It has been 30 years since Brian Sabean helped build baseball clubs anywhere but San Francisco, where he churned out three World Series champions, but that will change next season.
The Yankees on Tuesday named Sabean, 66, an executive advisor to senior vice president and general manager Brian Cashman, returning the longtime Giants executive to the organization where he got his start in professional baseball.
Sabean, who led the Giants’ baseball operations department from 1996-2018 and spent the past four seasons as an executive vice president with the franchise, said the Yankees job was a “better opportunity” for professional and personal reasons.
Sabean’s contract with the Giants expired Oct. 31. At that time, he said he sat down with CEO Larry Baer and president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and came to the agreement to explore other opportunities.
While Sabean was said to be working on strategic initiatives as a senior advisor and evaluator since Zaidi took over a restructured front office after the 2018 season, he said his role was more diminished than he expected.
“I expected to be more involved and in some cases, it didn’t turn out that way,” Sabean said. “At my age, I still have a great passion for the game. … I think I needed to be in a place that I could give back, be a mentor, contribute at any level at any time. This was a better opportunity, and it fit my family better, to be honest with you.”
Sabean said he expressed to Baer and Zaidi “some family needs and professional interests.” That he landed with the Yankees, where he got his start in pro baseball as a scout in 1985, “worked out beyond my wildest dreams,” he said.
In a statement, the Giants called Sabean a “Forever Giant” and thanked him “for his enormous contributions to our organization and wish him the best of luck on his new position with the New York Yankees.”
“Brian has been a pillar of our game and a cornerstone of this franchise for 30 years and we are extremely appreciative of his leadership and the legacy he leaves behind. We truly believe he’s a Hall of Fame worthy executive in every sense of the word and wish him, his wife Amanda, and his entire family nothing but the best in the future. He will always be a Forever Giant.”
Sabean, who helped build homegrown championship cores with the Yankees in the 1990s and Giants in the 2010s, was primarily involved in the amateur draft under Zaidi and thanked Giants amateur scouting director Michael Holmes for including him in the process.
He declined to speculate on why he wasn’t more involved elsewhere but said he felt “wanted” in New York.
“Obviously with new regimes, there are new group dynamics and wants and needs. It became what it was,” Sabean said. “I’m just so thankful that I’m relevant enough to get this opportunity. At my age, it’s all about being wanted and needed, and I feel that here with the Yankees.”
Sabean’s exact role with the Yankees is still to be determined, though he expects to be involved in multiple departments and will report directly to Cashman.
Sabean spent the first eight seasons of his career with the Yankees, starting as a scout in 1985 before serving as the Director of Scouting from 1986-90 and Vice President of Player Development and Scouting from 1990-92. It was during his tenure with the Yankees that the franchise drafted franchise icons Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada.
Sabean joined the Giants in 1993 as assistant to the general manager and vice president of scouting player personnel under Bob Quinn. He succeeded Quinn as the Giants’ GM in 1996. He was the Giants’ general manager from 1996 until 2014, then was promoted to executive vice president of baseball operations from 2015-18.
With Sabean calling the shots, the Giants posted winning records in 13 of 18 seasons and reached the playoffs eight times. Sabean’s Giants won five division titles, four National League pennants and the only World Series titles in the franchise’s San Francisco history.
Sabean joins former Chicago Cubs GM Jim Hendry as an adviser to Cashman in a front office that includes assistant general managers Jean Afterman and Mike Fishman, and vice presidents Damon Oppenheimer (domestic amateur scouting), Kevin Reese (player development) and Tim Naehring (baseball operations). Hendry joined the Yankees before the 2012 season as a special assignment scout.
Staff writer Laurence Miedema and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Join the Conversation
We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.