [Troy Tulowitzki] and their guys being healthy, [Juan] Gonzalez. But this is going to be a very tough division, and it’s going to be more balanced than ever.
EISENHARDT: You know, all you have to do is get to the wild card play-in game and you’re all set. [Laughter.]
BOCHY: I don’t want a wild card; that’s like five years off your life, doing that wild card game. I’m done with it. Look at this grey.
It’s funny; I felt more pressure in that game than in the seventh game of the World Series.
EISENHARDT: How do you see yourself having changed as a manager from when you first started doing this to the way you feel about yourself now?
BOCHY: It’s a hard question for me to answer how I’ve changed. Hopefully I haven’t changed too much except for maybe [having] learned from my mistakes and gotten a little smarter.
I will say, because of some moves in the earlier playoffs, I know I’ve changed in that I don’t concern myself with the personal feelings of a player at that point. I mean, I love Jake Peavy – this guy, I’ve had for years and he’s back with us – but to go in the second inning and pull him out of a World Series game – sure I care about him, but I felt I had to do it. The one thing that worked for us was the unselfish ways in which they played. When these moves were made, like [Sergio] Romo going, not once did they come in my office and complain; not once did they question what I was doing.
It gets back to the character, the makeup of the ball club: It’s a very unselfish group. And I’m sure they’re ticked off, they’re upset – they’re competitors, and I want them to be. I don’t want them singing “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” when I pull them out of the game. [Laughter.] I think it’s why we’ve had so much success, because these guys do set their egos aside when they go out that door.