SAN FRANCISCO -- Yordan Alvarez's mammoth walk-off homer in Game 1 of the ALDS was the type of moment that baseball executives dream of. The Astros acquired Alvarez in one of the better trades in recent baseball history, helped him develop into a superstar, and then watched a ballpark explode when he hit a no-doubter in the biggest moment of their season to that point.
Pete Putila had been there every step of the way, but as Alvarez started to round the bases, Putila was not hugging fellow executives or high-fiving strangers at Minute Maid Park. He was on a phone call with Giants director of player development Kyle Haines.
"I think that's when it really sunk in that I was on a new team," Putila said on this week's Giants Talk Podcast.
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The walk-off came less than 24 hours after the Giants named Putila the 10th general manager in franchise history. Within 30 minutes of the official announcement, Putila was on a Zoom call with local reporters, president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and manager Gabe Kapler. Within 48 hours, he was on a flight to San Francisco, where he settled into an empty office and started the process of meeting people at every level of the organization.
It has been a whirlwind stretch for the 33-year-old, but it's nothing compared to what's ahead. Putila got the No. 2 job in the front office a few weeks before the start of one of the most important winters in franchise history. As he previewed the work ahead, Putila noted, "I think all options are on the table," and they have to be.
When Putila first interviewed for the GM position in 2019, the Giants were in the midst of a reboot. He watched Scott Harris get the job, then watched from afar as Zaidi, Harris and Kapler built a roster that shockingly won 107 games just two years later. It all came crashing down in 2022 and Harris left for the Detroit Tigers, who are in the midst of their own lengthy rebuild.
Throughout it all, Putila worked for an organization that just keeps winning and winning. A lot has been made over the years about how Zaidi will try to replicate what the Dodgers have built, but a better model may actually exist in Houston.
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For all of their successes in player development, the Dodgers have also spent more than anybody in recent years. In the other league, the Astros have relied more on filling gaps internally, and they have done it better than anybody while reaching the ALCS for a sixth consecutive season.
They lost George Springer to the Toronto Blue Jays but replaced that production with Alvarez, acquired in a savvy move with the Dodgers in 2016, and Kyle Tucker, a former first-rounder who has back-to-back 30-homer seasons. When shortstop Carlos Correa bolted for the Minnesota Twins, the Astros simply turned to Jeremy Peña, a third-rounder who hit 22 homers as a rookie and has been a star this postseason. Longtime stars Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman are both homegrown, as is center fielder Chas McCormick, a late-round pick in 2017.
The Astros have perhaps the best rotation in baseball, and while ace Justin Verlander was a splashy addition, the rest of the group came from the farm system.
Cy Young candidate Framber Valdez signed out of the Dominican Republic for just $10,000, joining a class that included Cristian Javier. Jose Urquidy signed as an international free agent out of Mexico and two years later, Luis Garcia signed out of Venezuela. Former first-rounder Lance McCullers is still part of the mix, and the next ace may be hard-throwing righty Hunter Brown, drafted in the fifth round in 2019.
It is always impossible to know how to parcel out credit for front office work, but at the very least, Putila can say his fingerprints were all over the construction of that roster. Most of Putila's 12 years in Houston were spent working with prospects, including a stint as director of player development before he was named assistant general manager.
"I think it starts with the draft and international signing process, trying to acquire players that have a base level of skills and performance that we can build off of in player development," Putila said of that success. "And then once they get into the system, I think it's just having an accurate diagnosis of what they need to work on that will actually improve on-field performance and then trying to find systems that will give them feedback, ideally live feedback, so that they can train different parts of their game. I think the physical development process is a huge piece in that, as well."
The Giants have overhauled their own minor league operation since Zaidi took over, but they still have work to do. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of Zaidi's tenure so far is the fact that they haven't yet been able to graduate consistent contributors.
They are getting closer, with players like Kyle Harrison and Casey Schmitt on the brink, but they are still behind organizations like the Astros and Dodgers. Zaidi is hopeful that Putila helps them take the next step.
"There's no shortage of ideas, technologies and points of views in player development, but actually streamlining it and identifying key priorities for the organization and things we really want to focus on and be best in class at, I think that's something we want to focus on," Zaidi said last week. "I think Pete will be an incredible asset to us in achieving that."
Zaidi said he was blown away by the quality of recommendations he received from Putila's current and former coworkers, and his resume certainly shows an ability to connect. Putila started with the Astros as a baseball operations intern and survived two GM changes, a move to a new league, and, as he jokes, a change in uniforms.
Perhaps most impressively, he survived the sign-stealing scandal that led to an entirely new direction for the Astros. Putila was the only baseball operations exec in Houston who predated Jeff Luhnow, and when Luhnow was fired in 2020, Putila was kept on by new GM James Click.
Any conversation about all the Astros have done right in the past decade must also include what they did wrong, but Zaidi said the Giants did their due diligence before hiring Putila, who did spend two seasons working in the big league clubhouse's replay room years before it became the centerpiece of a scandal.
"We did talk to MLB's investigations department about what happened in Houston a few years ago and they assured us that Pete was not even interviewed as part of that investigation," Zaidi said.
Putila was back in player development during the 2017 season that is in question and said he wasn't aware of anything going on with sign-stealing, calling it a "shocking and disappointing" period for the Astros. As the organization was trying to move forward, the pandemic hit.
"It was a difficult time," he said. "The 2020 season in a way was sort of a rebirth in a way because it was a shortened season and there were no fans and we brought up a bunch of young guys and a lot of those guys ended up being core pieces of this team now."
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The Giants are hopeful Putila can help them do the same, and three years after initially interviewing him, they officially brought him aboard. It was the culmination of a lifelong dream for Putila, who has taken an unusual path to the top of a big league front office.
Putila is from a family of coal miners in tiny Camichaels, Pennsylvania, which is about 65 miles south of PNC Park. He grew up a Pirates fan and always knew he didn't want to have your traditional 9-to-5 job, even if he was unsure of what that ultimately would mean. After serving as a student manager for West Virginia's baseball team, he got an internship with the Astros.
Putila moved to Houston before he graduated and got his diploma while sitting at his desk in the Astros front office. The rise since has been a quick one, and Zaidi is counting on Putila to help them get back to prominence in the NL West. As Putila was helping build the Astros into a perennial contender, Zaidi was doing the same in Los Angeles, although they did have one notable misstep.
Zaidi was the Dodgers GM when they acquired reliever Josh Fields from the Astros in exchange for Alvarez, an unknown prospect who had been signed earlier that summer. Putila smiled and said he never brought up the Alvarez trade during his interviews with Zaidi, although it certainly seems like he'll now be on the winning end of the swap for a second time.
"In hindsight," Putila said, "It's good that we got him out of the NL West."