And now for something completely different in the venerable history of a storied rivalry: Andrew Friedman fights Buster Posey.

Six years ago, the San Francisco Giants loudly recruited Friedman Dodgers lieutenant Farhan Zaidi to bring the Giants back to glory. After a season with a winning record and no wins in the postseason series, the Giants fired Zaidi as their president of baseball operations on Monday.

His successor: Posey, the franchise icon, the only Giant to win the Most Valuable Player award in the last 20 years, the catcher when the Giants won the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014.

“We believe it is time for new leadership to strengthen our team so we can consistently compete for championships,” Giants chairman Greg Johnson said in a statement.

In 2022, a year after retiring as a player, Posey purchased an ownership stake in the team and joined its board of directors. Posey will surround himself with experienced advisors – one of whom, manager Bob Melvin, will keep his job even though Zaidi lost his.

In one crucial respect, Posey was already in action. Under Zaidi, the Giants had Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in big spots. When the Giants’ ownership group recently pushed to retain third baseman Matt Chapman, The Athletic reported that the man who essentially completed the $151 million deal was Posey, not Zaidi.

The inability to sign a superstar — and in fairness, Zaidi signed Carlos Correa before the Giants canceled the deal due to physical exam concerns — negated one of Zaidi’s strengths.

Farhan Zaidi, a former Dodgers manager, has parted ways with the Giants.

(Eric Risberg/Associated Press)

With the Dodgers, Friedman and Zaidi excelled at finding talent on the sidelines: for example, they signed Max Muncy as a minor league free agent and acquired utility man Chris Taylor in a minor league trade. Even if these supporting players don’t develop into stars – and Muncy and Taylor did – they provide the depth every successful team needs.

Without a Posey in the lineup, the Giants were far too dependent on players like first baseman-outfielder LaMonte Wade Jr. and outfielder Mike Yastrzemski. And after coveted free agents signed elsewhere, the Giants all too often supplemented their rosters with more free agents more suited to deep roles than lead roles: The 2023 collection included outfielders Michael Conforto and Mitch Haniger, as well as pitchers Sean Manaea and Taylor Rogers and Ross Stripling.

The draft brought no help. In Zaidi’s six drafts, no player has produced even a 3.0 career WAR. The Giants have not had a first-round pick since 2011 either. The Giants’ first-round picks that preceded their streak of three championships in five years included Posey (2008) and pitchers Madison Bumgarner (2007), Tim Lincecum (2006) and Matt Cain (2002).

According to Fangraphs, Chapman ranked fifth among NL position players in WAR this season, and Logan Webb ranked fifth among NL pitchers. The Giants had no other player ranked in the top 30 position players or top 30 pitchers.

Maybe Posey can convince Blake Snell, who can opt out of his contract, to stay in San Francisco and give the Giants two aces at the top of their rotation. But the NL West is crazy good now: The Dodgers have won 98 games, the San Diego Padres 93. The Arizona Diamondbacks, who stormed into the World Series last year with an 84-win team, won 89 games this year.

One little thing: Posey will be eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2027. The only player to be inducted into the Hall of Fame who later became general manager: Ted Simmons, who managed the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1992 and 1993. He resigned midway through the 1993 season. after a heart attack.

In his first and only full season in charge of the Pirates’ baseball operations, Simmons led his team to the division championship. Simmons, of course, had Barry Bonds on his roster. Posey has to find his Posey.