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Leif Skodnick – World Baseball Network | Oct 4th, 2025 3:30pm EDT
Two years ago, Bob Melvin though the San Francisco Giants might be his last stop as a manager in baseball.
But now, just days after the Giants elected to part ways with the veteran manager after two mediocre seasons, Melvin has another stop in mind.
“I’ve always wanted to manage in Japan, I don’t know if that’s realistic, but that’s something I’ve always wanted to do. As far as what’s next here, I’m not sure yet,” Melvin told the San Francisco Chronicle on Friday. “I’ve had the elite of the elite and really I love the style of baseball they play. I really enjoyed my time over there and watching baseball there.”
As a manager in Major League Baseball, Melvin managed Ichiro Suzuki during his two-year tenure in Seattle and Yu Darvish during his two years with the San Diego Padres. He also brought his Oakland A’s to Tokyo to open the season in 2012 and 2019, giving him a taste of Japan’s baseball culture.
He has a career record of 1,679-1,588 in 22 seasons as an MLB skipper, having managed the Mariners, Arizona Diamondbacks, the A’s, Padres, and the Giants. Over the last two seasons in San Francisco, the Giants went 161-163 under Melvin, finishing 81-81 this year in a wild, up-and-down season that saw the Giants compete for the last wild card in the National League, but ultimately finish short of the postseason.
The Big Lead’s J.P. Hoornstra made the leap of linking Melvin to the Yomiuri Giants, though it was likely a somwhat flippant turn of phrase. The season is still being played in Japan, and Yomiuri is currently managed by Shinnosuke Abe.
Several Americans have managed in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball and found success there, among them former New York Mets and Texas Rangers manager Bobby Valentine, who won a Japan Series title with the Chiba Lotte Marines in 2005. Before he managed the Kansas City Royals, Trey Hillman led the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters to a Japan Series title in 2006. Terry Collins, the longest tenured manager in New York Mets history, managed the Orix Buffaloes for two seasons.
Were Melvin to be hired by the Yomiuri Giants, it would be a departure from team tradition. No American has managed Yomiuri, the organization that is often referred to as “the New York Yankees of Japan,” and only one Giants manager – legendary slugger Sadaharu Oh – was not a Japanese citizen. Oh, who was born in Sumida, Tokyo, to a Japanese mother and a Taiwanese father, holds citizenship in the Republic of China.
None of the NPB’s 12 teams were managed by foreigners in the 2025 season.
This season, the Yomiuri Giants finished the regular season 70-69-4 in the Central League, 15 games behind their archrival, the Hanshin Tigers, who finished 85-54-4. They’ll open the Central League Climax Series against the Yokohama DeNA BayStars on Oct. 11 in Yokohama.
Photo: San Francisco Giants manager Bob Melvin, left, during a baseball game against the Arizona Diamondbacks in San Francisco, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
AloJapan.com