Barber: Did Giants’ Bruce Bochy speak too soon?

Today is not the day to recount the great moments of Bruce Bochy’s managerial career, or to debate whether he will one day be a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame (spoiler: he will), or who might succeed him in the Giants dugout.

Today is not the day for any of that, because the Giants have 30 games to play during spring training, three against the A’s in the preseason Bay Bridge Series and 162 more during the marathon of the Major League Baseball regular season.

All of which raises a question: Why did Bochy announce Monday that this will be his final season as manager?

To be sure, he can do pretty much whatever the hell he pleases at this point. When you take over a franchise that had won zero champions during ?49 years in its current city, then proceed to claim three World Series titles in a five-year period, you have earned that right. But it doesn’t mean Bochy, or the Giants, won’t regret his candor.

I guess these early announcements are the trend. Kobe Bryant’s farewell tour in 2015-16 was an event unto itself. Dwyane Wade is in the midst of his. When he visited Oracle Arena on Feb. 10, Wade received a video tribute before the game, and Stephen Curry’s jersey afterward; he is more or less replaying that scene in 28 other arenas. Veteran MLB pitcher and Vallejo native CC Sabathia announced last week that 2019 will be his last season, too.

But it’s different for a player. Sabathia could struggle this season, get demoted to middle relief and finish with an ERA of 6.50. It would be a little sad to watch, but it wouldn’t affect his team, the New York Yankees, much.

It’s different for a manager or coach.

Last August, several outlets reported that Mike Scioscia was planning to retire as Los Angeles Angels manager at the conclusion of that season, though Scioscia refused to acknowledge it. Here’s what USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, one of the most respected commentators in baseball, wrote at the time: “Scioscia will be thrust into the spotlight these last six weeks, subjected to questions wherever he goes, listening uncomfortably to accolades, and will have folks debating on the airwaves whether he’ll be in the Hall of Fame, while other predict his successor.”

He might have been writing about Bruce Bochy in February of 2019, only with “weeks” replaced by “months.”

Managers and coaches like to offer variations of “I don’t want it to be about me.” Some of them might as well be chiseling life-size marble statues of themselves as they say it, they’re so disingenuous. Not Bochy. A soft-spoken man who spent his playing career as a backup catcher, he is the definition of humility.

But the lights of every camera in greater Phoenix were in Bochy’s face Monday after he made the announcement. Several acre-feet of ink were then used to capture the news, and to begin the prolonged assessment of the manager’s place in history.

That will be par for the course in 2019. Every road series will be another opportunity for local media to ask Bochy how he knew it was time to hang up his uniform, what his favorite baseball memories are and whether he thinks Guy Who Grew Up or Played or Coached or Managed in That City would be a suitable replacement in San Francisco.

I’m sure Bochy has considered this. He must have concluded that those questions would be slightly less uncomfortable than the ones about his expiring contract had he made no announcement. Again, I shouldn’t doubt the wisdom of a man who won a World Series with a lineup that included Cody Ross, Pat Burrell and Aubrey Huff. But I do think Bochy will get sick of talking about himself in 2019.

And there are bigger considerations.

Even if he hadn’t tipped his hand, there would have been much speculation about the Giants’ post-Bochy plans. It’s only natural when your skipper is nearly 64 and in the final year of his contract. If Bochy had remained vague on the subject, though, it would have been easy for team execs Larry Baer, Farhan Zaidi and Brian Sabean to evade the subject by repeating “we won’t make any decisions until the end of the season” over and over.

As of Monday’s announcement, the Giants are on a timetable. It may be a slow-motion timetable, but it opens up the brain trust to all those what’s-next questions.

And there’s this: Now that Bochy is a true lame-duck manager, and not just a suspected one, will it have any effect on his ability to influence the clubhouse? Seems like a non-issue, right? I mean, this is Bruce Bochy we’re talking about, the man who manipulated his bullpen like Garry Kasparov wielded chess pieces.

But young men are not always naturally deferential. And of the guys on the Giants’ 40-man active roster, exactly six played for one or more of Bochy’s World Series teams. I’m sure everyone in an SF uniform respects him, but most of them don’t share the bond of a championship run.

Maybe the Giants will surprise everyone and play above-.500 ball this season. There’s at least an equal chance that they will be dreadful in Year 1 of Zaidi’s makeover. Everyone knows that and vows to be patient. It’s hard to be patient, though, when you’re playing for a team that is losing consistently. What if the Giants are 25 games out of first place on June 20, as they were two years ago? Will the younger players respond to a manager they know won’t be making out the lineup card in 2020, or will they tune him out? Is it blasphemy even to ask that question?

Bochy is a gentleman, and a damn good manager. I hope his swan song is a blast, and that he receives many nice wristwatches and bottles of wine. My gut tells me there will be days when he, and maybe the rest of the team, regret the decision to let us all in on their plans.

You can reach columnist Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: ?@Skinny_Post.