Will Buster Posey Change Giants' Past Strategy in Upcoming 2025 MLB Draft?

The most impactful change the San Francisco Giants made this past offseason was moving on from Farhan Zaidi as the team’s president of baseball operations and replacing him with Buster Posey.

The former star catcher, who retired as a player following the 2021 campaign, faced the tall task of getting the franchise back to the level of prominence it was at during his playing days when he helped the team win three World Series championships.

Posey made his presence felt immediately with two major splashes in free agency.

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Shortstop Willy Adames was signed to a seven-year, $182 million contract, the largest in franchise history.

That is now the second-largest deal for the Giants after they shocked the baseball world by acquiring Rafael Devers from the Boston Red Sox with an in-season blockbuster trade no one saw coming.

Along with Adames, the team signed future Hall of Fame starting pitcher Justin Verlander to a one-year, $15 million deal.

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While those additions haven’t panned out exactly as hoped thus far, if there is one thing Posey has proven in his time as president, it's that he isn’t afraid to be aggressive to upgrade the Major League roster.

In about a week, he will face arguably the tallest task of his tenure: the 2025 MLB draft.

When he took over the front office, the farm system was in pretty rough shape.

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The previous regime did not hit on many early picks, with first baseman Bryce Eldridge looking like the only big league contributor who will have been selected in the first round since Patrick Bailey in 2020.

“Under scouting director Michael Holmes, the Giants have tended toward either higher upside, standout athletic testers (Bryce Eldridge, Walker Martin, Reggie Crawford, Dakota Jordan) or going underslot (last year's top pick James Tibbs, now with the Red Sox as part of the Rafael Devers trade) at high picks,” wrote Kiley McDaniel of ESPN in a recent piece highlighting the biggest question facing every team heading into the 2025 MLB Draft.

That leads to the question: How different will things look with Posey running the show compared to the previous regime?

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McDaniel isn’t expecting too big of a change in Posey's first year leading the charge.

“Posey's point of view tends to be more traditional, so he's not expected to influence a change in draft strategy. Steele Hall and Wehiwa Aloy fit the athletic tester criteria well, and you could argue Kyson Witherspoon and Gavin Fien do, too,” McDaniel added.

Whichever direction Posey opts to go, the goal remains the same: restock a minor league system that has already been dipped into to acquire Devers and is lacking much upside beyond Eldridge.

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