Giants bring Baker ‘back home’ as special adviser

SAN FRANCISCO — Dusty Baker is back for a third stint with the San Francisco Giants.

The longtime manager will return as a special adviser to baseball operations and work on both the baseball and business sides, the team announced Thursday.

“I’ve enjoyed my stops at various places, but I’m happy to be back home,” Baker said in a statement released by the club. “I look forward to providing guidance to the organization and helping the Giants get back to the top in a very tough division.”

Baker, 74, retired from the Houston Astros after last season, his 26th year as a major league manager. He said then he still had more to offer a team and hoped to take on an advisory role.

Baker managed the Giants from 1993 to 2002 before coming back to work as an adviser to CEO Larry Baer during a break from managing in 2018 and 2019.

“We are so excited to welcome Dusty back into the Giants organization,” Baer said. “Dusty’s experience, knowledge and the success he’s had in his 50 years of baseball will be an invaluable piece to the success and continued development of our baseball operations efforts both on and off the field.”

Baker is still beloved in the Bay Area, and this very well could be his final baseball stop in what almost certainly will be a Hall of Fame career.

“I was fortunate enough to get to know Dusty when we overlapped in the organization in 2019, and I’m excited to get to work with him again,” Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said. “We’ve had a chance to meet in person and discuss our shared vision of bringing championship baseball back to San Francisco. I learn something new in every interaction with him and look forward to leaning on his experience and perspective on the game.”

Baker finally won a long-awaited World Series title as a manager with Houston in 2022. A three-time NL Manager of the Year, he owns a 2,183-1,862 career record on the bench with the Giants, Cubs, Reds, Nationals and Astros.

He left the Giants on difficult terms following their World Series loss to the Angels in 2002 and took over as skipper of the Cubs.

Still, this new job is a natural fit. Baker repaired his relationships in San Francisco over time — the Giants offered him flexibility to watch son Darren’s college games at the University of California, Berkeley — and he still owns a home in Granite Bay outside Sacramento, where he loves to garden and grow grapes for his own wine.

He will join the Giants & KNBR FanFest Tour for the first stop Saturday in Sacramento.

“I’m thrilled to be on the same team as Dusty again,” new Giants manager Bob Melvin said. “He’s been a great friend and mentor to me over the years. More than anything, I don’t have to manage against him anymore. Welcome home, Bake.”